Some comments on your situation--

Have the organizers of this children's museum interacted with the rest
of the museum community in the area--i.e., sought advice, invited them
to contribute to the planning, etc.?  Have members of the museum
existing museum community sought out the planners in a spirit of help
and cooperation?

The point is, rather than being suspicious and vaguely negative about
whether this place is a museum or not, this new museum, whose goal is
apparently to attract lots of people (and not necessarily pure education
through passive exhibits), might be an interesting addition to the
existing museum community.  In the end, working together could benefit
all--the existing museum community could educate (albeit probably
slowly) the new folks on what it means to be a museum, and the new folks
might aid in drawing new public interest into the museums in the
community.  (Of course, getting this kind of cooperation going is not
necessarily easy...)

In the community museum alliance of which I was a member for 6 years (in
a mid-sized university town in the midwest), this very question came up
when a children's exploratorium-type museum was being planned and
organized.  While the children's museum did have collections (primarily
used in hands on educational settings), initially they did not have a
building and all activities were "traveling".  We did feel it was
important that we define "museum" for our purposes as an organization or
institution that (1) maintained collections, and (2) whose mission was
primarily education.  The question of profit/non-profit came up fairly
often, but we also had private collections in our membership, and as
these seemed important to the community (from the perspective of the
public eye), the issue of whether or not they were non-profit seemed
less important.  In the end, this new museum became a very active and
vital part of our alliance, participating in fairs and other activities
planned to draw public attention to all of the museums.  Their highly
visible and fun displays drew people's interest; once there, people
found out that there were other interesting and fun things at the other
museums in town.  (To be fair, we did not invite into our membership a
private "museum" that was obviously more of an antique shop with a
theme--many of the objects on "exhibit" were for sale).

I think that the public does not make the high-faluting distinctions
that most of us who've worked in "real" museums do.  Most of the public
doesn't have a clue what a curator is, or that working in a museum
requires specialized training.  For the "real" museums to separate
themselves in a situation such as the one you describe I think sends a
message to the public that those museums are, as suspected, stuffy
places for smart people.  I think that through cooperation, all of the
institutions in the community might benefit in the end.

Pat Roath
Historic Costume Care
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Momto36 wrote:
>
> Education, collection and preservation are the three goals this list seems to
> be currently accepting as the most common and appropriate goals for museums.
>
> In our community [a middling-size university town in the U.S. Midwest], we are
> getting a new 'children's museum.'  This institution will be located in a new
> shopping mall, where it will receive free rent from the mall developer.  It
> will feature such 'exhibits' as a pretend hospital, a pretend tv station, and
> a pretend grocery store [to train the little future consumers, no doubt!]  Its
> planned 'programs' include drop-off programs to 'educate' the kiddies while
> mom shops the mall; pajama parties; birthday parties; craft classes; and
> school group visits.  The institution is organized as a nonprofit.  Its
> business plan, though,  projects large profits as well as high salaries for
> managerial staff.  Admission is priced steeply compared to other area museums.
> The other area museums do exhibits and offer programming based on real art,
> real historic artifacts and sites; or serious science information and
> experiments.
>
> A number of local educators and children's physicians are touting the so-
> called children's museum as the best thing to happen to childhood since sliced
> bread.  What do you all think of such an institution?
>
> Questions to provoke thought:
>
> Is this 'children's museum' really a museum? There are no collections, no
> preservation, and the educational programs seem pretty questionable sometimes.
>
> Should we in the local museum community try to draw them into our
> collaborative networks, such as the state museum association?
>
> The pretend hospital in the children's museum at the mall, by the way, was
> funded by a $150,000 gift from a local hospital's auxiliary group.
> Interestingly, the local hospital's chief marketing/pr officer and the
> children's museum board president are one and the same
>
> Opinions, please!!