Museum! Message Board

Has everyone seen the trailers for Night at the Museum ? I was sure this is what really happened at my local museum as a kid. Looks funny. My favorite place to shop for Christmas presents The Art Institute of Chicago They have a catalog!

Now I have... uah, not really the kind of museum I had in mind... ;o)
Anyway, welcome everybody!
What would be the first thing that come to your mind when thinking about books and museums?

I love the logo. Here's a quick list of my favorite museums, mostly in Boston, and leaving out the Met, Louvre, Vatican.

1. Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. I love the old-fashionedness of a museum of--basically--stuffed animals. The breadth of the collection is really amazing, and while a zoo does allow you to see animals in motion, you see fewer of them, and, with some exceptions depending on special, no real opportunity to study them up close. The coelacanth is a plus.
2. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Reverting to list format. I have work to do.
3. Sackler, Washington, DC.
4. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
5. Istanbul Archaelogical Museum

The first thing that came to my mind was the story The Barnum Museum by Steven Millhauser. I think his short stories are terrific and even better than his novels, although he did win a Pulitzer for Martin Dressler. The museum in The Barnum Museum is a huge, rambling building full of strange, sometimes unnerving exhibits and as soon as I read the story I wished that I could go there. :-)

Hi everybody!

Well, the first thing that came to mind was... work. I work in a museum.

And work makes me think of exhibitions and exhibition catalogs... There are so many exhibits that I would love to see. But since I can't travel too extensively, I'll settle for getting the catalogs!

I love exhibition catalogs, as you can see: http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=exhibition%20catalog&view=lilith... I just wish they weren't so darned expensive!

If you look for annual sales of excess books at big public libraries, they tend to have a lot of excess exhibition catalogs. At the annual sale for the Boston Public Library, there will be several hundred of them available for a couple bucks a piece - all unnecessary duplicates (triplicates, quadlicates, etc) donated by people who accumulate large numbers of catalogues for professional purposes.

Oh, yes, I buy many at book sales. Birthdays and Christmas are good, too! The problem comes when you go to an exhibit and really want the catalog, but even the softcover catalog way out of your budget. Not that I don't understand why they're expensive; I just wish my bank account would support my desire!

Just thought i'd post a message to -
1. keep this group active and
2. talk about museums

I'm currently working in a Zoological museum entering the information from the 150yo ink and paper (marbled endpapers) register into a database and designing a web site for it. It is a great museum, it has a number of Thylacine skulls, stuffed monkeys, pinned butterflies and so much more. Very much fun. Cheers.

The first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about books is the library where I volunteer. When I think about museums, the first thing that pops into my mind is the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art), which I have been to a bunch of times, but never seem to grow tired of.

By the way, I saw "Night at the Museum," and I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was. (I originally went to see it simply because it was about a museum.)

hey, fly to Lisbon (Portugal) and enjoy MNAA http://www.mnarteantiga-ipmuseus.pt/

HI lilithcat!

I am connected with the Museum für Völkerkunde here, which is part of the KHM. The Kunsthistorisches Museum had a couple of years ago a beautiful exhibition on Glass - but the catalogue was 100€ (and sold miserably). We have found that the Schmerzgrenze (painful level) is 29€ (ca. 37$) - above that the sales plummet!
The Albertina has beautiful catalogues, nearly all priced at 29€ regardless of the size, some are truly a bargain (and sell well).

greetings from Vienna!
John

Yes, they keep the price to about that, but this year's wonderful exhibit had two. And I of course had to buy both. However, at that quality, both of the exhibit and the books, I think the weight hurt more than the price.