Dear Museum people:

GREETINGS! I'm beginning work on a new book, one that I will be co-authoring
with Archie Hobson, to be published by Henry Holt and Co. next spring. I'm
writing to ask your help, in ways I'll detail in a moment.

LITTLE MUSEUMS will be the first comprehensive (over 1000 listings)
guidebook/directory to a nationwide selection of America's small-and largely
idiosyncratic-museums. Think of showplaces devoted to pop culture
personalities and artifacts; to tools, housewares, or a whole range of
everyday or bizarre objects; to events earth-shaking or of merely local
import; to historical periods or style trends; to cultural, subcultural, or
countercultural groups; to collections found not in marble monoliths, but in
homes, storefronts, and other less-expected locations. You get the idea.

We hope you can tell us about places we haven't discovered (or give us a
closer look at places we already know something about), or, tell us about a
source we haven't tapped into yet. We're already working from various
travel/popular culture reference books [notably: The Cockroach Hall of Fame;
Atomic Marbles; Weird, Wonderful America; Pop Culture Landmarks; The New
Roadside America; The Volvo Guide to Halls of Fame; Watch it Made in the
U.S.A.; 52 Offbeat Texas Stops; Only in Mississippi; Unauthorized America;
Uncommon and Unheralded; and  Directory of Unique Museums]; tourism
literature/travel guides; AAA guides; museum-profession publications
including NAME's Exhibitionist, AMNH's Curator, and the American Association
of Museums' Official Museum Directory; the internet [we're on the Museum-L
mailing list, plus we've checked out a variety of Web sites, but Internet
tips could be especially helpful-we also plan to include virtual museums in
the book]; and clippings and hints we've gotten from friends. But we know
there are hundreds of places out there so small, so new, or so arcane that no
source knows about them-except perhaps you.

What institutions will we include in LITTLE MUSEUMS?
 * Those focused on a particular subject, or expressing a particular
fascination, rather than general or diffuse in their collections. These may
be conceptual or even virtual--we're not limited to museums with shelves of
"stuff."
 * Smaller rather than larger, and less-well-known rather than
very-well-known (e.g., in the Philadelphia area, not the Philadelphia Museum
of Art, or the Franklin Institute, but yes the shoe or dental museum . . . or
the Mario Lanza museum). Don't forget about the museums tucked away inside
other institutions-like the J. Edgar Hoover Collection in Washington, D.C.'s
Scottish Rite "House of the Temple."
 * In the case of the many historical society (and similar) museums that
don't have a special focus, we'd like to know about those that have
particularly wonderful-or bizarre [we know of one that has Hitler's
typewriter, for example]-collections, or ambiance, or setting, or curator, or
staff-any element that makes them worth a visit.

How can you help us?
 * The last sheet attached here is a data form for you to fill out & return.
Make copies! Give them to your friends! [Warning! Your witty and insightful
comments may get merged into our text. We will thank you, but we may also
edit you. Let us know if you have any problem with being paraphrased.]
 * Send newspaper clippings, brochures or info sheets produced by the museums
themselves; Chamber of Commerce & tourist office materials are also welcome.
Provide dates for these items if at all possible.

We're on a tight schedule, and we hope you can get information to us by July
15/August 1, by when we need to make most of our inclusion choices. Keep
thinking of us through the summer and early fall though-we'll be delighted to
try and squeeze in some late-breaking true find.  Any info you can provide is
greatly appreciated. We look forward to hearing from you.

MANY THANKS-

Lynne Arany


LITTLE MUSEUMS DATA FORM: PLEASE RETURN BY JULY 15 or soonest thereafter
possible [we're "OPEN" for additions through early October or so, but the
more sooner, the better to allow proper research time]

To make it easier for you to know what information we need for entries in
LITTLE MUSEUMS, we're attaching this check list. Please don't feel that you
have to follow it religiously, or that you must "fill in all the blanks." The
most important questions, the ones that will enable us to pursue researching
a museum and are marked with an asterisk (*).

*Museum Name:
*City, State:
*Brief descrip. of the collection/what museum's about:
MUSEUM DATA
Telephone number:
Street address:
 *Fax number &/or E-mail:
Contact person (owner, curator):
*Particular items, displays, etc. that you like:
*Anything special about its ambiance, structure, staff:

Are there sites, scenes, etc. close by that a visitor would also like to know
about?:
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SEND INFO TO:
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
or,
Postal: Ink Projects / 511 Ave. of the Americas / Rm. 296 / NY, NY  10011
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
REMEMBER-ANY INFO YOU CAN PROVIDE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED-FIRST HAND, OR
SECOND. [NOTE! All comments you provide above are subject to our adapting &
editing.] For acknowledgment/contact, please also provide:
YOUR NAME:
UPDATE ON YOUR CONTACT INFO, especially E-MAIL ADDRESS:
Interested in writing a guest blurb?
THANKS!