I have been lurking on this list for the most part, but this thread is fascinating. Paul Apodaca's post seems harsh to me, but the views he expresses must be credited for identifying SOMETHING that is very uncomfortable in the museum world these days. I am not certain precisely what it is, but let me respond based on my own somewhat peculiar perspective. I am the director of a reasonably important history museum, the Chicago Historical Society. This is the first job I have ever had in a museum, and I have been in it for only 9 months. When I was being recruited for the job I told the trustee committee that I wasn't sure what they were doing talking to an academic historian and sometime administrator like me, that I had never worked in a museum, that I didn't know much about them, and that I didn't evem enjoy most museums that much. They told me they wanted an historian, not a curator. After nine months in the job, I think both they and I severely underestimated the power of museum culture and the antiquariamn character of collecting practices in history museums. I see the historical society as an educational institution above all else. That is the world I come from, and I have trouble understanding the impulse to collect with no purpose but the collection itself, with no idea about either interpreting an artifact or using it for serious scholarly research. To me, this is a waste of scarce resources. I believe we have an incredibly significant role to play in our communities as the repositories of civic memory and as the pivotal mechanism for the communication of the experience that memory documents. My institution reduplicates my personal committments as a teacher and scholar. That is why I took the job. But it is very frustrating to see the resources of the place being used in a fashion that benefits everyone in general and no one in particular and which, worse, preserves the structure of social relations of the nineteenth century on which history museums were originally built. If attempts to address the identified interests and needs of all the citizens of my city are a betrayal of the "idea of the museum," lead me to the gallows for I am a traitor and proud of it. I also believe that we can succeed in this treachery. Finally, there is actually a body of quite interesting and provocative scholarship on this subject. Would it be unforgivably academic to suggest that the work of such scholars as Karp and Lavine, Rosenzweig, Wallace, and others would provide a useful frame for this discussion? Douglas Greenberg President and Director The Chicago Historical Society Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago Il. 60614-6099 Telephone 312 642 5035 FAX 312 266 2077 OR 312 642 1199 Bitnet U27777@UICVM Internet [log in to unmask]