from The New York Times
What Price Love? Museums Sell Out
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Michael Kimmelman observed that museums (in the major US cities) appear to have moved into a sort of capitalist excess and feeding frenzy in order to meet funding targets and popular access, at the expense of core functions and values:

"But museums and libraries are not commercial enterprises. Growth is not necessarily good. Expansion is not always wise. Often it's the reverse. True success is measured by hard-to-quantify intangibles: the quality of research and education; the study, care and maintenance of the collections; the level of public trust."

Further on in the article, Kimmelman warned that:"museums, having devalued their principles for short term gains, may earn the public's contempt in the long run." This would indeed be an extremely pertinent observation, which can also easily describe the situation elsewhere. If one were to look closely enough and under the flashy surface, could our local museums hold up to scrutiny as well?