From Gale:

> By the way, to the person who mentioned the Cincinnati Museum of Nat Hist:
> thank you for NOT remembering those d**** dressed fleas! (they were half
> inch high dolls dressed as a wedding party only the heads of the people
> were a dead flea glued in place, from Mexico I believe) When the museum
> moved to a new building we got so many people asking about them that they
> had to go back out on display.

This brings me to a question I've been pondering for a few weeks:
on a visit to National Museum of American History a few weeks ago, my group was informed that the pendulum, which had always hung in the upstairs lobby, had been removed at the same time as the Star Spangled Banner and  would not be put back up. The reasoning explained to us was
that it was a remnant of when the museum was Science & Technology and was not a part of the museum's mission anymore.

Needless to say, my group which was composed of a bunch of 20-and 30-somethings were horrified. Many had grown up going to the museum frequently and had the pendulum as one of their favourite childhood memories. Despite joking we were going to start a campaign to get it back, it
rose an interesting question. If there is something in your collection you are not particularly fond of and is not exactly central to your mission, yet the public loves it- do you keep it out?

(and note to Andrea at NMAH who arranged the fated tour- thank you! The docent was marvellous! We just missed the pendulum...)

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