I guess I bring this up because I've got a whole house and garage full of stuff that "ought to be in a museum somewhere" :-) Maybe it's in the same category as Richard Brautigan's idea of a library where people could bring their books. There are some numbers of private collections of things, ranging from Great Art to popular culture artifacts. Some of these are known about to some people and are perhaps open to public showing by prior appointment. For example, the amateur radio magazine QST has occasionally published information about individuals who have collections of early radio equipment and will show and tell to visitors who call ahead and arrange a convenient time. Likewise I'm aware of collectors of antique radio receivers who have restored them and have them on display; and of course people collect all kinds of things. And there are things like groups of steam locomotive enthusiasts who may have a barn somewhere containing the locomotive they are restoring. Or the privately-owned antique automobile or airplane that is the only survivor of its type. There are also corporate museums that come and go. Western Union used to have an extensive museum of artifacts of the telegraph industry. When the company fell on hard times and acquired new owners my understanding is that some of the collection went to the Smithsonian and the rest was scrapped. One of my former employers had a collection of printing telegraph equipment from the earliest days, mainly for study by the company's own engineers. That company no longer exists; and I don't know what happened to the collection. I'm having a hard time thinking of a point to make in this long posting. I guess one question is, how do we decide what belongs in a museum (and if not in ours, whose?), what belongs in private collections or roadside attractions, and what can be consigned to the dump with no pangs of regret? In most cases a private collection will have no scholarly resources behind it, yet the collector may be the best expert alive on the topic of the collection. Is there, should there be, a data base of specialized museums and private collections? How to keep such a data base from being used as a catalog by thieves? Is there a need to build bridges between professional museum workers and private collectors and keepers of roadside attractions? If a collector of fine art dies no doubt the estate auctioneers and art museums are all over the survivors; but if the leading corporate manufacturer of corkscrews goes out of business the survivors are likely to call in dump trucks. If the owner of a private collection of corkscrews dies, whom should the heirs call in? Please forgive the naivete of these questions. I'm not a museum professional. I subscribe to the list mainly so I can pass along copies of the postings to the curator at a local museum who doesn't have electronic access. And I'm getting to be a nostalgic old geezer who feels pangs of guilt whenever some piece of technology that may have been the centerpiece of some engineer's career is sent to the dump as merely obsolete.