While Gayle (sorry it's hard NOT to think of you as Indigo) has said it
more eloquently, really EVERYBODY has the option of posting anonymously;
it's part of what allows us to communicate so freely on the internet.

There are, however, some very interesting potential points of discussion
that could be taken from this issue.  More than one museum director is
facing the problem of how to bring the actually workings of the insitution
in-line with a new or revised (or even just paid-attention-to) mission. 
While I would certainly agree that this process should be as open as
possible, and that the Board of Trustees for their own legal and finanical
health should be involved, more and more museums will need to answer the
question of whether their collections support what the museum is doing or
are a drain on the museum's resources.  That is not to say that these
collections are not valuable and should not be in a museum, only that it
may not be that particular museum that they should be in.  I am in no way
defending this situation (since I don't know all that much about how the
decision was made and is being carried out and I, for one, am a big fan of
Sally Baulch's) but only saying that we need to thinking about and
discussing how and why museums may revise what they collect and what they
do.   Not all of us are able to make good use of "research" collections and
need to ask, among other things, is there a better use that these objects
can be put to (in another museum) and a better use for the resources spent
on those collections.

janice

Janice Klein
Director, Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, Kendall College
[log in to unmask]
www.mitchellmuseum.org




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