Mulling a museum

YES. WHAT HE SAID. Here in NJ, we were fortunate to have the opposite happen: an area science museum approached us with the idea of having a computer history display area. Being wide-eyed and foolish, we accepted. ;) That was 8 years ago. The science museum gave us copious amounts of physical space for very little money. So "fortunate" barely even describes our unique situation. We fell into a pile of gold is more like it. But be careful what you wish for ... as Will and others noted, it's A LOT OF WORK. And again, "a lot" is an understatement. It's akin to opening a business or having a child: you have to be ultra-devoted to the cause, or else it will fail. By "devoted" I don't just mean morally. You have to be prepared to create / find / make resources -- time, volunteers, funds, displays, time, funds, and did I mention time and funds? Make sure you can do all of that BEFORE asking people to donate artifacts. Otherwise, it's fraud (in the plain English sense.) If I had to start from scratch, and our local generous science museum didn't exist, then I'd probably approach the CS department of a community college to request display space, and I'd focus on the history of your hyper-local region. Aside: a privately owned collection located in a privately owned place is not a museum.