David Haberstich wrote <snip>

>      To be more specific about the kind of dialogue I was trying to
> stimulate: It's common for "creative" people, such as curatorial staff,
> to complain about unreasonable bureaucracy among administrators and
> registrarial folks--and the biggest curatorial complaint I've heard
> about a "bureaucratic" registrar, Ross, came from a private museum, not
> a government institution.
>      Curators and registrars sometimes are in apparent opposition (which
> ideally could represent a healthy balance of powers, but in the
> worst-case scenario could constitute gridlock): curators may consider
> registrars unreasonable, bureaucratic obstacles, while registrars
> envision curators as eccentric, sloppy prima donnas. Detail freaks vs.
> head-in-the-clouds academics or antiquarians (pick one, depending on the
> style and politics of your institution).

The very first AAM Code of Ethics for "Museum Workers" (sometime in the
1920s) had such instructions as:   "A member of a museum staff should have
courtesy enough to transfer a telephone inquiry to another staff member if
he himself cannot respond to the query."  That's a paraphrase out of
memory.   The whole of this document addressed at least some aspects of
what David is saying.  Museum staff often tend not to get along with one
another because of widely different professional perspectives.  That is
also true of faculty at a university.  I see this tension as healthy, a
kind of checks and balances system, but not bureaucratic and wasteful.
Management's responsibility is to make this tension a creative, rather than
destructive, force.    But the government museums (and others) too often
tend to be managed for the auditors, accountants, and image-makers.
Government appointed governing boards also become "the customer," as too
many studies have shown.