>With more communication and education of the runnings and >functionings of museum, the public would better understand what >it takes to run a museum. >I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. The trick is >finding a medium Many museums are doing this quite successfully. Their publications and the local press regularly pick up accomplishments by or stories about museum research and teaching staff, new discoveries or publications, or just people stories. Children's publications and teaching materials echo this emphasis. Many people are quite proud of the accomplishments of the research and teaching people (and other museum personnel) at local museums where I live, in Chicago. A surprising number are known by name or accomplishments. When new exhibits open there are always long articles with pictures describing how the exhibit was conceived and put together. Who helped. Comments from the communities consulted. Contextual information about it. And real enthusiasm from what used to be a ho-hum press. More and more museums are opening exhibit and even research areas to public view. More and more museums are regularly offering back-of-the-museum tours, and events that necessarily expose visitors, often children, to a side of the museum not normally seen. Many of these are done so that the visitor really gets a feeling of being "at home" and comfortable in a nice way. School children and the public in general have begun to make much more use of museum libraries and research facilities. And the people in charge of those areas are wonderful. Many museums underestimate the public's interest in and sophistication about science, archeology, and even art. Limiting my comments to science, since that is the most obvious case, what used to be esoteric science is no longer in the private domain of scientists. The public knows and cares about non linearity, strange attractors, the Mandelbrot set, chaos, fractals, and buys and perhaps reads Hawkings' books, among others. In part I think this is attributable to the fact that, given modern computer graphics -- to say nothing of television specials and movies like Jurassic Park, the public can visualize many of these things, and they are just plain more widely accessible. I would be curious, even with my optimism here, to hear what ideas Mr. Guralnick has about what media are effective in bringing all the parts of the museum to public attention and life. Martha A. Mills 71167,[log in to unmask]