Claudia and Elizabeth have sensitively raised an ever-fascinating conundrum. For what it's worth, here's one old interpreter's take on the subject. We have a choice of media for sharing information. Each choice has its own implications. A masterful treatise on, say, banana pitters may be a documentation of a scholar's work, understandings, and conclusions in a form available to anyone else who is interested in banana pitters, their use, and technology. The treatise may justifiably be a monumental work of that scholar. Exhibits, on the other hand, should not become monuments to curators. If our goal in an exhibit is to "teach the visitor all we know," without consideration of the visitor's interests, then I think we run the risk of creating just such a monument, one which does not serve the public interest (and investment) as described in the previous posts. IF (and I emphasize that) the purpose of the exhibit is to lead the viewer to an understanding of an exhibit topic that is somehow different than the understanding they brought to the exhibit, then I think we have to frame our goals in visitor-oriented terms. A goal of presenting everything a curator has learned on a subject in a fashion that will be acclaimed by the curator's professional colleagues seems an exercise in self-adulation and leaves the visitor as a convenient pawn...an excuse to do the exhibit but no more than that. In ironically impenetrable language, Ian Hodder, in "Interpretive Archaeology and Its Role" (American Antiquity, 56[1], 1991, pp. 7-18), accused the profession of anthropology of speaking only to itself, with the result that its intellectual operations were closed to other segments of society and thought, denying the profession of other points of view that might affect conclusions. Other professions are surely as characterized by a "priesthood," "liturgical language," and a process of inculcation that separates novitiates gradually from the unwashed masses. Exhibits can offer a bridge back to the people who might want to know what they're paying for. Using the conceptual framework of interpretation, the exhibit needs to start with the visitor. Freeman Tilden's first (and, to me, most important of six) principle of interpretation is: "Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile." ("Interpreting Our Heritage," and quoted in other places.) Yale Historian Robin Winks was more succinct a few years ago in his "Public Historian" review of a half-dozen "guides to the roadside history of......" He said those wayside exhibits have to answer the visitor's question: "So what?" Perhaps our museum exhibits need to be held to the same standard, implying visual or auditory attraction, relationship of the content to the visitor's experience (Tilden's First), setting the topic in a thematic context, and relating the significance of this topic or object. Perhaps we should view exhibits as topical emissaries for our professional interests (as contrasted with our personal professional achievements). For example, I want the Civilian Public Service (CPS) program and camps to be remembered as part of World War II and of the much longer American history of respect for conscience. As a person with cultural resource management experience, I am painfully aware that what few physical vestiges remain of a program purposefully hidden from public view are fast disappearing. Appreciation of CPS (or the Enola Gay, or Freud) as a part of our heritage relies on another maxim (?) quoted by Tilden: "Through interpretation, understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through appreciation, protection." Folks aren't going to appreciate what we're about until they can understand it and relate it to their own lives. For whom do we work? The public. Museums are institutions of public trust. We preserve information in various forms (including its embodiment in objects) for its potential to enlighten. Was it George Brown Goode who defined a museum as "a consultative library of objects?" To serve the folks who pay for it, this "library" should have introductory material as well as the advanced theoretical works. I apologize for the length; it seemed appropriate to the topic. I look forward to following this thread. Tom V. Tom Vaughan \_ Cultural The Waggin' Tongue \_ Resource [log in to unmask] \_ Management, 11795 County Road 39.2 \_ Interpretation, Mancos, CO 81328 USA \_ Planning, & (970) 533-1215 \_ Training