A number of thoughts: 1) Boy, I'm glad I subscribe in digest form! ;-) 2) Thanks to all who wrote privately to express their support and agreement, but, wiser than I, declined to wade into the fray. 3) Felicia links to a most excellent article. I hope everyone who's not completely bored by the topic reads it. 4) Darn you, Deb Fuller! You ALWAYS write exactly what I was going to say, only you say it so much better than I ever could! I would only add a) I have never claimed that objects are without their uses; and b) I feel the museum profession is well-served by practicioners who espouse and follow a variety of visions. (This whole debate reminds me of a conversation I had with a college professor over the meaning of "Strawberry Fields Forever." If nothing is real, she argued, then everything is. Remove the standard of discrimination, and the word loses all meaning. The reverse also holds: if everything is important, then nothing is. If we claim that a shattered pot is equivalent to a shattered limb, then something inside of us has died.) 5) I'm not sure what it's doing in this thread, but since Dave brought it up... A couple of years ago, there was an article in Museum News (I no longer remember the specifics) which put forward some version of the claim that collections are the defining characteristic of museums. I wrote a letter to the editor, arguing (among other things) that objects don't make a museum; exhibits make a museum. (My, I do seem to have a way with the controversial aphorisms, don't I?) The argument over what is a museum, what makes a museum, is probably intractable, and I have no desire to resurrect it here. My point is that simply having a collection does not make an institution a museum. I have a large collection of Hawaiian shirts, ugly ties, and baseball caps from around the world. Does that make my closet a museum? I don't think so. Some of the most valuable artifacts sit in research collections. Some of the finest art objects in the world reside in private hands. But unless and until those objects are made available to the public -- until they are put on exhibit -- those institutions can make no claim to being "museums." You can have a collection without a museum. You can have a museum without a collection. Facile definitions -- including mine -- tell at best only part of the story. Bring this subject up again, and I'll be forced to tell you the tank joke. ;-) Eugene Dillenburg Exhibit Developer Science Museum of Minnesota (651) 221-4706 [log in to unmask] ========================================================= 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).