The basic question: Why do people collect things?

Lately I have been learning more (via overhearing people in surrounding cubicles or on work-sponsored discussion boards) about the changing roles of museums and how those shifts directly affect the kinds of people that museums need to hire to stay as viable and relevant as possible. Then I started thinking about how evaluating the relevance of any cultural institution can only happen once a mutually agreed-upon function for it has been established. What do museums provide to the public and how is that role (from both the public and the institution's perspective) changing? In a more practical way, how do these changing aims affect the staffing needs of institutions and how might I imagine myself within this larger picture in the future? This is really also a question about what museums provide for their employees and what kind of community they hope to foster, but more on that later. For now, let's start at the beginning.

I checked out a children's book on museums from the library the other day just to see how they are being introduced to new audiences. I think that I take for granted a certain basic understanding of museums and our support of their continued existence sometimes, and reading this book helped to reiterate how other people might relate to museums without the assumptions that I happen to have. More specifically, this book poses the basic question of "Why do people collect things?". I know it seems silly, but I honestly forget to consider the answer to that question most of the time because it seems that there is already way too much to figure out once collections of things have already been formed and we are faced with the dilemma of what to do (or what not to do) with them.



Another idea that I found interesting in the children's book was its description of the way that museums are often stuck with collections of things they don't really know what to do with, or even necessarily want. Presented this way, I can see the absurdity of storing things of unquantifiable value in the hope that their value will increase or gain significant meaning later. How can this model for action ever stay viable? I don't really believe (most of the time) that museums are nothing more than just repositories for dusty art and artifacts that we keep around for fear of regretting the choice to get rid of them (a ridiculous motivation that I do relate to, sadly), but I can understand how other people might feel that way.

One last thing (vaguely related to the notion of museum work communities), while browsing the wiki at one of my jobs the other day I discovered Musematic, a site about museum informatics and related interests of nerdy museum workers that I will potentially one day emulate! I haven't read more than a handful of posts so far, but the contributors seem to cover a range of ideas that I was beginning to investigate when I was looking into M.L.I.S. programs with the intention of applying those skills at an academic or museum library, and at the same time the scope of ideas that I am thinking about pursuing now through Museum Studies (a broader engagement within the institutional structure that is yet to be defined). While it's definitely not my forte, the ways that museums of all kinds now incorporate technology in their on-site operations and exhibitions, as well as the myriad of ways that they need to utilize the web to promote activities, establish new modes of engagement, and improve their accessibility to a wider range of visitors are quite crucial topics right now.

Ok, I need to tackle some answers, or at least some outside opinions on some of these questions. Otherwise, these posts will never rise beyond the solipsism of interior monologue to become truly productive. NEXT TIME!