DOI article:
Bather, Francis Arthur: Museum reports: a suggestion
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.69241#0046
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Bather, Museum Reports: A Suggestion
MUSEUM REPORTS: A SUGGESTION
HY
F. A. BATHER
Wheii the Editor of this Journal was good enough to ask me to contribute
a short article to his first number, I strongly wished to accept his invi-
tation for many reasons, not the least of which was an anxiety to be thus honor-
ably associated with a Journal, which, we may hope, will become another link
between the museums of the world, and encourage that brotherly spirit of Co-
operation which is not quite so well developed as it might be among their offi-
cials. But, having of late written so much on general museum subjects, I found
my stock of ideas pretty well exhausted. And so, in search of a Suggestion, I
stood in front of my bookcase, filled with museum literature and museum reports,
idly taking up one pamphlet after another. But, looking through these reports,
how little could I find that implied any broad view of the subject, or that offered
Information of use to museum-curators in general!
Why is it that the majority of museum reports are so dull? One has to
scan them for some time before comprehending why they are printed at all. Let
me take up one — the first that comes to hand — they are all much the same.
This one teils us how many days in the year the museum was open, how many
hours each day, how many people passed through on a week-day, and how many
on a Sunday. It relates certain details about the various officials of the museum,
from the director to the door-keeper. It gives a highly uninteresting account, as
Condensed as possible, of the various accessions to the museum, through donation
or purchase, during the year to which it refers, and in these lists the names of
the donors naturally figure very conspicuously. We then have a catalogue, very
fully spaced out in different kinds of type, of the various institutions in other
parts of the world with which the museum exchanges its publications; and, finally
the balance-sheet of the museum for the year. The next report picked up begins
with two pages filled with the names of the governing council of the museum
and the various sub-committees and staff; then come Statements of certain altera-
tions that have been made in the mounting of specimens, in the arrangement of
the cases and so forth — mere bald Statements, which really give no information.
They are succeeded by a list of donations with the names of the donors spelled
in large Capital letters, but the objects given indicated very briefly. The report
concludes with the usual Statement of the number of visitors and the balance-sheet.
And so these reports appear year after year, giving no doubt some pleasure
t6 those worthy people who like to see their own names in print, presenting an
Bather, Museum Reports: A Suggestion
MUSEUM REPORTS: A SUGGESTION
HY
F. A. BATHER
Wheii the Editor of this Journal was good enough to ask me to contribute
a short article to his first number, I strongly wished to accept his invi-
tation for many reasons, not the least of which was an anxiety to be thus honor-
ably associated with a Journal, which, we may hope, will become another link
between the museums of the world, and encourage that brotherly spirit of Co-
operation which is not quite so well developed as it might be among their offi-
cials. But, having of late written so much on general museum subjects, I found
my stock of ideas pretty well exhausted. And so, in search of a Suggestion, I
stood in front of my bookcase, filled with museum literature and museum reports,
idly taking up one pamphlet after another. But, looking through these reports,
how little could I find that implied any broad view of the subject, or that offered
Information of use to museum-curators in general!
Why is it that the majority of museum reports are so dull? One has to
scan them for some time before comprehending why they are printed at all. Let
me take up one — the first that comes to hand — they are all much the same.
This one teils us how many days in the year the museum was open, how many
hours each day, how many people passed through on a week-day, and how many
on a Sunday. It relates certain details about the various officials of the museum,
from the director to the door-keeper. It gives a highly uninteresting account, as
Condensed as possible, of the various accessions to the museum, through donation
or purchase, during the year to which it refers, and in these lists the names of
the donors naturally figure very conspicuously. We then have a catalogue, very
fully spaced out in different kinds of type, of the various institutions in other
parts of the world with which the museum exchanges its publications; and, finally
the balance-sheet of the museum for the year. The next report picked up begins
with two pages filled with the names of the governing council of the museum
and the various sub-committees and staff; then come Statements of certain altera-
tions that have been made in the mounting of specimens, in the arrangement of
the cases and so forth — mere bald Statements, which really give no information.
They are succeeded by a list of donations with the names of the donors spelled
in large Capital letters, but the objects given indicated very briefly. The report
concludes with the usual Statement of the number of visitors and the balance-sheet.
And so these reports appear year after year, giving no doubt some pleasure
t6 those worthy people who like to see their own names in print, presenting an