--- L Dewey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I have read the current discussion about 'community
> curators' to mean 
> bringing other voice (not now within the museum
> structure) into the 
> process

--- "Dr. Christian Müller-Straten"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> there is no doubt in the European museological
> theory that acquisition,
> scientific research, care of objects, object
> explanation and exhibitions
> have to be the duty of trained museum staff. 

I think we have to make a distinction here between
'object explanation' related to existing collections,
and 'object explanation' related to new material as
it's collected (or not collected) now.

I agree entirely with Dr. Müller-Stratens previous
post when we are talking about object explanation
related to *existing* collections. But the majority of
these collections are assembled from periods in
history when the majority farmed the land and the
minority ruled over them. The number and variety of
objects created/made during this period (ie. most of
human history) were *comparatively* limited, as in
general only the small minority of ruling classes had
the time or resources to make more 'things' than they
needed to survive.

Over time the heaving masses have (in many countries,
although sadly not as yet in all) dragged or fought
their way out of abject poverty, clobbering their
rulers into submission in the process and replacing
them (again, not yet everywhere) with Democracy, and
with a consumer capitalist economy. This economic free
market has resulted in an explosion of  manufacturing
and the creation of things, media and ideas in quite
mind numbingly large quantities. (To the detriment of
the environment, but that's not relevant here).

The issue as I see it is that a traditional museum
structure, involving a building containing a small
number of highly/classically educated curators with
their support staff, while being a format which worked
really well when documenting and explaining the
product of classical culture, falls apart somewhat
when confronted by the tidal wave of material and
non-material culture generated by contemporary
society. It's inconceivable that any curator, or even
a large team, could 'explain' all the material that
they should (in theory) be collecting if the museum is
to remain relevant into the future.

The idea that museums might be able to borrow from
Wikipedia, and others, is that one way to tackle
knowledge processing in contemporary culture seems to
be to delegate, to share the workload, and that web
technologies are a good way to achive this. That's is
not to suggest for a moment that curators should
relinquish their final say on all things, but maybe
they could take on more of a
coordinating/collaborative role when working out
how/when/where to collect contemporary artifacts and
when recording the knowledge/data that accompany them?
Those closest to the point of creation will almost
always know more about these things than the curator.

A curators objective viewpoint will always be useful,
however it is the nature of contemporary society that
there are always a multiplicity of alternative, in
some cases conflicting, viewpoints on any issue and
related to any artifact, all of them valid. Recording
these will often be beyond the capabilities of museum
staff, but maybe with the assistance of technology
developed from the same roots as Wikipedia (but
conforming to museum documentation standards),
curators could set themselves up at the hub of a
network of 'community curators', who share some of the
data/knowledge entry donkey-work, and help to
contribute some of their world to the museum for the
future?

Jeremy.

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