A number of thoughts:

1) Boy, I'm glad I subscribe in digest form!  ;-)

2) Thanks to all who wrote privately to express their support and
agreement, but, wiser than I, declined to wade into the fray.

3) Felicia links to a most excellent article.  I hope everyone who's not
completely bored by the topic reads it.

4) Darn you, Deb Fuller!  You ALWAYS write exactly what I was going to say,
only you say it so much better than I ever could!  I would only add a) I
have never claimed that objects are without their uses; and b) I feel the
museum profession is well-served by practicioners who espouse and follow a
variety of visions.

(This whole debate reminds me of a conversation I had with a college
professor over the meaning of "Strawberry Fields Forever."  If nothing is
real, she argued, then everything is.  Remove the standard of
discrimination, and the word loses all meaning.  The reverse also holds: if
everything is important, then nothing is.  If we claim that a shattered pot
is equivalent to a shattered limb, then something inside of us has died.)

5) I'm not sure what it's doing in this thread, but since Dave brought it
up...

A couple of years ago, there was an article in Museum News (I no longer
remember the specifics) which put forward some version of the claim that
collections are the defining characteristic of museums.  I wrote a letter
to the editor, arguing (among other things) that objects don't make a
museum; exhibits make a museum.  (My, I do seem to have a way with the
controversial aphorisms, don't I?)

The argument over what is a museum, what makes a museum, is probably
intractable, and I have no desire to resurrect it here.  My point is that
simply having a collection does not make an institution a museum.  I have a
large collection of Hawaiian shirts, ugly ties, and baseball caps from
around the world.  Does that make my closet a museum?  I don't think so.

Some of the most valuable artifacts sit in research collections.  Some of
the finest art objects in the world reside in private hands. But unless and
until those objects are made available to the public -- until they are put
on exhibit -- those institutions can make no claim to being "museums."

You can have a collection without a museum.  You can have a museum without
a collection.  Facile definitions -- including mine -- tell at best only
part of the story.

Bring this subject up again, and I'll be forced to tell you the tank
joke.  ;-)

Eugene Dillenburg
Exhibit Developer
Science Museum of Minnesota

(651) 221-4706
[log in to unmask]

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