Mary Case wrote: >I think collections people have long been toiling for accountability AND >accessability. They have? There are still an awful lot of collections curators who resent the "public" who put their objects in danger and perhaps they have a point. >If the paradigm were shifted slightly to accountability FOR >accessability, I think it would focus even folks in the deepest recesses of >the museum's most removed off-site storage areas on the reasons we collect and >preserve in the first place--to serve our audience (visitors, scholars, etc.) If exhibition and museum designers would work with collections curators to provide both adequate access and protection the audience would be better served. The Metropolitan has, I'm told, the entire Egyptian collection on display. And the Luce Study Center for American Art at the Met is an elegant computerized solution to what would, in the wrong design hands, have looked like a cluttered antiques shop. On the other hand the Brooklyn has just spent millions to move their objects in storage to...another storage area. Mary is right about shifting the paradigm, but how do you get the the different factions in the museum, the exhibition curators, the design team and the collections curators, to work together? And I didn't even mention the cleaning staff who can stop a project cold. Robbin Murphy [log in to unmask] Mary Case, QM2, 1243 E. Street S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003 PH:202 544 2698 FX:202 547 9439 INTERNET:[log in to unmask] No Pressure, No Diamonds