This is Cincinnati. Once, when Ralph Dury was director, we had a wonderful Shell Room. Then the new director took over and was into birds. The Shell Room then contained PICTURES of birds. The shells are still there, hiding in the "Collections Building". Every so often, I get asked to pick a few to display like when the Omnimax is doing a show on something underwater. There are 135,000 shells in the Cincinnati collection. I know because I counted them. They are not available to the general public.
     Art
>
> From: Ellen Bulger <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 2004/02/06 Fri PM 04:41:57 EST
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: "Pop" shell museums and Crescent Beach.
>
> I do find contemporary museums a dumbed-down bore. Only the iceberg tip
> of most collections are on view and the bulk of the space is given over
> to giant "Gee-Whiz, Water is Wet!" exhibits. The assumption seems to be
> that the typical museum visitor is only as bright as a twenty-watt
> bulb. That is not true, and visitors who are that dim aren't going to
> learn anything despite all the 12-foot tall giant ears and force-fed
> monosyllabic interpretations with lift-the-flap quizzes. People bring
> their kids out of a sense of obligation, but by and large adults are
> bored.
>
> I'll take something like the Cambridge Peabody's victorian collections
> over giant rubber models any day.
>

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