On Tue, 24 Jan 1995, Ken Yellis wrote:
 
> On Mon, 23 Jan 1995 13:23:30 -0500,
> Hank Burchard  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> >      RP, it sounds to me like a great part of the difficulties you're
> >having there at Carnegie Institute are as much a result of poor design as
> >of poor parenting. And in any case, guards should be able to deal with
> >such problems whether they're in  "security mode" or "docent mode."
> >      And I think I detect in the tone of your message a considerable
> >element of the defensive and somewhat derisive "us against them" attitude
> >that I find all too common among museum administrators--and which is all too
> >commonly transmitted to the security staff, reinforcing their cop mentality.
> >      Try looking at visitors as an opportunity rather than as a problem.
>
> Hank, all too often visitors provide an "opportunity" to deal with a
> "problem."  You don't have to be a museum person to have noticed how many
> parents are clueless.  On a practical level, some behavior
> constitutes either a danger for the person indulging in it or a
> threat to others or to property; museums get sued too.  Certainly there are
> design issues in many cases, but even those of us on the public side of
> museums are responsible for -- and to -- the stuff as well as for -- and to
> -- the visitor.  We are obliged to be defensive; it's our mandate.
>
> >What's a museum for, anyway?
>
> Good question.  Certainly we should not expect to be immune from assorted
> social pathologies, but it's not realistic to expect us to cope with them
> unaided.  We have a duty to the future -- our own and society's -- as well
> as to the present.
>
> End of sermon.
>
> Ken Yellis
> Assistant Director for Public Programs
> Peabody Museum of Natural History
> 170 Whitney Avenue
> Box 208118
> New Haven, CT 06520-8118
> [log in to unmask]
> (203) 432-9891/9816(fax)
 
      KY, I appreciate the manifold problems that people present to
museums, but I think museum people tend to be overly sensitive. I have
the great good fortune to be paid to examine museums and exhibitions on a
fulltime basis; in  an average week I spend 20 to 30 hours in the
museums of the mid-Atlantic region--in other words, I spend about as much
time *in the galleries* as your average guard. Much of my time is spent
watching
the patrons, to try to judge how successful a given presentation is. I
think museum officials concerned with security tend to focus on the
occasional problem and to regard problematical behavior as the norm.
 
+ + + + +
 
Hank Burchard * Weekend Section * The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW * Washington DC USA 20071-0001
VoiceMail (202) 334-7243 * Email: [log in to unmask]