In the year twenty-five twenty-five,
If man is still alive,
No need to look at a real artifact,
some museum has digitised it for you,
Does any artifact still exist,
or have they all been deacessioned?
(apologies to the musicians Zager and Evans or whatever their names are).

Collect, preserve, research, exhibit and educate. I agree with David E.
Haberstitch that collections are the CORE of what makes a museum, but that
the other functions are also VERY desirable. I do not feel that the term
"museum" should apply to institutions, no matter how worthy, that do not
hold collections. An alternate term would be more appropriate.

Likewise, the term "Curator" is being much distorted and abused
these days. A Curator cares for the collections. Why have jobs called
"Curator of
Education" etc.? "Education Officer" of "Programmer" for example will
suffice and are clear for the public.

As for Disneyland? A great place that we can all learn about visitor service
etc. from. They are not a museum, but they are the best at what they do.

These are personal opinions.

Colin Macgregor Stevens,
Curator,
CANADA

=====================================================
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> > Behalf Of David E. Haberstich
> > Sent: April 14, 2000 21:06
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: non-collecting facilities
> >
> >...
> > Therefore I vote for the coining of a new word for "non-collecting"
> > institutions which do museum-like things, as one or two others
> > have already
> > suggested.
> >
> > I'm one who thinks that the essence of museums is collections.  I
> > think the
> > standard dictionary definition is adequate and deserves preservation.
> > Furthermore (and this will raise howls of protest), I don't even
> > think public
> > exhibition of its artifacts is an essential quality of a
> museum--rather, I
> > consider exhibition the first level of what might be called
> "outreach."  I
> > see museums as being analogous to archives.
>

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