from The Philadelphia Inquirer -
For museums, pressure to be popular
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Yet another take on the tension between a museum's mission and external realities:

"Resolving the inherent tension between the museum's traditional role - collecting, conserving and exhibiting top-quality aesthetic objects - and the need to show museum-goers a good time has become the most difficult aspect of contemporary museumship. ... Yet for the most part, this attempt to be all things to most people hasn't succeeded: Permanent collections continue to be starved for attention."

. And one might add that when permanent collections are sidelined, then long-term preservation and planning suffers.
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