Museum Wiki

Timothy W. Luke’s interpretation of museum politics in these chapters gave an inconclusive view on how a museum should be handled. As of yet I do not think he answered the question on what is the “right way” to manage museum politics. He makes several points that illustrate questions that curators and historians should ask about themselves. He states on page 3 “the curators pose as unseen seers, and then fuse their visions with authority.”  It is a “power” that, I believe, is being misused by historians and politicians to display an “Americaness” vision of U.S. history. He demonstrates the attempt to fix this misuse in the varying museum exhibitions that have been denied in major museums or quickly closed. I am troubled by the idea that there is a “right way” to display history. Luke explained that several of these exhibit’s scripts give attention to several different sides of the story but I have to ask is it possible to include every aspect available? I do not think so. After reading the grant proposal for the Boise wiki, I believe that if we can see continued success with local wikis it can be translated to museum wikis. Similar to the idea of the Historic Saranac Lake wiki, I would hope that we could create interconnected local museum wikis. This then would allow for those wishing to contribute or those that believe a certain aspect of an exhibit was missing to include their thoughts, memories, or research of the topic. Perhaps in the un-edited world of wiki we could overcome the politics that limit new and “offending” exhibits.