I think people have forgotten why this article was brought to our attention.
Not because of the privacy login policy of the NYT, but because of the
possible cuts to yet another museum.

Having lived through a 30% reduction in staffing and budgets, my sympathies
go out to those at the British Museum. It is a hellish situation to live
through, waiting to see who gets cut and who doesn't, and finding out how
many extra duties you get dumped with (at no extra pay). Those remaining at
the BM after their cuts have a lot of adjustments to get through and the
reprocussions won't all be felt immediately, but will be continued to be
felt in years that follow. Our cuts were almost 6 years ago now, and
although we have benefited from some additional funding and staffing, we are
still dealing with problems that arise from our staffing cuts, for instance,
we lost our exhibition technicans, warehousman, cataloguers and the
conservation staff (we went from 50 employees to less then 30)and as a
result we are contantly working with contractors (not a bad thing, but it
does eat up what little budget you have) and we are trying to figure out who
is responsible for the regular maintainence of the artifacts on exhibit -
the curators? or the 2 person exhibtion department?.

Unfortunately it is now a reality in the museum field that funding and
especially the lack of it are always going to dictate what you can and
cannot do to preserve a collection or to educate the public about it.

my two cents worth.
Carol Reid
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