> Question:  "What is the single most important tool for museums in the
> 21st century?"

An "anti-millenium-bug" tool-kit, ready for use from start of the Museum New Year's Eve Party on December 31st 1999, that will enable a painless transfer into the 21st Century. This will include the following:

1 candle and a box of matches to enable the Museum Director to find his/her way to the emergency generator in the basement and switch it on when the millenium high voltage power system bug causes a power failure at midnight precisely.

1 large bottle of whisky to give the Museum Director an enhanced sense of mission to venture  into the basement with lit candle in order  to find the emergency generator.

1 large fire extinguisher and torch to be carried by the curator as back-up, in the event that Museum director's basement mission is aborted by wall of flame resulting from candle-induced ignition of spilt whisky.

1 flint axe to enable Museum Security to rescue staff and museum sponsors trapped behind electrically non-functioning lift doors and before they are roasted by above-mentioned wall of flame rising through lift shaft.

1 set of ostrich shell containers, to enable balance of whisky, if not combusted, to be distributed later to calm the nerves of rescued staff, disoriented sponsors and an exhausted Museum Security Officer.

1 set of Napier's Bones or a large circular slide rule, paper, pens, ink, pencils and india rubber to enable calculations vital to the well being of the museum to be carried out by the Museum Accountant during the early part of the 21st century while museum computer network is convalescing from an attack of millenium flu.

1 wind up gramophone and set of 78 RPM records to provide simulated surround sound and multi-media replacement therapy for agitated staff and disoriented visitors deprived of normal diet of virtual reality.

1large hoard of ancient coins, to be pressed into service as medium of exchange for the duration of the accompanying millenium-bug-induced credit card crisis.

Heliograph and set of carrier pigeons to replace external fax and e-mail.

Set of tom-toms with operating manuals and corporate-jungle-trained operators to replace internal digital communications network and to ensure the maintenance of staff discipline at all times.

Other other items in toolkit to be left to the imagination......most will be found in the stores of a museum near you. 

Respond to the needs and challenges of the 21st century by setting up your communal wax taper, sundial and candle clock making facility now, before double digital death zeros in and destroys twentieth century time.

Antony Anderson
http://museum-security.org/denney/index.htm