PERPETUAL MUSEUM ISSUES:

Museums enjoy considerable media attention these days. Much is pleasant. Examples include creating a new museum, expanding an existing one, hiring an esteemed scholar, receiving a major financial contribution, acquiring a stellar collection, and opening a popular exhibition. But press coverage can also be about difficulties. When curiously unresolved, loudly controversial or debated ad-infinitum, they are assumed to be issues of immediate import. Curiously, they seem to be “exposed” by museum outsiders. I believe this is because concerned museum employees may express corrective advice discretely, amongst themselves, in a sotto voce manner. This book is a collection of essays I began writing in 1987 that contradict practitioners’ reticence to speak up and out about issues they identify. I encourage colleagues to do the same. Given the variety of museums around the globe, defining issues will vary. With lengthy museum experience I think those I list have merit. Depending on one’s perspectives I recognize they are subjective. Some may be of shared or marginal interest, spot on or off base, worthy of temporary or lengthy attention, or holding accepted or negligible merit. In application my issues tend to focus on collection matters rather than programming or institutional governance trends. My emphasis rests on a curatorial mindset about and administrative devotion to what makes museums unique – the stuff they collect, own, preserve and interpret. Woven into the concerns are fears about deleterious impacts on collections, collecting and collection use. The second half of the book dwells on one tragic practice that has embroiled museums for years. To me it is the destructive outcome of unprotected collection sales caused by the process defined as deaccessioning.