Hello to all Conch-Lers,
The answer of Wes is very interesting and gives some light about why the
shell collection open to the public is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO small. I never
thought that there was no shell in the Bishop Museum's collection or that it
was restricted only to that dozen shells open to the public, but my question
was WHY is was hidden from the public.
If the scientific collection "is not open to the public, but you can arrange
to see it FOR A SPECIAL REASON" (and I had no special reason to see it),
this opens another question, at least to me (Andy, here comes the polemic
point!!): what is the role of a museum, from the public perspective?
...because the public is the one who is paying museums bills. I think that
it would be "nice" to visit the Louvre and know that Da Vinci's Monalisa or
Milo's Venus were locked in humidity controlled steel cabinets well
protected from the public, isn't it? Lack of money and people is not an
excuse, since I think that with creativity some very good solutions can be
found. And I'll raise another question: what is the role of the public, from
a museum perspective?
Since my background is system analisys, this remembers me an old saying in
the computer sciences area: it would be nice for the software development if
we didn't have the client!! ;-))
BTW, you can blame me as much as possible 'cause I'll only read the messages
next Monday. Have a nice weekend. ;-))
Cheers,
Eduardo Moreira
Brasilia, Brazil
PS: Andy, did I do the homework correctly? ;-))
-----Mensagem original-----
De: Wesley M. Thorsson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Enviada em: Quinta-feira, 20 de Julho de 2000 16:29
Assunto: Bishop Museum Shell Collection
Re Eduardo Moreia's comment about the shell collection at Bishop Museum.
There are only two very small areas open to the public. One is on a
staircase crossover area and the other is in a small room leading to a
courtyard, well hidden from most.
The scientific collection is on the third floor of the main building,
and is not open to the public, but you can arrange in advance to see it
for a special reason. The museum is staffed with very few people, and
aren't set up for casual tours of the shells. However, it houses the
largest collection of Pacific Landsnails in the world, and Robert Cowie,
the Dept. Head is expert in that area. Of course, is is very good on
Hawaiian Landsnails. The collection of Pacific marine shells is quite
extensive and well housed in new steel cabinets. The type specimen
collection is quite good. In general the dry and wet collections have a
good part of marine molluscs available in the Pacific.
--
Aloha from Wesley M. Thorsson
Editor of Internet Hawaiian Shell News, a monthly Internet Publication
122 Waialeale St, Honolulu, HI 96825-2020, U.S.A
http://www.hits.net/~hsn [log in to unmask]
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