With regard to this thread, which I find very interesting and
   well-considered, it is interesting to note developments in the
   American Museum of Natural History.  As an interested outsider, I have
   watched who speaks for new exhibits recently implemented or in
   development.  A paleontologist headed the exhibit team for the Fossil
   Vertebrate exhibits (dinosaurs and extinct mammal halls), or at least
   is publicly recognized and identified as the person responsible for
   the exhibit (though the exhibit designer Ralph Applebaum also has
   been very visible in this regard).  An anthropologist (Ian Tattersal I
   think his name is) led the exhibit team for the Hall of Human
   Evolution.  Niles Eldridge, the famous advocate of the punctuated
   equilibrium theory of evolution (and I believe an invertebrate
   specialist ?), is leading the exhibition team for the biodiversity
   exhibit that will open over the next couple of years.

   This arrangement has had its pro's and con's.  Witness the cladistics
   diagram layout of the fossil halls (does anyone but the curator get
   that?)

   However, curators leading exhibit teams is a separate question from
   the relative allocation of resources between collections management
   and preservation vs. public programs.  This is a contested issue in
   any collecting museum.  My only contribution to that is: if a museum
   successfully fulfills its public mission (education and exhibition, as
   well as a slew of other factors), then it is more likely to generate
   the revenue necessary for its other functions, such as collections
   management.

   This, I believe, is a core issue behind the disarray at
   the New York Historical Society, which entirely neglected its
   relationship to the public, and found itself without the bare minimum
   of funds necessary to preserve its collections.  That seems to be the
   analysis of the problem being addressed by the current management, led
   by Betsy Gotbaum, who is working to regain public interest in the
   institution, and somewhat controversially, focusing its collections
   policy through deaccessioning.

   It is an illuminating contrast to compare the New York Historical
   Society with The Museum of The City of New York (sorry to be so
   parochial here, but these are the institutions that I know about...).
   The latter, with extraordinary and important collections in a building
   that has needed considerable capital investment, has worked to develop
   compelling public exhibitions.  The interest generated by these
   exhibitions has made it possible to undertake the kind of capital
   program required to preserve the building and its collections.

   So, simply to assert the primacy of collections seems to me to avoid
   the reality of running a museum (as I see it from below), which is to
   make the institution compelling to a broad constituency of funders,
   community groups, special interest groups, visitors, and government
   officials (not necessarily in that order).  This constituency will, in
   turn, help make it possible to preserve collections for later
   generations' enjoyment, edification, aesthetic charge, controversy, or
   utter neglect.

   Finally, once again, I would not worry too much about the historical
   role of museums as agents of cultural preservation.  That is simply
   too new a role for these institutions, and if it changes, it will not
   be the end of civilization, but rather an adaptation of a 100-year old
   practice to new concerns.

   Eric Siegel
   [log in to unmask]
   The New York Botanical Garden
   and (newly)
   Chairman
   The Museums Council of New York City