I very much appreciated Charlie Sturm's recent comments about museum
displays.  As a museum employee since 1968, I have found that despite our
idealized hopes of what a museum should be, in many respects it is a
workplace like any other, including the various political pressures which
determine what actually is the end product of any effort. Perhaps
especially because we all--the public, museum artists, museum curators and
volunteers, museum administrators, museum educators, museum donors--have
such very high expectations of what we would each like to see done with the
relatively meagre resources of these institutions, the pressures resulting
from the clash of differing visions can be enormous.  From experience, I
can tell you that the very trait of a museum shell display which seems
especially fine from one of these viewpoints can, from another viewpoint,
seem to be its fatal flaw.

J.Jass, Zoology, Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee WI, email: [log in to unmask]