:      Sounds like good marketing to me.  I certainly
:      appreciate them as a consumer (read: museum shop
:      junkie) when I travel.  Obviously, you don't want the

I am glad someone brought up this issue!

As someone who greatly enjoys museum shops (and does much of my Christmas
shopping in them) I have no personal objections to having
exhibit-related merchandise available for purchase adjacent to the exit of
an exhibit.  However, I take strong objection to forcing exhibit visitors
to pass through the stores (or view merchandise advertising in the
exhibits themselves).  I think we need to reflect on contemporary museums'
missions to reach broader, more economically diverse communities.
Forcing all visitors through a museum shop (where poorer parents are faced
with battles with their merchandise-craving children) is something that
will further alienate them from the museum experience.  Not only does this
make an educational experience into an alienating commercial venture for
poorer families, but it also reinforces the message that museums are for
the affluent and not for the less economically privileged.   To me, this
seems the strongest reason of all for locating such shops in
of-to-the-side locations.  The Field Museum does this with its Egyptian
exhibit and I think it is a sensitive, sensible way to do things.  Those
who want to shop will spot the shop easily, while those who cannot afford
it can steer their children away.

Kathleen M. Adams
Dept. of Anthropology
Loyola University of Chicago