The Changing Role of Television in the Museum

Leif Kramp The Changing Role of Television in the Museum

Museums are a useful source for access to audiovisual heritage—a heritage that is largely unavailable due to restrictions by corporate archives that tend to insulate their assets from the general public and academics. Yet television or broadcasting museums provide access not only to programs from television’s past but also to historical and contemporary artifacts. The potential for such museums to be places of discourse, education, and the shaping of memory is underlined by the connections between television as a mass medium and everyday life, culture, and history. At the same time, television museums have to struggle with the same problems as audiovisual archives: The German Television Museum at the Postdamer Platz in Berlin. the obsolescence of tape formats, cost-intensive The museum is integrated in the Stifung Deutsche Kinemathek equipment, and the inevitability of digitization. that also houses the German Film Museum and the German Film Although there are overlaps with the tasks of and Television Academy. Photo by Leif Kramp. archives and libraries, museums selectively collect and curate for the general public. The primary reason Deutsche Kinemathek, a foundation for film and for the formation of television museums—the television. This development took twenty long extensive loss of programming in the broadcasting years of wrangling over the character and mission archives—has met with the additional mission for of the institution. The museum’s operations are media literacy education to enhance understanding guaranteed until the end of 2012 by a broad of the medium’s mechanisms—in retrospect and coalition of financiers from the public broadcasters advance. ARD, ZDF, Veolia Water, a division of the media In June 2006, the first television museum in conglomerate Vivendi, State Media Broadcasting Germany opened its doors on the Potsdamer Authorities, and finally the German government Platz in Berlin as a division of the Stiftung (which pays the rent).1 The formation process has

48 Media Access: Preservation and Technologies Lucas Hilderbrand, editor, Spectator 27:1 (Spring 2007) 48-57. KRAMP become a symbol for the complicated relations broadcasting museums: the American Museum of between media and politics, as well as for the Television and Radio (MT&R) and the Canadian television industry’s missing awareness of its own Moses Znaimer Television Museum (MZTV history. Museum). First and foremost this new museum in Europe’s geographical center heralds a new conception for Giving Alteration a Name: The “Kinemathek” media museums. During its formation, the project in Berlin and the New Era of Television in the passed through various designs and dismissed many attributes that were once foundational to the Museum original mission of the institution, specifically its function as an archive with the intention of building The German museum was developed under and preserving a collection. This German initiative the name “mediatheque” for about fifteen years, signals a shift that guides the central thesis of until it was integrated into the “Kinemathek.” this article: the concept of television museums as “Mediatheque,” however, refers to an institution primarily archival institutions has failed, which in that collects audiovisual media and also loans it, turn has consequences for accessing our television though this latter service was neither intended nor heritage. Instead, the role of television museums as possible, due to rights issues. This inaccurate name access providers is changing fundamentally, shifting was chosen after years of debates to avoid negative, toward integrating educational programs beyond antiquated connotations that were assumed typical historical texts and highlighting the convergence for the term “museum” as a bildungsbürgerlich of audiovisual media. (educated class) place.3 The International Council Although museums and archives are different of Museums defines the “museum” in a rather types of institutions, decades of television museum traditional if broad way: evolution suggest that they are becoming even more distinct as the predominance of archival A museum is a non-profit making, permanent functions is becoming an obsolescent model for institution in the service of society and of its museums. A perspective that sees museums as development, and open to the public, which archives is caused by the importance of collections acquires, conserves, researches, communicates that focus on object culture. The museum-as- and exhibits, for purposes of study, education repository model comes out of an object culture and enjoyment, material evidence of people that gives importance to collections; this traditional and their environment.4 way that museums define themselves through the uniqueness of their collections does not work any This unquestionably general definition more.2 As independent preservers of television encompasses the diversity of museums from heritage, media museums face challenges in Canada to the Congo and points to the conceptual developing efficient ways to provide broad access to freedom inherent in museums.5 The Berliner either programming or technical artifacts, whether initiative took advantage of this flexibility and due to copyright issues, lost original programs, or learned what to strive for and what to avoid from the fragmentation of the overwhelming amount of its predecessors abroad in North America. assets sleeping in other archives. Consequentially, In all the proposals for the German museum, the the missions of television museums are changing institution was conceived to serve the urgent and these days from archival repositories to institutions essential purpose of preserving cultural identity as that focus more clearly on education, infotainment, communicated in the mass media.6 Thus, it took and context for current issues of media society a while until the main focus shifted from archival using their collections. This article analyzes the tasks to a more educational understanding of the German Television Museum and how its new institution’s responsibility. In a mission statement, conceptual strategy fits into a broader process of the main tasks were formulated very early in the transformation and reorganization, one which planning process: “The museum for broadcasting can be recognized in two of the world’s biggest history ought to make accessible radio- and

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Smoking Politicians: The German Television Museum focuses on a visually attractive setting. Photo courtesy of Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin. television-productions for the general public are not available in the program gallery because independently from the programming structure even short excerpts are not affordable for the small of the broadcasters.”7 The major reason for the budget. The same problem appeared with popular German plans to build a museum in the first place series like the animated Bee Maja or Pan Tau, both was a response to the unavailability of Germany’s Czech productions. In these cases, the museum audiovisual heritage8 —both to make up for the curators had to decline paying 1,500 Euros per broadcast archives’ limited resources and to counter thirty-minute episode.12 a general “cultural shame” that these materials had The general trend toward a hypostatization become inaccessible.9 of “public understanding” in the museum has The need to change the attitude of perceiving also found its way into the German museum.13 itself as an all-embracing—or at least leading— Considerable effort was invested to create a collector of television programming is now visually attractive exhibition area, including a so- enabled by complementary resources such as video, called “time tunnel” which reminds attendees of the Internet, and other collecting institutions.10 major news events: the first man on the moon, the Currently, the collection of the new museum is catastrophe in the mine of Germany’s Lengede, or quite lean: whereas, in the original plan, a minimum 9/11. Another attraction is a “mirror hall” where of 10,000 hours of television programming was a fifteen-minute clip-reel shows the televisual considered indispensable, visitors to the museum history of entertainment from smoking politicians can only access 500 hours—at nine consoles instead on talk shows to excerpts of popular Saturday of the envisioned forty stations.11 The collection will night shows. With constructs of monitors and a surely grow, but slowly and very selectively as the thirty-six channel screen wall, the former head major complex of problems has not disappeared. The of the Deutsche Kinemathek, Hans Helmut museum struggles with right issues and the related Prinzler, wanted to “prise open the dryness and hassle of financial strength. It is often not able to appearance of prudity”14 and to de-stigmatize the pay the required licensing fees to rights holders of museum of any traditional clichés in the hopes of productions that are not completely owned by the attracting potential visitors who otherwise would major German broadcasters, which have contracts be unlikely to be interested in a museum. With this with the museum and supply programming at orientation, the museum complies with the model no cost. For instance, to obtain a copy of Queen of a so-called “post-museum” that Eilean Hooper- Elizabeth II’s coronation for the collection, the Greenhill has envisioned to integrate the museum museum had to pay 1,000 Euros for each minute of into its various communities.15 the running time. Sport programs, such as popular Due to its financial, institutional, and soccer games of the European Champions League cooperative struggles, its public space shrank

50 SPRNG 2007 KRAMP from an initially planned 50,000 to 12,000 square Film and Television Academy and the German feet.16 The museum is small, but such limitations Filmmuseum. Its decisive advantage over other can be beneficial. In scholarship on museums, the museums is its integration into the infrastructure complexity of some institutions is viewed as a of the Kinemathek, which also owns Europe’s problem for the accessibility and perception of the biggest photo archive of film and celebrity stills. whole institution: “Growth is a universal problem The opening of the television museum gave reason with a Pandora’s box of consequences. It appears to implement a server-based system for the whole innocuous but in fact presents a deep conceptual building, which allows visitors access to additional crisis which endangers the museum’s mission and database content, such as basic information about its position in contemporary society.”17 The heart of specific programs in the collection, reviews, Berlin’s new museum is the conference room, which interviews and links to other related assets. is used for meetings, press conferences, screenings, and lectures. Children who grow up with television Desperate to Change: The Dilemma of the often discover the medium for themselves at an Museum of Television & Radio early age. Through cooperation with schools and universities, this form of autodidact self-education As the first broadcasting museum in the United can be complemented, adjusted, and channeled by States, the Museum of Television and Radio, which its institutional expertise. opened in 1976 in New York, was founded to “put Still in its first year, the German Television together the finest collection of radio and television Museum is scheduled to expand its activities in programs and make them available to the general various directions. Plans are on the table to release public and also to interpret the collection with DVDs of highly acclaimed television movies in seminars, festivals, trying to understand both the cooperation with the right holders and to organize aesthetics and historical importance of television symposia with foreign journalists who work as and radio in our lives.”19 In 1996 a second site correspondents in Berlin. “We see ourselves in opened in Beverly Hills, California. Founded by part as a forum of media politics,” says Peter Paul CBS head and television titan William S. Paley, Kubitz, the museum’s head of programming.18 the tie to the commercial networks has always Moreover, he characterizes the museum as a been strong, even stronger than the ties to the relevant source of inspiration for development of general public. Naturally the good relations with current programming by connecting television the networks were a blessing on the surface, due to history to the present. Likewise, the museum the consequential contracts with the broadcasting strives to develop cooperative international efforts industry to deliver programming. As a result of with British and Polish broadcasters and with the constant stream of programs flowing into the institutions like the MT&R and the French collection every year, it became the biggest of its Institut National de l’Audiovisuel. kind—at least among independent museums. It The possibilities seem endless, but the limitations houses more than 144,000 assets of programming, are obvious. Located on the Potsdamer Platz, which includes to more than 100,000 hours of Berlin’s central entertainment district, the museum television and radio programs: television programs strives to reach beyond its boundaries but presents account for sixty percent, radio programs for itself mainly as a tourist attraction rather than as an twenty-four percent and advertising for sixteen academic facility. Addressing the general public on percent. With even 7,000 programs from foreign the surface as a show booth for television history countries, the MT&R has a rich variety of popular holds crucial problems for a young institution that and niche programs that can be viewed for non- wants to be a public center for critical media studies professional or academic purposes. and analysis. With its small collection, the museum However, the MT&R’s strong collection has to develop its ability to provide guidance for its bias has impeded the formation of a confident visitors with interpretation services, educational museum identity. The collection itself became programs, and the know-how of the Deutsche more important than its usage or its practical value Kinemathek, which also operates the German for scholars and the general public, who have both

MEDIA ACCESS 51 TELEVISION IN THE MUSEUM been left to their own devices in terms of learning to develop all museum activities in New York and from the program pool. This freedom benefits the import them to the Los Angeles area. In addition diversity of intentions that characterizes the visitors, to the lack of original programs, the West Coast but it also shows that the task of assisting with the museum’s location far from tourist hotspots and interpretation of the content is not coherently scarce parking further discourage visitors. fulfilled. There has always been a fundamental lack Facing the fundamental changes in the media of exhibitions. The small space behind the New landscape, a seminal reorganization process York location’s foyer, called the Steven Spielberg to rethink its mission started in late 2006. The Gallery, houses changing displays that attest to a museum focuses more and more on the launching scarcely innovative notion of media exhibitions. of business-to-business events. This reorientation Although education grew to the second main is a critical shift in the new identity of the pillar of the museum and is successful mainly in museum, which might soon result in a kind of terms of school tours, the low visitation numbers a media center and endanger its public mission. indicate that the general public is primarily only The MT&R strives to position itself as an active drawn to the education programs. The main reason player in the media industry. These non-public for opening the California branch—engaging the meetings for high-level executives of the media creative community on the West-Coast—has fallen industry are seen as an effective revenue source, short in many aspects and only shows sporadic but the museum is already gradually distancing success through participation in the William S. itself from its public audience. Thus, it might be Paley Television Festival and special invitation- on its way to becoming a place where only a small, only industry galas. Instead of allowing a local narrow, and self-selected audience is invited, as was curatorial vision, museum administration decided a general characteristic of museums decades ago.20

The console center of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York, where the visitors can view programs from the collection. Photo by Norman McGrath.

52 SPRNG 2007 KRAMP The new president Pat Mitchell, who came Two Worlds, One Medium: The Museum’s to the museum in March 2006 from PBS, faces Division between Objects and Programming the crucial task of fundraising for the next stage of the museum’s evolution, along with a broader An interesting alternative to the widely adopted set of restructuring plans. Her reorganization programming-content model for broadcasting initiative comes along with a broader rethinking museums is the MZTV Museum in Toronto, process of the American museum in general, Canada. In contrast to collections found in similar to the early days of their formation.21 The Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia, the increasing availability of television programming MZTV Museum helps the visitors understand on the retail DVD market and the trend that the history of television through objects. This more cultural institutions are incorporating approach demonstrates how the technology was popular culture—especially television—into adopted into the living room in decades past, what their activities make it imperative to adjust lies beneath the scratches and dents on specific the museum’s philosophy. The Internet and the consoles, or even what an old television receiver growing significance of homegrown media portals might tell us about its owner. (For example, a TV like YouTube and MySpace will also change the set can suggest how actresses such as Marilyn museum’s vision and what it collects. Monroe snubbed the small screen in favor of the Even the place of artifacts is being reconsidered, big one.) The museum also broaches the issue of though only for illustrative exhibitions. An current developments in the media landscape and example would be the rebuilding of a living room raises questions of how the licensing of frequencies of the 1950s or ‘60s to situate the audiovisual works, why wrist-watch TV is not a new invention, content. There is also a modest library of a few or what similarities the comparison between the thousand books, encyclopedias, directories, introduction of color television and the first steps biographies, and episode-guides, as well as a large of the internet reveals. collection of reviews, clippings and press releases What a television museum should present is (the latter from NBC and CBS) on microfiche. a question of conception, but first and foremost Additionally, the museum subscribes to about 60 a question of the interrelationship between the newspapers, magazines, journals, and indices that specificity of the medium and the specificity of further make the collection rich enough to be of the institution. Given that “the museum can be interest to scholars. Yet, the academic acceptance described as one of the first institutions of the is not one of the museum’s main problems. Again mass media” by preparing and communicating it finds itself torn between a variety of target information to a broad general public,22 a television groups that should be addressed with equal museum broaches a topic that is theoretically not intensity. that far from its own shape. Yet, on the contrary, The museum’s main problem emerges from the two media are competitors. With its capacity to its lack of interpretation services. The negative provide access to images of distant people and places, effect of the museum’s reorientation is expressed television brings the world into the living room— by cutbacks in the educational programs and something clearly atypical for a static museum.23 decreasing scholarly seminars. Even if the Through the fusion of museum and television, MT&R’s redevelopment results in a more the formerly ubiquitous broadcast becomes holistic view of media history and the current settled at one particular place, and the audiovisual cultural landscape, the crisis of fundraising taking content is interpreted through a curatorial agenda. command over public outreach and programs Traditionally museums put objects on display,24 utilizing the museum’s unique collection must though there is a long debate about the argument be rethought critically. In addition, the question that objects in the museum should speak for has to be raised of what is more valuable, the themselves.25 Even television programming can be collection or the educational framework and defined as objects with reference to their form of support staff to make sense of it for visitors. storage, for example: the videotape. Nevertheless, the proceeding dematerialization of the collections

MEDIA ACCESS 53 TELEVISION IN THE MUSEUM through digitization comes along with a growing the medium’s history. Surprisingly, the German importance of objects, artifacts, and ephemera in museum has set this historic equipment aside, the widest sense. The popularity of the hands-on although it had—and still has—the opportunity principle in education suggests that a solely screen- to integrate the large technology collection of the based exhibition is not likely to be successful.26 German Broadcasting Archive into its exhibitions. The significance of objects is described by Geoffrey Besides a few ephemera, there are no indications Galt Harpham: that the conceptual orientation will lead in that direction. What we call things has emerged into the The MZTV Museum, founded and wholly conceptual field as a problem, a challenge to funded by Canadian media mogul Moses Znaimer, our vocabulary: their identity has not been shapes itself as a clear counterexample to other determined, but ignoring them is no longer television or broadcasting museums that focus an option. We are half aware of them as primarily on programming. It hosts the biggest features of the general surround, and they collection of television sets and receivers, accessible awaken the possibility that material objects, for the general public, worldwide.28 The museum which appear to us primarily as anonymous, focuses on consumer-oriented technology, with random, mute, inert, or functional, can omissions of the whole production aspect including possess a kind of individuality, identity, even cameras, consoles or other behind-the-scenes an ambiguous vivacity.27 equipment. Visitors are induced to deal with the cultural impact of the technology in ways that are Within the context of television, objects like innovative among the community of audiovisual technical artifacts can be as important as the museums. However, with its lack of the production audiovisual content for the understanding of viewpoint, the museum addresses only a small part

The MZTV Museum in Toronto specializes on the technical history of television with a focus on consumer electronics. Photo by Leif Kramp.

54 SPRNG 2007 KRAMP of the whole technical spectrum. With a wealthy founder and funder, the The collection contains television sets from MZTV Museum has other concerns: with its large the 1920s to the new era of plasma and LCD- collection of TV sets and complementary artifacts, TVs. Although the focus is on the technical the issue of deaccession is constantly on the history of North America, it has also a number agenda. The museum has a deaccessioning policy of apparatuses from overseas in store: many from that makes arrangements for situations when a Japan and some from Europe, including a Kuba duplicate object becomes too costly to store or it is Komet from Germany for design purposes. The of no further importance to the collection. Unlike collecting process is very selective because of the television museums that focus on program history, vast range of different models that were marketed where the necessity of continuous collecting stays and the museum’s own space limitations. In 2007 a central task, deaccessioning is a rising issue in the museum will move into a larger, 8,000-square the object-based museum community.30 With the foot building on Toronto’s lakefront that will allow growing awareness about the MZTV Museum the museum to showcase up to ninety percent of and its search for old artifacts, there is reportedly its collection. The museum also plans to put more a large willingness by private individuals to donate ephemera on display, due to its large complementary their discarded television sets.31 The museum collection of videos, books, magazines, photographs, mostly turns down such offers because it does and memorabilia such as music boxes, matchbooks, not want to function as a repository. The selection or salt-and-pepper shakers in form of mini-TVs. process evaluates individual items and questions The museum also continues to acquire relevant whether they tell a story: “Sometimes we collect a rare books and other printed pieces. In 2006 it TV set because the story that the family can tell us bought fifty historical correspondence documents about it is quite valuable”, says museum producer/ between a Canadian corporation and the British controller Michael Adams. television pioneer John Logie Baird, who wanted Despite its efforts to restore and operate its to start selling and manufacturing television sets in artifacts, the MZTV Museum has understood Canada. The museum even plans to buy a book by that its mission disagrees with a primarily archival one of America’s first television pioneers, Charles function. The preservation of the collection Francis Jenkins, from the 1920s for $50,000 is essential, but only one part of its approach (U.S.). of teaching the cultural effects of television Even so, the museum does not aim to be a technology. In addition to school tours and a center of technical expertise, where visitors learn website that provides additional information, the something about how television technique works. museum’s educational outreach allows interns Its focus lies on the question how consumer to produce short documentaries about their technology crosses with culture and how it experiences working and learning at the museum. influences different forms of history, whether Such public involvement extends to an oral history economic, social, or political. The vast majority of project that has been running since 1995 in which original artifacts from the early days of television visitors recall their earliest memories of watching have been destroyed; many of these destroyed television and what they predict the future of the receivers were unique. Museum founder Znaimer medium could look like. The collection of those is often quoted by the press with his catch phrase, video recordings shows the extreme differences of “There are fewer pre-war TVs left in the world than perspectives and holds source-material for studies Stradivarius violins.”29 One critical problem that about the changing role of television over the years museums generally face results from the desolate and generations. state of the technological television heritage: the value of a single specimen may be exorbitant. This Conclusion concentration process, combined with the inflation of the collectibles market, requires something that Our television heritage is a shared heritage. It museums usually don’t have at their disposal: a lies in corporate and university archives, in libraries, sufficiently high budget. in the attics of former broadcasting employees, and

MEDIA ACCESS 55 TELEVISION IN THE MUSEUM in the hands of private collectors. It is in television will become essential for older generations to museums where the general public can find their understand new developments in the industry way into the content and technical history of and their relationships to the past they have lived television. Nonetheless, the role of such museums through. Adult education is a field that was and has changed as the archival showcase model has still is neglected by television museums and that yielded to the growing importance of attracting, risks expanding the generational gap between engaging, and educating the public with a broad young and old television audiences. lineup of accessing tools, models, and instructions. There has been a rise in the importance of These museums’ important role as access education for museums generally, which has institutions for television history is supplemented reshaped not only their public programs but even by their responsibility for providing context and their missions.32 This has likewise become true of interpretation. Otherwise, museums would simply television museums and points to the inadequacy leave their visitors alone with their impressions of of the either/or (either featuring programming the medium’s artifacts—the way television did and or technology) models of the leading museums still does in the home. Without offering guidance in the U.S. and Canada. The complexities and to the past, present, and future of the media world, possibilities for television museums affected the the museum loses its authority. Especially in the new German museum as it developed amidst 21st century, television belongs in the museum changing paradigms for museums and drew from as television as we have known it evolves and prior media institutions’ endeavors. Increasingly, it converges with cell phones, iPods, and the world is not only about the collection any more, but also wide web. More importantly, educational services what museums and visitors make out of it.

Leif Kramp received an M.A. in journalism & communication science and history from the University of Hamburg. Currently he is writing his dissertation in media studies. He works as a media scholar and cultural correspondent for various outlets. His work has appeared in Rundfunk und Geschichte, Die Alpha- Journalisten, Deutschlands Wortführer im Porträt, and Grundlagen der Medienpolitik. Notes

1. The major private broadcasters RTL and ProsiebenSat1 originally agreed to contribute financial support but now hesitate due to the debate over the orientation of the new museum. 2. Harold Skramstad, “An Agenda for Museums in the Twenty-First Century,” in Gail Anderson, ed., Reinventing the Museum: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift (Walnut Creek, Calif: AltaMira Press, 2004), 129. 3. See Till Radevagen, “Allseitige Zustimmung und gezückte Scheckbücher?” W&M 2 (1991). 4. ICOM Statutes, article 2, paragraph 1. 5. See Kenneth Hudson, “Attempts to Define ‘Museum,’” in David Boswell and Jessica Evans, eds., Representing the Nation: A Reader: Histories, Heritage and Museums (New York: Routledge, 1999), 371. 6. Akademie der Künste, Abteilung Film- und Medienkunst, Deutsche Mediathek im Aufbau (Berlin: Akademie der Künste, sa.), 3. 7. Akademie der Künste Berlin, “Protokoll der Tagung der Arbeitsgruppen ‘Medien-Hearing’ am 13./14.3.87 in der AdK”, (working paper: protocol, Akademie der Künste: Archiv, AdK-W 1642, Berlin, 1987), 2. Translation by the author. 8. Akademie der Künste Berlin, “Medien-Hearing II: Zur Bewahrung von Funk- und Fernsehkultur in den Archiven der öffentlich-rechltichen Rundfunkanstalten am 6. Juni 1986 in der AdK” (working paper: protocol, Akademie der Künste: Archiv, AdK-W 1640, Berlin, 1986), 95. 9. Verein Freunde der Deutschen Mediathek e.V., “Deutsche Mediathek im Aufbau, Protokoll der Veranstaltung am 14.2.91 15-20 Uhr in den Clubräumen der AdK” (working paper: protocol, Akademie der Künste: Archiv, AdK-W 16. Berlin, 1991), 15. 10. Simon Knell, “Altered Values: Searching for a New Collecting,” in Knell, ed., Museums and the Future of Collecting, second ed. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 31.

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11. Akademie der Künste, Abteilung Film- und Medienkunst, Deutsche Mediathek im Aufbau (Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 1994), 21. 12. Leif Kramp, “Fester Ort für flüchtige Bilder,”EPD Medien, no. 36 (10 May 2006), 3-6. 13. Roger Silverstone, “The Medium is the Museum,” in Roger Miles and Laura Zavala, eds., Towards the Museum of the Future: New European Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1994), 174. 14. Hans Helmut Prinzler, interviewed by the author on 18 January 2005. 15. Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture (New York: Routledge, 2000), 152. 16. Verein Freunde der Deutschen Mediathek e.V., “Deutsche Mediathek, Ziele, Aufgaben, Organisation und Haushalt” (working paper, in the author’s possession, 1995), 8. 17. Tomislav Sola, “Redefining Collecting,” inMuseums and the Future of Collecting, 252. 18. Peter Paul Kubitz, interviewed by the author on 18 January 2005. 19. MT&R’s Television Curator Ronald Simon, who joined the staff in the late 1970s, interviewed by the author on August 4th, 2006. 20. Neil Kotler and Philip Kotler, “Can Museums Be All Things to All People? Missions, Goals, and Marketing’s Role,” in Reinventing the Museum, 167. 21. Harold Skramstad, ” An Agenda for Museums in the Twenty-First Century,” 118. 22. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture, 132. 23. Alan Morton, “Tomorrow’s Yesterdays: Science Museums and the Future,” Robert Lumley, ed, The Museum Time-Machine: Putting Cultures on Display (New York: Routledge, 1988), 135. 24. David Scruton, “The Networked Museum,”New Review of Information Networking, 11:2 (2005), 171. 25. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture, 49. 26. John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, “Learning from Museums,” Visitor Experiences and the Making of Learning (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2000), 195-196. 27. Geoffrey Galt Harpham, “Things and Theory,”Raritan 25, no. 2 (Fall 2005), 135. 28. Together with related books, magazines, toys, and other ephemera, the collection includes some 10,000 objects. The value of the collection is an estimated $5 to $6 to six million (U.S.). Gayle MacDonald, “One Man’s Shrine to Must-See TVs,” The Globe and Mail, 2 April 2002. 29. First published in Watching TV (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum/MZTV Museum, 1995). 30. Marie C. Malaro, “Deaccessioning: The American Perspective,” inReinventing the Museum, 331-339. 31. Richard Sassaman, ” Small-Screen Gems,” Invention & Technology 22, no. 1 (Summer 2006): 52-55. 32. See George E. Hein, Learning in the Museum (New York: Routledge, 1998), 12; Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture, 1.

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