>     " placement of gift shop merchandise cases (platforms
>     and vitrines) within or adjacent to exhibits?  What is
>     the general opinion of this practice?"
>
>     Sounds like good marketing to me.  I certainly
>     appreciate them as a consumer (read: museum shop
>     junkie) when I travel.  Obviously, you don't want the
>     marketing to interfere with the exhibition's
>     presentation, but that's just a matter of design.
>
>     Chris Dill
>

I've been in, and worked in museums which did this well and quite
tastefully.  Of note, years ago when the Art Institute of Chicago did
Pompeii, the exhibit traffic flow went right into a special Pompeii gift
shop.  Among the items for sale were the two volume set of exhibit catalogs
(which I bought) and posters of surviving Pompeii art work.

It was a stroke of marketing genius, and I don't think the public
complained about it.

As a museum professional visiting, I appreciated the effort.  The only way
that it would not work, is if it created a bottleneck at the exit of the
exhibit, but that's a matter of design, not of concept.  There was no
bottleneck at Pompeii.   Nor was there a problem during the " Cenote of
Sacrifice" exhibit which we did at Milwaukee Public Museum back in 1987,
when I was Registrar.  The gift shop did quite well, as I recall.

Cheers,
HBC

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Henry B. Crawford        Curator of History
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