Have you ever checked what the sometimes lonely guards sometimes do ?
A heavy lot of damage made by the guards I expiriencend as I begun my job
here 16 years ago.
Example:
An astronomical clock with a carillon (glockenspiel, bells) was forced to
play one the different melodies by one guard to impress the visitors,
sometimes 10 times a hour.
Another guard:
A black-forest flute-watch (it makes tunes with pipes like a little
organ) from the late 1800 with a cord to check the time was checked so
often, the whole system was ruined.

Those things do not happen anymore, but it needs a lot of talking to
those most nicely people.

Another one:

Spring time, sun is shining outside, everything is waking up, also our
guards:

They play soccers whith a tennisball, a 12th-century stained window
became the target - crash...

Once a years theres a procession through the city, some objects, about a
houndred years now in the museum and few hundreds and more of age are
give to the differnt guilts. They make their way through town as they did
it the last few hundred years- in rain, snow and sunshine.

In my hometown, we have a special kind of carneval (its the most wrong
expression I know for this kind of feast -  we call it fasnacht), people
are disguised and make a big rumour in town.
The costume I used as I lived there was from the early 18.., a lot of
museums would have paid a lot of money for it,
I went throug town with it, made all the nonsense requrired and helped
the mask ant the costume to get another bit of patina and damages.
The whole dressing was sold to a museum in the eighties, now it is well
preserved, conservated, restored and repaired. It is stored for ever
because they want to preserve it in the todays condition - now more loan
possible. The local museum hast not the possibilities to hold the
approbriate climatic conditions.
In this kind a feel very sympathetic with the colleagues of NZ with their
Maori-objects. Whats the difference ?

Have you ever seen your director handling paper, isn't there always a
'knick'in it ?

Have it ever happened your director made a loan of about 20 important
works of arts to local shops to show them there, between shoes, underwear
and fruit ? Its a good idea to bring art to the people - but everything
else is (museolocigal) disgusting.

I come to the end, I hope I'll never write such a long mail, on-line.



I still walk too fast through our long floors in the old monastery,
in the meantime our guards slow me down:
Would you be kind enough not to run  so fast, your jacket will touch
the frames always on there same edge in the second floor ! Over the years
there will be shurely be a damage !


In the meantime:
I use not anymore old and original costumes for fasnacht, my youngest
doughter wears one
of the sixties (20th cent.).
I do not run anymore in the museum as long
as the guards are on dutie.
I
still make a lot of people unhappy with my rather hard restrictions how
to handle a museums object.

But I still cant't come clear with the keeper of the graphics
collections about the way how to handle paper - but it's not my job.
I handle our collection of coins and medals and the electronic brain- and
electronic counting boards departement, and money we always need our
hands for to handle it.

Sorry for my english, it's rather late in the night and perhaps
unprofessinal, but after a few days of reading some of the messages
concerning these themes I couldn't hold it anymore.

Good night for the most of you
(Whats in NZ now)

Gerhard Dangel-Reese
Keeper of the Collections of coins and medals
Director of the computer departement
Augustinermuseum Freiburg
Fon **761-201-2528
Fax **761-201-2597