Right! I've relabelled all the fossils explaining that they were laid down in the Great Flood. I've replaced any datings from before 4004 B.C. and I'm just about to shift the dinosaur skeletons across to the "Early Homonids" display section so they can play with the children. I reckon it'll all take about siz days then I'll have a nice rest. Anything else needing done?
I've called you all together here to let you know that the 'Cash in the Attic' team will be arriving at 10 o-clock. I'd like you to give them all the assistance they need.
Museums are conversations, human beings talking to each other in human voices, not old stuff in glass cases that smells of death. Museum 2.0 will no longer have "visitors" and "exhibits", but must create conversational artefacts which anyone can interact with anywhere. User-contributed content organised by folksonomies instead of exclusionary scholarly descriptions. To begin with, I'm hiring a team of user experience designers to transform our exhibition halls into themed multimedia internet-enabled user-directed experiences. The old stuff in glass cases can be stored in the basement. And every member of staff is going to write a blog.
[Raak] I think you have that wrong. In my experience of museums that person will end up as the Head Curator - possibly as CEO of MLA. Likewise Sierra Mike's. Here's the surefire way to get sacked:
"What we need round here is proper, orderly cataloguing; displays that present artefacts in chronological order and present them in the proper scholarly language. Under no circumstances must members of the public be permitted to sketch items, talk or bring children into what is properly a space for private scholarship or, better, religious contemplation."
[Projoy] *swoon* Except I'd allow a limited number of bona fide students with sketch pads, provided they are studying a relevant subject at a proper university and have a letter of introduction from their head of department. A few serious bright young things make a suitable decoration for hushed halls of learning.
[Projoy] Well, if the game has become How to Get Fired as Quickly as Possible I'd suggest "I've soaked everything in petrol and put a match to it". :o)
The conventional view is that museums hold things of the past. Why don't we challenge that and build a museum of the present! An exhibition of the best of modern life: espresso machines, boy bands, and Jade Goody nude. And we'll never run out of space, when we throw out the new to make way for the newer.
"Ooooh-la-la, my first order of business will be to gargle with lavoris, next I'll slap on a little cologne, and finally its off to reanimate old Queen Hatshepsut in her drab sarcophagus. Now, WHERE did I put that 'Do Not Disturb' sign?"
Listing all these civilizations by name is racist, and separating the artifacts into so-called "cultures" only demonstrates outdated tunnel-visioned stereotyping.
I'm quite shocked at the state of disrepair of so many of our exhibits. I'm going to commission some artists to recarve the features on the Easter Island statue, and a couple of gallons of plastic wood should see the old Polynesian boats in proper working order again.
An excellent choice, sir. [sotto voce] Strictly entre nous, I like that one so much that I swiped a couple of bottles last Saturday, took them home and got completely rat-arsed!
We'd save a lot of money by buying any old plonk and replacing the labels with whatever we want to print up. The punters will believe whatever I tell them.
With respect, sir has neither the taste to appreciate the wine that sir is indicating, nor, to judge by sir's off-the-peg suit, the wallet to pay for it. May I suggest that sir sticks to the house red instead of getting ideas above himself?