I basically agree with comments on the definitions of the 'community' a museum serves: > I think "community" is often used as a polite code word for minority, at > least in cities where museum visitors and the nearby population are not > significantly the same (the Detroit Institute of Art comes to mind and, > to some extent, the Brooklyn and Queens Museums). And 'minority' is often used as a polite code word for non caucasian-establishment-types. My recollection of a brief visit to Brooklyn and Queens was the minority seemed to be the majority there :) I prefer to think of museum communities in terms of their information needs rather than demographic parameters. The challenge is to keep the distribution services a museum is able to provide reasonably equitable. > But there are also communities of scholars, interested citizens and, yes, > tourists. What do we make of the "community" that lives around the > Metropolitan Museum, including, among others, Jackie Onassis, the people > of East Harlem and a great many squirrels and birds in Central Park? The > issue is, I think, access and, with that, usefulness. Museums should be > thought of as information utilities that are open to any community that will > find them useful (and, perhaps, convenient). The key is knowing what people > want from you and whether you can realistically provide what they want > without harming your mission (or whether you should change your mission). But shouldn't a mission (or at least part of it) be to provide what people want/need? If not, perhaps the mission statement should be revisited. Is it possible for a museum to be truly self-indulgent? - I often dream of running such an institution, but reality gets in the way. The question is, which of its various client communities should a museum resond to. Should it depend entirely on the desires/needs of those paying, directly or indirectly, to keep the museum alive? But without local sympathy, I would imagine any museum would find life very difficult. jim ___________________________________________________________________________ Jim Croft [Herbarium CBG] internet: [log in to unmask] Australian National Botanic Gardens voice: +61-6-2509 490 GPO Box 1777, Canberra, ACT 2601, AUSTRALIA fax: +61-6-2509 599 URL=http://155.187.10.12:80/people/croft.jim.html ______Biodiversity Directorate, Australian Nature Conservation Agency______