Dear Susan, Well good, you found somewhat of a solution to the confusion. :) Being a "collecting" museum has some interesting problems (such as running out of storage space, increased insurance risks, need for professional staff to care for the collection); but by nature a non-collecting museum would seem not to have those issues; au contraire! You still borrow collections and l attend to the insurance risks related to borrowing (so you need a registrar), you still need someone (a curator maybe) to write those labels and an exhibit designer to design those wowie shows! And you still need the storage space to hold items when they come and go! This has been a fascinating discussion, and it really boils down to "traditionalists" being more flexible in their thinking about such facilities as non-collecting ones because the procedures followed in care of collections are still the same as with collecting facilties. O www.nixonlibrary.org Yorba Linda, CA (714) 993-5075 On Tue, 18 Apr 2000 09:31:45 -0700 "Susan B.F. Wageman" <[log in to unmask]> writes: > On Monday, April 17, 2000 5:49 PM, Olivia S. Anastasiadis > [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > wrote: > > I remember when as a grad student we discussed the issue of non-collecting facilities; I noted that for the most part, non-collecting agencies distinguished themselves as "Center" or "Gallery." This may seem like a simple solution, but it didn't work for us. The Tech Museum of Innovation used to be called The Technology Center of > Silicon Valley. People were confused. They thought we were a convention center (where you find trade shows). This is what the word "center" means in our region. By using the word "museum" in our title, people have more of a clue what we are about. Yes, some people still are confused ... but not quite so many. FYI - The Tech's exhibits and experiences focus on contemporary technology. We use objects to interpret our themes, but we are not a collecting > institution. > Susan B.F. Wageman > Evaluation Manager > [log in to unmask] http://www.thetech.org ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).