Entry fees & all that

From
Date
Napoleon's words come to mind, except that the nation of shopkeepers seems
this time to stretch way  beyond the lands of Albion.

Musea, especially natural history ones, under whatever form, are
repositories of our common natural and cultural heritage. "Things" are
assembled there for the safe keeping for present and future generations. We
have been entrusted with them by our ancestors, to look after them and to
pass them on to our children, just as they did for us. We seem to forget
too easily and very conveniently that we, curators, scientists, directors,
&c, are passing through: the specimens remain. It is an honour and
privilege to look after them and pass them on in as good a state as
possible to those following us and we should take every opportunity to
share this heritage.

Because we have been entrusted with their safe keeping, we should avoid
making the by now all too common mistake to think we somehow "own" them. We
do not. They "belong" to every one of us, past, present and future.

It is therefore an outrage to ask people like you and me, in newspeak known
also as "the general public" to pay in order to look at them. After all, it
is as much "theirs" as it is "ours" (strictly speaking of course, no one's
property). Those things we hold in common with any other citizen on this
planet are a joint responsability and the ways and means to look after them
therfore should come from all of us. The means coming from all of us is
what is generally known as taxes. We all pay our governments (large amounts
of) money to keep our societies running (at least, that is the whole point
of governments as well as taxes). Having to pay at the gates of a building
which happens to house some very nice paitings, artefacts, fossils,
minerals, plants, &c is a rip-off as you have already paid, i.e. when your
taxform arrived.

I think it is very very wrong to ask people to pay when wishing to enter a
museum: it is something that should be resisted as strenuously as possible.


Unfortunately, history shows that that he who kicked out the merchants from
the temple ended up on the cross, that Napoleon was defeated by the
shopkeepers. Sadly, it seems that, in the end, the lure of money wins.


Stefan A. Revets
The Natural History Museum, Department of Palaeontology
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
Tel. + 44 171 938 9046
Fax. + 44 171 938 9277
E-Mail. S.Revets@nhm.ac.uk