In a message dated 00-12-11 12:21:26 EST, John Martinson wrote:

<< However, you are out in left field when you assume you know my policy and
 my experience in collecting and exhibiting an object. >>

John, when did I indicate that I thought I knew your policy or your
experience?  I was replying to what I thought were your attitudes, based of
your response to my message, lo, these many days ago.  When you characterized
undisplayed collections in storage as "useless" I don't think you made it
clear that you were quoting members of the public rather than citing your own
opinion.  If this constituted jumping to conclusions, I apologize, but it
appeared that you were expressing your personal ideas.  If, as you are at
pains to suggest in the remainder of this post, we agree on so many things,
perhaps we have nothing to debate.  Yet you had characterized my ideas as
being of the "stone age", which appeared to be your personal opinion, so I
thought some elaboration of my viewpoint was appropriate.

I frankly find it a bit difficult to follow your argument, in which you seem
to be agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously.

It is certainly true that no museum can be all things to all people.  But, as
you say, we were talking about definitions.  I hardly think that the sum
total of varied reactions by members of the public, some of whom appreciate
certain kinds of museums, others who like all museums, and still others who
don't care for museums at all (and may think everything museums have to
offer, whether on display or in storage, is totally "useless") can yield a
workable definition.  Yes, museums can be community-oriented gathering
places, as you suggest, for example, but they can also be places where one
can get lost in a crowd.  These aspects don't define a museum, as far as I
can see.  As I originally stated, I don't think opinion or attitude surveys
of "what a museum means to me" are useful in constructing a definition.

Within recent memory Haussner's, a legendary restaurant in Baltimore, closed,
and much regret was expressed about its passing because people went there as
much to view its art collection as to eat.  Although the art was not to
everyone's taste, many people considered the exhibits the primary attraction,
not the food.  Nevertheless, the primary business of the place was as a
restaurant.  I daresay that even if every restaurant in the country had an
art collection, this feature would not alter the basic definition of
"restaurant" as a place where one pays to eat.  Haussner's art collection was
the private passion of the owners, but an important adjunct to their
business.  While it was like an art museum in many respects, it did not meet
the basic definition of a museum as an institution where artifacts were
"preserved"--when the restaurant went out of business, the collection was
sold off, along with the kitchen equipment and furniture.  It was an
educational site, yet education was not its essential function.  Similarly,
many museums have restaurants and other amenities and attractions, but these
auxiliary functions don't define the essence of a museum.   My point is that
the definition of any object, institution, or other entity has to deal with
essences, or it's not a definition.  To quote myself, frosting doesn't define
a cake.  You can put cake icing on a fire hydrant, but that doesn't make the
fire hydrant a cake.

The varied associations, opinions, and experiences which people attribute to
something don't necessarily represent part of its basic definition.  However,
since these associations can become so powerful that they can result in
altering public perception of the nature of an object or institution, they
can find their way into a dictionary definition by default.  Some people
consider this phenomenon a natural, healthy evolution of the language, but I
advocate a critical approach to language, in the interest of clear
communication.  My feeling is that museums have a duty to their publics (and
to our common language) to remind the public of their essential nature.  If
people--including those who work in museums--equate one component of museums,
such as the educational museum exhibition, and/or ancillary features, such as
outreach, community gathering place, etc., with the museum itself, the unique
essence of a museum can become lost in the shuffle.  My fear is that one
educational function of museums, the availablity of collections for research,
can be downplayed or forgotten, by an overemphasis on an incomplete
understanding of museums, and I think this is already happening in some
museums.  Eventually, in the public mind it might be hard to differentiate a
restaurant like Haussner's, with its educational exhibition, from the the
distinctive functions of a "true" museum.  While I'm all for creativity and
poetry in observing similarities and analogies in our experience of the
world, I favor holding to a fairly rigid, critical approach to definitions to
facilitate communication.

If the public doesn't appreciate or understand the "collections" basis of
museums, I think it would be useful for museum folks to continually remind
visitors about it, regardless of whether or not they're interested in the
specifics of what's in storage.  I'm glad to know you consider collections
important, John, and regret that I "jumped" to a conclusion about your
personal attitude, but it wasn't clear exactly whose opinion about the
uselessness of unexhibited collections you were citing.

David Haberstich

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