Vincent, you have just made my day.

We allowed the local visitors' bureau to host a reception at the Museum for
a travel conference they were hosting.  I was the staff person present that
night.  I live in a small town in Alaska, so our history (non-Native) began
a hundred years ago.  We have on exhibit a bronze statue that is about 20
years old.  When I asked a gentleman from England to please not touch it, he
laughed at me.  (No offense to the English, he just happened to be from
there).  "You call this history?" he said.  When I tried to explain that we
take care of things now, so many years from now they will still exist.  He
told me in England the statues are all outside and they encourage people to
touch them.  It doesn't hurt them, you can't remove the finish.  And, you
know what pigeons do to them.  I thought at first he was joking, but soon
found out he was quite irritated at me.  I wish I'd had a copy of your post
to show him.

Jerrie



>From: Vincent Lyon <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Kids and touching in museums
>Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 16:23:51 -0700
>
>The MFA in Boston has a bronze of Lincoln which says please touch.  Of
>course the details are obscured, and the smoothed edges are shiny golden
>now.  I'd like to see a marble like that because people think stone is
>undamageable by mere touching.
>
>Vincent
>At 02:25 PM 9/27/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>>Someone posted a wonderful strategy on this list a year or so ago, to
>>argue
>>against touching exhibits. Could that poster, or someone else familiar
>>with
>>it, post the specific wording of the display.
>>
>>I believe their institution posted a sign, half protected in some way,
>>that
>>encouraging touching of the sign, but not the exhibits. The degradation of
>>the exposed half of the sign was a vivid demonstraion of the cumulative
>>effect of touching.
>>
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>"Outside of a dog, man's best friend is a book.  Inside of a dog it's too
>dark to read."  -Groucho Marx
>
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