FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Linda St-Cyr]

I love museums. Oddly, people always think of the large institutions when they use the word. But it saddens me that they have so much hidden away that we will never see. I believe that more smaller museums (including people's homes, when they open their doors to like-minded souls) might be a solution. I know, for example, that Paris has dozens of smaller museums. What a delight! Also, I believe that people would be more willing to support smaller organizations within a few miles of their home. There is a perception that the larger institutions have so much bureaucracy that the gift will be lost.

[John S. White]

Well Linda and others who are not all that familiar with museums, there are large musuems and there are large museums, they are not all the same. I can speak for my former one, the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and what I am about to write is true for many others. Yes, the collections are very large and only a small percent is exhibited. But the value and purpose of the collection goes well beyond public display. These collections are valuable archives, preserving material that is for the most part not currently available. This material gets seen more that you might realize, depending upon the willingness of the staff to allow visitors with justifiable causes to access it. Serious collectors can usually gain such access. More importantly, however, scientists can gain access to it and actually obtain from it samples to support their research. How else is a scientist going to be able to easily obtain apatites from hundreds of localities, for example, while being reasonably assured that the locality data is accurate?

Most large museums do not anymore simply accept all gifts (mineral collections) that are offered, as was often the case in the past. Museums must determine that a collection that is offered represents a significant contribution to its collection, and is not just more of the same. Some duplication of very good specimens is desired, however, because these redundant pieces can be used in exchanges wherein other more desired specimens can be obtained. Few museums are allowed to sell redundant material, but they can exchange it for better pieces.

So it is important to understand that major institutional collections are not just cases full of drawers with specimens gathering dust and never seen. That very definitely is not the case.

[MaryFender]

John - well said and exactly true. I would add that if you are planning to donate to a museum and they are interested please do not hinder them with numerous legacy provisions. It costs money to house the items and the museum needs flexibility to decide what is of value to the overall collection and what is not.

Further I would encourage museums to use some of the donated material in their gift shops to raise funds to further enhance the collection. It is quite clear with the state of the world economy museums may be in for a decade of lean budgets.

[Linda St-Cyr]

John, I was on my small-museum soapbox and I did not intend a put-down for large museums - far from it - and I apologize profusely if it sounded that way. I estimate that I have had 50-100 museum memberships over the years, have made over 1000 visits to museums of all sizes and types, I have a few curator friends, and I've done the behind-the-scenes visits. So while my experience may differ from yours, I think it is still a valid point of view. When I go to the Petersen Automotive Museum, I wish I could see ALL of their collection, but I'm never going to be able to convince anyone to let me in! Obviously museums have to hold some of the collection in storage, for various reasons: science, preservation, lack of space and even to entice people back. When I reported that there is a perception that the gift may be lost, I was actually thinking of Armand Hammer, who after promising his art collection to the LA County Museum (on whose board he served), then shocked everyone by building his own museum, which is a delightful place and at the time was much closer to where I lived. My method of museum support is through my memberships. I don't think I own a single specimen that any large museum would covet, but I think I can create displays of educational and oddball minerals that any one of you would enjoy, should you pass through the Reno-Sparks area.

[Linda St-Cyr]

And I meant to say, Mary, that using some donated material in the gift shops is a really great idea. I always check those shops in hope of finding something unusual. I have found good minerals in museum shops outside the US, but almost never in the US. Our fair country is getting a bit too homogenized in too many ways - I take great delight in finding different ideas, different food (in that, the US has made big strides!), different people. Vive la difference!

[John S. White]

Linda I did not, in any way, interpret your comments as a put-down of large museums, but you did give me an opportunity to deliver my spiel about collections in these museums. I can't begin to tell you how often I have heard people say that they would never give their collections to this or that museum because the vast majority of what the museum already has is stored away in drawers gathering dust. This is, of course, not true.

One point that I failed to make is that most museums today cannot accept donations if there are conditions attached to the gift. Donors no longer can demand that their donated objects be exhibited, that they be kept by the museum in perpetuity, that they can't be sold or traded away, etc., and this is a good thing but it causes some potential donors to decide not to donate.