My Name is Daniel Uncles. I am a senior majoring in American Studies at Penn State University. Currently I am interning at the Boal Mansion Museum and Columbus Chapel in Boalsburg Pa. I am trying to define professional museum standards and see how our museum measures up to these standards. My first question is: Are there widely accepted museum standards? IF so how do you follow them? Let me tell you about our museum. The home was built in the 1790's and added onto in the 1890's. The museum includes a home; three outside exhibit rooms, and the Columbus family Chapel. The Chapel contents come form the Columbus Castle in Asturias, Spain and were inherited in 1908 through a Columbus family connection. Among the contents of the chapel are an Admiral's Desk, which belonged to Christopher Columbus, European oil paintings and statues from the 14th through 17th centuries and two pieces of the True Cross, which were given to the Columbus family in 1817 by the Bishop of Leon in Spain. The Museum contains the original furnishings, papers, portraits, tools and weapons of nine generations of the Boal Family, who were instrumental in building and shaping the central Pennsylvania region. We have many needs spanning form preservation to presentation. Every aspect of how our museum is run must be reviewed and reconsider, from docent training and the tour script, to displays and security. If you have a historic house museum do you run programs at your site? Do you let people sit on the furniture? Do you have a strict tour script, or do you have several scripts for varying groups? Do you have items that have been removed from display when their monetary or research value outweighs their display value? (Especially if they are not "shown" on the tour) Do museums keep rare books on bookshelves, or do they lend them to the local archives? How can you best cope with climate control and security when you have almost no budget? How can you better approach fundraising? If anyone can help that would be greatly appreciated, even if you recommend a book we should purchase. Please respond to the list or personally at [log in to unmask] Thank You Daniel Uncles ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).