Quote:
Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde
Michael, Reading you mail makes me even more sad than reading Brian’s
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Ok. I think we are tragedize too much. There are many pros of museums any way. Let's see:
Many of the great scholars were working in Museums. Thanks to them we know what we know.
Museums are still the places were you can get experience, you can learn a lot, and last but not least - they're still stimulating centers for science (e.g. historical, archeological etc.)
All in all I think that collections are safe in Museums. For example: my museum was founded in 19th century. It was at the time when Poland didn't politically exist, then it get through 1st WW, 2nd WW and communists regime. Of course there are museums that lost many of the collections during these hard days, but my preserved in very well condition. We could secure evacuation for the objects, and those which stayed were treaten with respects even by invaders. Some of them were stolen, but we still are recovering them from whole world with success. From my military department there were nothing lost! Ironicaly, there were few objects stolen during peaceful times.
Another thing is that collections are safe here in wholeness and hardly ever they are sentenced to dispersion, while I knew and heard about many collectors, whoes work of life after their death was sold out by family on every world's direction. While biggest collections given for museums are treaten with respect and sometimes there are called after the collector's name.