I have become increasingly troubled this past year by the high-profile controversies involving history museums and their interpretations of the past. The Enola Gay controversy is only one of the most recent examples. I have also read about some other problems at places like the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of American History (Science in Society?). It would seem that some curatorial staffs have gotten carried away with current scholarship while misunderstanding that historical understanding in the public lags by at least 15 years, and possibly as much as 50! I am wondering if the defense that "this represents current historical scholar- ship" is adequate to the bill-paying public. Please do not mistake my position: I never read the script for the original Enola Gay exhibit and so cannot comment in any rational way on what the exhibit was to contain or say. Likewise, it seems to me that just because Freud's theories on personality have largely been discredited by the psychiatric community, that is no reason not to present him and his works as important to the development of the treatment of mental disorders. However, I am wondering if it is possible that many of us have forgotten our audiences when we prepare exhibits. Is it possible that we are doing our work to impress our colleagues? At my own institution (the South Dakota State Historical Society), we opened an exhibit on Sioux culture (Oyate Tawicoh'an, see History News, Autumn 1995) which we believe breaks a little bit of new ground in the presentation of living cultures. I must admit, though, that what you all would think of this exhibit was as much on my mind as how the public would react to it. Professional admiration is as important to me as whether or not the public "gets it" or even likes it. I am worried that if we do our work to impress our colleagues (academic historians OR museum professionals) that the public gets left out of the equation and the resulting controversy, a la Enola Gay, is inevitable. Do we do a good enough job of explaining the position of the exhibit to the public. . . is it transparent enough? I am interested in what any of you have to say about this issue. Claudia Nicholson Curator of Collections South Dakota State Historical Society, Pierre [log in to unmask]