Elizabeth,

I get a sense that this is a government driven buzzword (as so many are)
and a euphenism for the declining focus on heritage/culture activities
among, particularly, provincial governments in Canada.  As you know,
Alberta's Ministry of Culture and Communications was absorbed three (?)
years ago into a super-Ministry of Community Development.  The good news
is that multi-year program funding for museums was committed within the
new corporate structure in Alberta.

I hear rumours that the Ontario government is planning the same sort of
structural thing for its Ministry of Culture, again renamed as a
Ministry of Community Development. The sense I get here, though, is that
the Ontario version will be punitive; no money for culture, folks, just
support for community development initiatives.  If you aren't building a
self-reliant community resource out of your museum, then you're a
"special interest group."  And we all know how the neo-conservatives
love to hate special interest groups.

You're right in your analysis that community-based museums have always
focussed on the development of community awareness, heritage and
cultural.  The question is whether we're being rewarded for having our
focus in the right place, or penalized because the new buzzword masks a
downshifting of responsibility.

Bitter and twisted, I remain,

Craig d'Arcy