I want to agree with Alan Sisley's comments about waste and
inefficiency (and, I might add, mindless bureaucracy) in the private
sector vs. the public. My worst and most painful experiences with W.I. &
M.B. have involved banks, department stores, and manufacturers--not
government. To be fair, however, I should add that the most egregious
example of waste I've ever encountered was with the U.S. military. I
once tried to obtain some 16mm movie film of a particular emulsion for a
project, found that the dealers were out and the manufacturer (Kodak)
was weeks behind in production (which says something about big
manufacturers too, by the way); Kodak recommended I try a nearby
military base known to be a big consumer of that film to see if I could
buy, borrow, or get a handout of a couple of rolls. I called the base
and was told that they had discontinued that emulsion, were switching to
another, and had "orders" to destroy all the discontinued but unexpired
film--thousands of dollars' worth. Mind-boggling!

I know this thread referred to federal funding of the arts in general
and whether or not this is an appropriate and efficient mechanism.
However, I was thinking about issues of waste, inefficiency, and
mindless bureaucracy in museums. Is anybody interested in developing
discussions in that area--or is that too hot? --David Haberstich