How should a public institution behave when some of its core values and procedures are challenged by the communities it is intended to serve? And should this behaviour be different if the institution has a purely cultural mandate, operating in a not-for-profit manner? The recent history of Calgary’s Glenbow Museum, and other museums in Canada and abroad, gives some guidance on these difficult questions.
Collections of artifacts are at the heart of museums; this is what makes them different from other cultural institutions. Often, their holdings consist of one-of-a-kind objects that are preserved for the public good. Research on what the artifacts tell us about the past is essential to this trust, the core reason for the study of material history.
Access to artifacts and interpretations of what they signify is also a...
Victor Rabinovitch is a fellow with the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University.
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