Hello to museum-l subscribers! Wow! What a vocal group! Here's my 2 cents on the "Thrill of the original"... The role of the museum is to protect, preserve, and maintain its collections of artifacts and specimens for the future needs of the public and private researchers. Its job is to report information, objectively and thoroughly, but museum professionals often find themselves between a rock a hard place attempting to do just that. In natural history collections, we maintain *type* specimens, and for this argument I will equate them to an art's collections' *originals*. Type specimens are designated by their collectors to become **THE** specimen for which all others like it (duplicates/copies if you will) are to be based. Yes, there are copies like types all over the world! Yet no two are the same. Natural specimens have differing genes, diets and habitats, just as art objects have their own unique qualities, whatever the medium. What is it we learn from originals? Depends on what you, as the interpreter, public or private, are looking for. Therefore, we, as museum professionals must *never* interpret...we must report. Then again... we must do as much as we can to make the museum experience as complete as possible for our visitors, which may mean that due to geographical limitations, the Constitution will not be finding it's way to Hawaii any time soon, so we must make concessions to display a reproduction. It's a very fine line that must be walked. I have seen the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, and the Grand Canyon in photos... but there ain't nothin' like the real thing. However, living in Hawaii (or wherever you may live), I've realized that there isn't enough time or resources in the world for me see everything I'd like to, and I understand (as most museum visitors do or will if explained well enough) that some pieces of our human history are simply too fragile or too sacred to be viewed publicly. I, for one, would rather leave a museum having learned something new and eager to share my experience after seeing a copy of the Constitution, or any other work, than to have the *thrill* of seeing the original, but not to have *learned* a damn thing! "The original vs. the copy" argument and is valid, but you must first ask yourself what is the goal of asking the question? To set policy for all museums based on a collective integrity or meet your institutions goals and the educational needs of your public as thoroughly as possible? Karen J. Kroslowitz phone: 808-848-4118 Natural Sciences, Malacology fax: 808-841-8968 Bernice P. Bishop Museum [log in to unmask]