Firstly, I would like to reassure Paul Apodaca that his remarks were fully posted -- he may simply not have received a copy, since he was the one who sent them: this is a function of the settings on the listserv. After that, it is considered polite and considerate to shorten quoted material when referring to it, so that endless screens of 'stuff-we-saw-before' doesn't detract/distract from the present posting. Second: I have watched this thread with increasing sadness, brought on not by what's being said, but by recognition that the quality of civilization is slowly declining in this country. I am a historian of technology, and can offer anecdotal evidence from my own field that important collections of historical material have within the past few years been moved, dispersed, and degraded to an unhappy degree. Whole research libraries have disappeared, and their century(ies)-old collections become untraceable. I don't know about the education -to-director trend, but I would not be surprised, given (a) the competition for dollars, (b) the public sense of museums as educational institutions [fostered, may I remind you all, by museums themselves], and (c) the widespread perception of curators as simply those who dust the collections. Given the importance of education as a mission, it certainly makes sense to draw directors from the education ranks, especially if one is unaware of the specialized expertise of curators [I have also been a curator, and some of my best friends are curators, but I have the gawdawfullest time explaining to nonspecialists just what it is that a curator does]. This goes double if the education mission is seen as applying only to children, rather than to the full age range of the population. >From this point on, my sadness shades into bitterness, and I'll spare you my speculations as to causes and ultimate fates. --bayla