--- L Dewey <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I have read the current discussion about 'community > curators' to mean > bringing other voice (not now within the museum > structure) into the > process --- "Dr. Christian Müller-Straten" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > there is no doubt in the European museological > theory that acquisition, > scientific research, care of objects, object > explanation and exhibitions > have to be the duty of trained museum staff. I think we have to make a distinction here between 'object explanation' related to existing collections, and 'object explanation' related to new material as it's collected (or not collected) now. I agree entirely with Dr. Müller-Stratens previous post when we are talking about object explanation related to *existing* collections. But the majority of these collections are assembled from periods in history when the majority farmed the land and the minority ruled over them. The number and variety of objects created/made during this period (ie. most of human history) were *comparatively* limited, as in general only the small minority of ruling classes had the time or resources to make more 'things' than they needed to survive. Over time the heaving masses have (in many countries, although sadly not as yet in all) dragged or fought their way out of abject poverty, clobbering their rulers into submission in the process and replacing them (again, not yet everywhere) with Democracy, and with a consumer capitalist economy. This economic free market has resulted in an explosion of manufacturing and the creation of things, media and ideas in quite mind numbingly large quantities. (To the detriment of the environment, but that's not relevant here). The issue as I see it is that a traditional museum structure, involving a building containing a small number of highly/classically educated curators with their support staff, while being a format which worked really well when documenting and explaining the product of classical culture, falls apart somewhat when confronted by the tidal wave of material and non-material culture generated by contemporary society. It's inconceivable that any curator, or even a large team, could 'explain' all the material that they should (in theory) be collecting if the museum is to remain relevant into the future. The idea that museums might be able to borrow from Wikipedia, and others, is that one way to tackle knowledge processing in contemporary culture seems to be to delegate, to share the workload, and that web technologies are a good way to achive this. That's is not to suggest for a moment that curators should relinquish their final say on all things, but maybe they could take on more of a coordinating/collaborative role when working out how/when/where to collect contemporary artifacts and when recording the knowledge/data that accompany them? Those closest to the point of creation will almost always know more about these things than the curator. A curators objective viewpoint will always be useful, however it is the nature of contemporary society that there are always a multiplicity of alternative, in some cases conflicting, viewpoints on any issue and related to any artifact, all of them valid. Recording these will often be beyond the capabilities of museum staff, but maybe with the assistance of technology developed from the same roots as Wikipedia (but conforming to museum documentation standards), curators could set themselves up at the hub of a network of 'community curators', who share some of the data/knowledge entry donkey-work, and help to contribute some of their world to the museum for the future? Jeremy. ========================================================= 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).