In article <[log in to unmask]>, "Eugene W. Dillenburg"
<[log in to unmask]> says:
>
  But I have my doubts as to whether our audience wants or needs
>to know about it.  Are we in our self-referential exhibits and programs,
>like this thread, merely preaching to the converted?
>
Well, Gene, I can tell you that there is at least one segment of the public
for whom the kind of behind-the-scenes education we have been talking about
is vital--prospective donors.

The only way to avoid donor trouble is to have them understand, somehow,
what it is museums do, why, and how.  Otherwise, you spend your time ex-
plaining to donors why their thing is not on permanent exhibit, and you
have heirs asking for Grandma's thingee back because it has not been on
exhibit.  Education of donors is a small investment in the collections
staff's future peace of mind.

And back to the anecdotes:  every time I have run a behind-the-scenes tour
for the general public, it is overbooked, and I can never get the people
out of storage!  They listen, they understand, and they are fascinated.

Besides, I have been reading that education is often the last thing visitors
come to museums for--entertainment is more like it.  What is more enter-
taining than finding out how people, who have what seems to many to be the
best jobs in the world, go about doing their work?

I think comparing books and museums may be apples and oranges in this
instance.

Claudia

Claudia Nicholson
Curator of Collections
Museum of the South Dakota State Historical Society
Pierre

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