"Non-collecting facilities": cultural arts center, gallery, discovery
center, exploratorium, imagination station...

I work at a local history collecting institution in the same small city
with a "furniture discovery center and museum".  They don't collect, and
are underwritten by large furniture corporations.  They explain the
process of designing and building furniture, from drawing board to
forest to retail store.  It's pretty good, and interactive, but they
don't collect.  They don't have the staff or storage to collect.  Yet
when folks have some local furniture-related 2D 0r 3D artifacts they
take them to the Furniture Discovery Center and Museum.  That org. has
steered some people to us but kept some things for themselves.  What
they have kept is in a back office or on "permanent display".

Obviously, I have issues with competing with this non-collecting
instution for artifacts (which my inst. has the facilities to care for),
and that's my problem.  But I think everyone needs to be clearer about
who's collecting and who isn't.  Maybe we don't need new names, we just
need to keep fighting the education battle.  "This is what we do, this
is why we do it...."

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