Eric Siegel writes;

  This Stephen Weil passage brings out the contrarian in me...

   Besides being mushy on a scale right up there with Mark Helprin's
   speech for Dole; it not only doesn't reflect my 15 years of
   experience in the museum biz, it also is full of the "ain't we grand
   and morally superior" tone that affects me like eating a package of
   nutra-sweet(tm).

I agree that working in museums is often a gigantic pain in the butt
(and I do have private sector experience to compare it to) and Eric is
right that the two biggest pains are low pay and the inability to spend
most of our day doing what we were hired (and love) to do.

You're also bang on in noting that Weil ignores those of us who are
"sometimes bitter, trapped and alienated" despite choosing to do this
work.  But he was accepting an award from his peers at the time!  You
expect him to bite the hand feeding him rubber chicken?

This (Weil's) passage reflects the best of what our world has to offer,
and a spoonful of saccharine does in fact make the medicine (long hours,
low pay, no recognition and limited opportunity for advancement) go
down.

However, Eric, I think you're missing Weil's main point here, which is
that the collegiality of the Museum biz, as reflected here on museum-l,
is often missing in other less altruistic trades.  As one of the most
frequent contributors to discussion here, certainly you can't disagree
with him on that point.  In the for-profit world, the type of
information freely shared in this forum is jealously guarded under the
label of "trade secrets."  If you consider that "knowledge" is the
commodity that museums trade in, it's truly amazing that we are so
willing to give it away for free.

Regards,

Craig E. d'Arcy
Exec Director
West Parry Sound Dsitrict Museum