Hello.

I'm writing a paper on the delineations between museums, libraries, and
archives. Library and archival education is mainly taught within library
and information studies departments (although there are some archival
studies departments, they usually share faculty with the library school).
Within the field of LIS, there is a big pull toward seeing computer science
as an allied discipline; but there doesn't seem to be any view that museum
studies could fit under that umbrella as well. However, libraries have
books, and often archives. Archives have books, and usually museum objects.
Museums often have libraries and usually archives. All three involve
collecting, cataloging, offering reference services, educationing, managing
people. And they're also merged at the governmental level now with the
formation of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

I know that in the Renaissance, educated people built collections for
study, and those collections included books and objects. Often these
collections were later given to institutions and served as the basis for
libraries and museums.

As a first-year doctoral student in Library & Information Studies, these
distinctions interest me and am confused as to why museums and libraries
and archives aren't seen as more kindred institutions.

If anyone has any opinions/references about this, I'd be glad to see them.

Georgen

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Georgen Gilliam
[log in to unmask]
Doctoral student, Department of Library & Information Studies, Archives
emphasis
Assistant, Conservation Lab, State Historical Society of Wisconson
University of Wisconsin-Madison
homepage: http://slisweb.lis.wisc.edu/ggilliam/
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