New subject: road trip to the MARCH museum, was Re: Museum for sale

22 Jan 2010

...
  From:Rob Jarratt
 Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:26 AM 
...
  My dictionary says a museum is "A building used
for storing and exhibition
 of objects...". Not much exhibiting going on in this "museum". I think a
 museum is only a museum if the public can go there and see the physical
 objects. I don't think a web site can be a museum, unless the "objects"
are
 software or other purely digital artefacts. 
Here's what the American Association of Museums, the accrediting organization
for museums in the U. S., has to say about that:

                http://www.aam-us.org/pubs/mn/snapshot.cfm

        Anyone who studies museums in a serious way will quickly encounter
        a few hurdles. First, you can't really define museums; at least,
        there is no definition that can be used consistently to include or
        exclude organizations from the ranks. A number of such groups as
        the International Council of Museums have written definitions that
        they use to determine membership. Others, such as the federal
        Institute of Museum and Library Services, use a definition to
        determine funding eligibility. The definitions agree on a few key
        points:  museums are educational in nature and are open to the
        public at least part of the year. But consensus quickly breaks
        down. Most definitions prominently feature preservation and
        exhibition of collections, but our survey reveals that a fifth of
        museums report that they do not own, care for or use
        collections. Most definitions cite museums as being nonprofit
        entities working in service to the public, although there is a
        small but growing number of for-profit museums in the
        U.S. Increasingly, there are museums that exist only in such
        virtual locations as Second Life. What does it mean for these
        museums to be "open to the public"?

It continues, but that's pretty definitive right there.

Speaking as the holder of a certificate in museology from the University of
Washington, I would consider Robert Krten's pdp12.org to be an on-line museum,
and not at all unique even within this community.

Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104

mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org

http://www.PDPplanet.org/
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/