Re: ontological breakdown [long posting]

[delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Brad De Long)]

>As one of the UCMP "virtual museum" Worldwide Web designers, could I just
>cut in with my two rupees' worth here:
>
>We know that public interest in our work is important to keeping us
>going. Mr. De Long saw us at probably the worst possible time; we're still
>in the process of moving our collections, and everyone's priority right
>now is getting what I'm told is the nation's fourth largest fossil collection
>into new quarters, safely, securely, with minimum damage and confusion.
>The public displays will come in time -- in fact the T. rex mounted
>skeleton is coming along very nicely indeed.

And on September 15-17, when you unveil it, we will be there (me, my wife,
my mother, the five-year-old, d the two-year-old). And I am d----- if I can
figure out how you are going to fit a forty-foot long dinosaur into a
twenty-foot in diameter stairwell and still maintain even an approximation
of a natural posture.

>UCMP isn't nearly
>as wrapped up in academic elitist esoterica as Whittle would have it.
>Don't condemn us just because Mr. De Long saw us on a bad hair day.

Academic elitist esoterica has its place. _I_ wanted to give two reasons
for not finding much accessible in the public exhibition spaces--that the
"UCMP had just moved and not all of the public exhibits had been unpacked"
and that I "don't know as much about geology and chemistry as [I] should
and hence could not appreciate a bunch of what was visible. I would give
both equal weight.

And, anyway, my main purpose in writing for _TidBITS_ was not to diss the
public exhibitions of the UCMP, but to praise the _Virtual Museum_, and to
try to convey the strong shock of cognitive dissonance that struck me when
I realized that I was thinking the the _Virtual Museum_ was the _real_
UCMP.

I think you put it well:

>Which is the real museum? Both are. Cyberexhibits can't take the place of
>real bones and shells before your eyes. But on the other hand, in some
>ways the WWW can convey, better than a physical exhibit can, what we
>actually do -- especially the complexity, the interrelatedness of the
>fields that we work in, that touch on and inspire each other....
>In some ways, the Web is a better medium for
>presenting the museum as we see it -- not just a collection of bones, but
>a collection of bones that is part of a long scientific tradition and
>continuing area of research, with connections to branches of science
>from molecular biology to behavior. In other respect, physical exhibits
>remain superior -- they're both part of the real museum, both have their
>proper functions, and they should not be confused with each other.

Brad De Long


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