Responding to Peter Tirrell (message 3 November 2003)
Dear Peter,
Thank you for your comment, and I hope you were not subsequently disappointed.
I had "permanent" in my first version, but have (reluctantly, and only
trying to condense as much as possible) let it go out of my most recent
version offered to the discussion list (my own message and revised
definition of 3 November).
I continue to believe - with you (and I suspect Geoffrey Lewis might be
concerned about this also) - that a "presumption of permanency" is a very
important aspect of our concept of museums.
However, in order to achieve as short and clear a definition as possible,
my more recent suggestion on this matter was that a statement about
"permanency" of museums as institutions could go into the notes appearing
immediately after the definition itself - the notes of application of the
definition, as we have already within the present Statutes of ICOM, where
types of institutions to which the definition is applied, for ICOM's
purposes, might be set down again (as now).
I would suggest again, as a comment on all the other more detailed
suggestions from colleagues about a word that could be added here or there
('records', 'documents'....or whatever more detailed aspects of museum
collections or activities people are worried about), to remember that the
specifying details in paragraphs following the definition may be a way of
resolving some professional concerns about exclusion.
The main definition should have intellectual and professional integrity
concerning the work of museums. But we must also strive for a short,
rhetorically effective, and easily understood definition, which could be
more or less readily translated into all languages, printed in a daily
newspaper, or spoken to a person who might not be literate but still
understand it readily.
Bernice Murphy
Bernice Murphy
============
At 4/11/2003 02:57 AM, you wrote:
>Bernice - Thank you for inserting the critical word "permanent". In
>my humble opinion, permanency is inseparable from the basic human
>trait of collecting. Over thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of
>years, humans have collected items with the idea that they be saved
>and handed down to future generations. Our museums are the ultimate
>totem of this trait. Our ancestors didn't save items and build
>museums so that they could be thrown away or torn down. I am acutely
>sensitive to the challenges to permanency that have become critical
>in many of our university museums and collections.
>
>Peter B. Tirrell
>Associate Director
>Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
>The University of Oklahoma, US
>
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