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           [log in to unmask] "Gleeson, Judith" asked for
> future museums as reflected in sci/fi I'd be grateful if you could list them
> for me.

Ursula LeGuin's _Semley's Necklace_, a short story which started out
under the name _Dowry of the Angyar_, and ended as the prologue to
_Rocannon's World_ contains a sequence in which Semley views her necklace
in a museum.  The museum is objects-in-glass cases (still), but it
presents an interesting discussion of 'Exotica', which are
"technically on loan ... We seldom argue.  Peace above all, until
the War comes ...".  They also have a catalogue.  Rocannon is a Museum
employee, but not the curator, but an anthropologist (like the author's
father).

In Terry Pratchet's _Men at Arms_ there are descriptions of the Art
Gallery and Museum of the Asassins' Guild.  The portraits have discreet
labels saying who killed the subject.

_The Sandal_, a children's picture book by Tony Bradman has a future
museum (with wide-screen computer displays, and what look suspisciously
like Click cases).

_The Many-Coloured Land_, by Julian May has a wonderful passage about
the future of re-enactment 'experiences'.

Not science fiction, but fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien's _The Lord of the Rings_
has a description of a hobbit museum:
        The Mathom-house it was called; for anything that Hobbits had
        no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away,
        they called a _mathom_.

--
Patricia Reynolds
Keeper of Social History, Buckinghamshire County Museum / Freelance Curator

16 Gibsons Green
Heelands
Milton Keynes
MK13 7NH
ENGLAND

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