I wish to respond to Jack Thompson's reply to the question
posed by Anita Cohen-Williams. I admit, as a museum person, I
found the question posed by Anita odd. However, I found Jack's
innapropriate response typical of that which I and several others
have received from museum conservators over the years (eight years
in the field).
Let me clarify, I know of many museum conservators
who are delightful people, who spend time explaining and workiung
with museum staff, and their cooperation is greatly
appreciated. The difference, I think, is that those individuals
care for people as well as artifacts.
Jack, it may come as a surprise to you, but most of the museum
profesionals I know are greatly concerned for the care and
preservation of artifacts. We are also concerned with seeing
that artifacts are displayed and made available to the public in a
way that is educational and meaningful. I have seen artifacts sit
in the conservation lab for years (no joke) receiving "treatment."
In reality, they receive no treatment at all. This is an
ongoing problem and yet when we try to hurry the process along
the response is similar to that which Anita got from you. In the
meantime, museum staff are told to leave objects alone, to
stay out of the way, and leave conservation to the professionals.
To combat this problem, I did my masters work on exploring ways
that museum staff could be trained to carry out simple procedures
to preserve doll and toy collections in museums (I had to focus my
work on a particular subject). My work showed what "untrained"
staff could accomplish with a little training. A little training
does not transform one into a conservator--however, it does much
to further the goal of preservation.
The reality is that registrars and curators are the eyes and hands
of the museum. We are in the field because we love history, art,
and objects. Many of us also love people. If we work together,
we can share our special talents and work together for the greater
goal of preserving museum objects and making them accessible to
the public.
Finally, for those outside the profession, we do them (and
ourselves) no favors when we bash them for asking innocent
questions. Let's try another approach in the future.
John Handley
Museum of Ophthalmology
San Francisco
(The opinions expressed here are all mine) Have a good day!
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