This special section has been designated to honor both the past and the future, with due respect for the present, by featuring the end of the Museum Practitioner Seminar. It's hard to imagine Chicago without the Field Museum, Manhattan without the Metropolitan, Paris without the Louvre. Together with collection, preservation and research, the twin aspects of education reflected through exhibition design and interpretation have been seen as the museum's major raison d'etre , and the indisputable justification for public support. Yet museums have another vital function, one not unrelated to their capacity to stimulate curiosity, encourage exploration, and support learning. Museums are also public places, serving as landmarks and destinations and giving shape to urban space.
Museums are places where people gather informally, places of collective memory and imagination.
This issue includes a controversy timeline, case studies, reflective essays and practical recommendations by a wide variety of authors who have dealt with sensitive topics in a museum setting. Readers will want to keep this issue as a handy reference for years to come. Access the controversy timeline and add to it by going to the MER home page. To answer this question, we need to know more about them, the forces that have created them, and the questions they raise about the appropriate educational role of museums.