In your question about the Plains Indian exhibition at
          Seattle, and the complex questions of curatorship and museum
          philosophy entailed in exhibiting sacred objects, you seemed
          to wish that an interactive computer kiosk or station would
          provide you with more information.
 
          I have two responses to that: the first is one word:
          "catalog." The book is a time tested, portable, rich medium
          of information. I have even heard of a study conducted in
          Cornell that implies that the book has been shaped by the
          natural ways that people learn. I'm afraid that all the
          money and attention being paid to computer interpretation is
          dramatically shortchanging the value of the catalog. There
          are obviously all kinds of reasons for this, but I think
          that a major one is "glitz". I'm sorry if I'm coming across
          as a Luddite. I'm certainly not, but I do wonder about the
          mass rush to video screens on the exhibition floor.
 
          The second response I have is the question about whether
          exhibitions *ever* raise the really troubling questions
          about themselves. For example, in the Hall of Human
          Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History, there
          was a widely publicized controversy, about which I've
          forgotten the details, concerning the appearance of various
          hominids. The exhibit label makes some kind of reference to
          the uncertainty involved in things such as hair (kinky or
          straight). But there is no reference to what the meat of the
          controversy is.
 
          I mention this because, in a current site interpretation
          program we're planning at the New York Botanical Garden,
          we've identified some really interesting
          controversies which continue to shape the landscape.
          However, they are politically too hot to handle for us.
 
          I assume that similar things to this happen all the time,
          and the public misses some of the *really* interesting meat
          that goes into making exhibitions.
 
          Eric
          NYBG