Dear Declan,
1) You put the request into this list. You want that only you get the answer
via your private email. Why? If you want answers from all of us, please be
so fair as to leave the answers in the net. I would like that all the
answers you will get are known to the list. We all are interested. Why do
you want the answers only sent to you alone, although you ask us all?
2) It is, it was, it can (but it needs not) be quite boring to research
about the "role of museums in the society"! Or do you think that the
"impact (?) of museum research on society" draws anybody outside a museum
into a valuable discussion? Couldn't you think of more controversial issues,
which might change some thoughts in the museum world to improve the museums?
How about:
Why can't anybody else (outside museums) make good exhibitions? Or collect
objects? Do museums have a monopoly? Should they? Are they able to?
Why do we - as a society in globalisation and capitalism - need the museums
for?
Why don't we close museums and use them just as intelligent storage halls?
Why is there research within the museum and not only at the universities?
Why do universities refrain from researching within museum?
Or a good one: Why are museums so expensive?
Or (a lot of them) so boring?
Why do some museums get millions of visitors while others thrive on just
some thousands?
Why do museums need visitors? What for? Shouldn't the museums lock visitors
out?
Another question range:
Should we collect all the cultural artefacts?
Why not throw them away?
How large will the storage be in ten, hundred years time if the museum
collects it all?
Do museums really care for the poor, fight against war, crime, hunger,
injustice, racism or do they bring their audiences to be quiet, nice,
adjusted and bourgeois?
But, maybe it is a task of NATURE to be boring, well adjusted and making
their readers aware that far away Japanese whale hunters are worse than
girls fornicated by their fathers in the neighbourhood.
Greetings,
Peter, the Rebernik
+---------------------------------------------------
| PHAROS International - Bureau for Cultural Projects
| Peter Rebernik, Dipl.-Ing.
| Anton Baumgartnerstr. 44/C2/3/2; A-1230 Wien / AUSTRIA
| Tel.: (... 43 1) 667 7375; Fax: (... 43 1) 667 2984
| Mobiltel.: (... 43 664) 230 2767
| E-Mail: [log in to unmask]; Web: http://www.rebernik.at
+------------------------------------------------------
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Declan Butler <[log in to unmask]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.museum-l
An: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Datum: Donnerstag, 28. Mai 1998 14:44
Betreff: The journal Nature is seeking input for a large feature on museum
research
>Dear all
>I am coordinating a feature -- or "Briefing" -- on research in natural
>history and science museums, which will be published in the journal Nature
>at the beginning of the summer. Nature staff writers involved will include
>Colin McIlwain in our Washington office, Henry Gee in London, and Asako
>Saegusa in Tokyo.
>
>The articles will analyse various aspects of the challenges and obstacles
>facing museum research, and seek to identify and analyse trends and
>pressures in the changing nature of museum research and how these are being
>met.
>More broadly, a running theme will be changes in the role of museums as a
>place of scholarship with respect to universities and research
>organizations.
>We will also look at such areas as the impact of the growing role of public
>understanding on research activities, and the overall impact of social
>priorities -- with a focus perhaps on biodiversity, for example -- and new
>technologies.
>Similarly, we will seek to identify trends and challenges specific to
>various disciplines of research carried out by museums, such as in
>paleontology.
>A more elusive but perhaps interesting issue to be explored is that of the
>changing role of collections, and of curators and scientists in their
>maintenance.
>Declan Butler
>
>European correspondent
>Nature
>Paris news bureau
>30 avenue Secretan, 75019 Paris, France
>Tel (33) 1 44 52 91 42
>Fax (33) 1 44 52 06 98
>e-mails; [log in to unmask], and [log in to unmask] (please copy all
>correspondence to both addresses)
>
>PS For your information, copies of several past Briefings -- for example my
>recent one on xenotransplantation -- are available on the home page of our
>website (www.nature.com)
>
|
