Lynne:

Your definition is of course entirely correct. The answer to you question
is that so far as I know "we" don't - except for the Dutch who I think
started this confusion because the alternative (autonomised??) is no
more a Dutch word than it is good English!! (Their "privatised" national
museums are more closely controlled as part of the public sector than e.g.
the British Museum has ever been in its 200+ year history.)

However, there are certainly PRIVATE museums (in the true sense - owned
as the private property of individuals with no guarantee of permanecne
and with any revenue profit or capital gain going to the proprietors)
as well as what in the UK we normally term "Independent" museums (i.e.
not-for-profit charitable bodies outside the direct control of a public
authority).

Patrick Boylan

===================================

On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, Lynne Teather wrote:

> To privatize means to move from the public sector to the private sector,
> or to sell to a for-profit corporation e.g. privatizing of postal
> service, health service or even education when a government operation is
> transferred to a for-profit corporation.
>
> Therefore, when a museum moves from government to a non-profit
> corporation such as a society or trust it remains in the non-profit (in
> the US not-for-profit) sector.
>
> So my question is why do we tend to refer to a museum moving from the
> government to a non-profit set up as a move to "privatization".  Even
> the phrase private museums raises definitional questions since the
> organizations are still private not-for-profit organizations set up
> under public legal statue and not part of the private market economy but
> the not-for profit or third sector .
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Lynne Teather,
> Museum Studies Program,
> University of Toronto.
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>