In a message dated 00-12-06 16:11:04 EST, Nesdon Booth wrote:

<< but he is frankly wrong to criticize educational outreach and
 exhibition as somehow lesser, even inappropriate activities for a museum >>

Au contraire.  I didn't "criticize" the above activities and I did not say
that educational outreach and exhibition were "somehow lesser, even
inappropriate activities for a museum".  This is a distortion of what I
wrote.  I would NEVER say they're "inappropriate"--that's absurd.  Of COURSE
they're appropriate and highly desirable.  As for "lesser", that's a loaded
word which I would not, and did not, use.  What I was trying to get at was
the essence of a museum.  It seems to me that locating essences is a
fundamental issue in how we define words.  What makes a museum different from
all other entities that are not museums?  It can't be "outreach" because
anyone or any institution can perform some sort of educational outreach.
It's not exhibitions (per se) because anyone--institution, organization, or
private individual--can mount an exhibition.  Auction houses, commercial art
sales galleries, and commercial dealers of collectibles all have prepared
exhibitions, some of which have been highly informative and educational--and
have published both academic- and popular-style catalogs of distinction which
museums would be proud to emulate--yet they are not museums.  I have personal
collections of historic artifacts which I exhibit in my home, to an
admittedly limited audience, but I could rent a public space and put them on
public exhibition, with educational, interpretive text, yet that doesn't make
me a museum.  I know several private collectors who are enthusiastic, active
promoters of their fields of interest, who perform significant "outreach" by
presenting programs to schools, based on their collections and knowledge
about them--but they aren't museums either.  Active, imaginative,
high-quality outreach and exhibition programs may well be hallmarks of "good"
museums, but they don't necessarily define the essence of a museum.  A
mediocre, unimaginative, inactive museum which neglects its public is no less
a museum because it lacks vision and fails to realize its potential.

Nevertheless, I'm happy to backtrack or back-pedal and admit my error of fact
and judgment.  Nesdon and others who cited dictionaries to demonstrate that
"exhibition" or "display" are included in definitions of "museum" beat me at
my own game.  But you see, I was just testing you (heh, heh).  My original
motive was to send you scurrying to the dictionaries instead of just musing
(so to speak) about what museums ought to be or writing romantic free verse
about "what museums mean to me", and I'm gratified that I accomplished that!
The fact is, not all  dictionaries include exhibition or display in their
definition of museum, so I took this to suggest that exhibition is not part
of the essence.  Nevertheless, I'll grant that many dictionaries DO include
the concept, and I'll eat some crow.  My reliance upon dictionaries to make
this point was a bad idea, as I did inadequate research.  I'll grant that
some form of display or exhibition is generally considered to be a
characteristic museum activity rather than a mere option.  And while I still
cling to my concept of the formation of a permanent collection as the single
most important, defining essence of a museum, I freely stipulate that
exhibition-driven collecting is one of the most logical ways to build a
focused museum collection.

But that doesn't mean I must accept uncritically everything I read in
dictionaries.  While I always urge anyone searching for a definition to start
with a dictionary--as opposed to (a) meditating about it in a vacuum in the
hope that enlightenment will occur, or (b) taking a scattershot opinion poll
on a listserv--dictionary definitions are only as good as the methodologies
and scholarship employed in writing them.

I don't think public display is the essence or defining characteristic of a
museum precisely because it isn't unique to museums, and I reiterate my claim
that the emphasis on display is one of the reasons confusion about the
definition persists.  In museums, exhibition follows collecting (even if
imaginary or potential exhibitions drive the collecting), and the fact that
museums seldom display their entire collection reinforces my feeling that
exhibitions, which are usually selective, interpretive, and conditional, are
the frosting on the cake.  This is an imperfect analogy, but it should not be
construed to mean that I consider the frosting "lesser": after all, I said
the frosting may be the best part!  Yet, no matter how you slice the cake,
the frosting isn't its essence.

Perhaps I should make a distinction between dictionary definitions and
essences.  Since definitions are descriptions or reports of usage, they
sometimes embody errors and lapses of critical thinking about language.  My
original suggestion about reliance upon the dictionary definition before
starting yet another Museum-L cycle of debate about the definition and nature
of museums was intended to provide documentation as context. My error was in
forgetting that dictionary definitions often vary from one source to another.
 There's no question that, for good or ill, one way language evolves is
through error.  If the museum-going public equates "museum" with "exhibiton",
eventually "exhibtion" becomes part of the accepted "definition" of museum,
as a report of common usage.  Common usage is sometimes muddled, so
"definitions" can become muddled, and, well, poorly defined.  Museums
typically contain exhibitions, so the public often erroneously assumes that's
all there is; they often don't realize that the public displays are merely
the tip of the museum iceberg (or the frosting on the cake, to return to the
other metaphor) and think that collections and displays are synonymous.  It's
no wonder that "exhibition" would become part of the definition of "museum"
because of this assumption.  But the essence of a museum is its collections,
not its exhibitions, regardless of whether those collections are all on
public display, mostly in open, accessible storage, mostly in "closed"
storage, or even off-site.  If an IMAX theater were to become a universal
component of museums, I suspect that would eventually become part of the
dictionary "definition" of museum.  It seems to me that some accepted
"definitions" contain a core or unique essence, accompanied by non-unique,
non-essential characteristics which can obscure the core, and that's what I
see happening when people struggle to define museums.  To those who insist
that "education", not collections, is the core of museums, I'd say this is a
semantic misunderstanding.  Education and/or knowledge is the context within
which museums exist and the reason they are organized, but the core, essence,
or unique characteristic of a museum is its collections.  As someone else on
the list adroitly but simply asked recently, if it's all about education,
what's the difference between a museum and a school?  The purpose of a
definition is to define in the sense of limiting--to distinguish an entity
from related entities in order to facilitate communication.

I'm sorry the above got so lengthy, but perhaps it explains the "essence" of
my position.  I apologize for my inaccurate statement about "the" dictionary
definition.

David Haberstich

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