When public museums came to be in the late 19th and early 20th centuries they were primarily formed to be a repository for items and artifacts that people had collected on travels or through organized expeditions. The intention was to gather these artifacts for further study. Eventually these institutions morphed into places for the display of the collections that not only scholars, but also the public could come to see. That brings us to the large museums we know today with their dynamic programing and money generating entertainment.
A section of the display of Parthenon statuary at the British Museum
The methods for storage, reckoning with the histories and acquisition of objects, and our present world have not kept pace with each other. I visited the British Museum as part of a summer program through my university and of course, we were there to se the Parthenon statues (which were already controversial in the 80’s). However, what I was shocked by was a trip to a small storage room on the lower level of the museum. There our professor was excited to show us was row upon row of ancient pieces of Greek statuary fragments just laying around on shelves. There was no visible organization of the items or any identifying information. This all came to mind this morning as I read this New York Times article about the recent discovery of the long time theft of pieces from the collection by a curator. My point is that security and the organization and maintenance of many museum’s collections are sorely in need of examination and updating. In some cases, they have more in common with your kitchen’s junk drawer than not. Also, if you have so much in the collection that you cannot secure or maintain it, perhaps dispersing (or returning) some of it is not a bad idea - maybe take a look at the KonMari method?
