I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment to try to get a bead on the difference between say, EPCOT and the Liberty Science Center, or the Metropolitan Museum. Let's assume for a moment that the difference is more in perception than in any objective circumstance. Obviously, the Met has collections, but the Liberty Science Center doesn't, so that terminates that line of consideration. Is what the Met provides more "accurate" than EPCOT? Accurate about what? It can be argued that all that the Met is accurate about is what it has produced. In other words, it accurately reflects art history, but it is also the principal maker and product of art history. EPCOT or Disney World accurately reflects the world of Disney, which has alot more currency (in both senses of the term) than the art history world, for better or worse. But, still, I would say that museums place a higher premium on historical or contextual accuracy. Real museums are more "educational?" Not necessarily, though I've never been to EPCOT or Disney World, I understand that they have alot of content, and other posters have mentioned that these places are focusing on education programs for school groups, etc. I know what the difference is intuitively: its the difference between King Lear and ER. One is real tragedy, and the other is cheap melodrama. But, how do you define this so that the world at large realizes that its important to invest in the former for higher purposes? If you ask kids, as many have, about what they think happens in a museum, and what their feeling and perception is, they reply that its a place where there are alot of things you're not allowed to do. (We did just such a focus group, and got just such a reply.) Well, is that a useful distinction? At a museum, there is alot you can't do, whereas in Disney World, there is alot you *can* do? There was a great article in the NYT Magazine section five years ago or so about the development of exhibitions at the Field Museum. Apparently, and I paraphrase with the distance of five years since I read the article, the principal response that people had to the Field Museum, in surveys, was a feeling of inadequacy. "I don't know enough, and that's why I'm not really enjoying this visit." Maybe that's the distinction...museums are demanding and make people feel vaguely ill at ease, while Disney World is more like television, minimal demand, and maximum cheap emotional response. OK, devil's advocacy has gone on long enough, but I certainly see alot of fuzziness around the edges about the importance of the distinction between museums and edutainment parks. Sorry about the length of this post, once I get rolling... Eric Siegel [log in to unmask]