[meteorite-list] No Meteorites on display!!!!

Wed May 25 20:42:12 EDT 2011

Sterling and all:

I live in Pittsburgh and can attest to the beauty of the Carnegie Museum, particularly the newly designed Dino exhibit.

"The Carnegie Natural History Museum is dinosaur-
oriented; it has the world's largest collection of
Jurassic dinosaur fossils. The display issue is acute;
the Museum has 21,000,000 specimens of which only
10,000 can be exhibited at one time."

I would like to point out to anyone who might take in the Dinosaur exhibit, that there is a fossilized tree, newly named Xenozylon, on display in the Hall that I helped to prep and bring back from southeast Utah in 1999.  This is a beautiful specimen from the Jurassic period, weighing about 1300 lbs.  I also have casts of sauropod footprints that we dug up in Utah in 2003.  The museum also has a number of latex casts that we made of a number of footprints dug up there.

The meteorite exhibit is also very nice although I haven't seen it in a few years. The Mineral Hall was closed the last few times that I visited.  I believe that they may have pieces of all 8 PA meteorites but can't be sure - memory starting to go.

Dave

--- On Wed, 5/25/11, Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] No Meteorites on display!!!!
> To: "Steve Dunklee" <steve.dunklee at yahoo.com>, meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com, "Peter Davidson" <P.Davidson at nms.ac.uk>
> Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 3:30 PM
> Andrew Warhola, Jr. was a Pittsburgh
> native, a
> native son. He was a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon
> in Fine Arts. The Andy Warhol Museum, one of
> the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is located
> at 117 Sandusky Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
> (about 4 miles from the Natural History Museum).
> It is the largest American art museum dedicated
> to a single artist, holding more than 12,000 works
> by the artist. My guess is that the Warholia in the
> Nat. Hist Mus. was to promote the Warhol Museum.
> Andy's work is also exhibited on The Moon:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Museum
> 
> The Carnegie Natural History Museum is dinosaur-
> oriented; it has the world's largest collection of
> Jurassic dinosaur fossils. The display issue is acute;
> the Museum has 21,000,000 specimens of which only
> 10,000 can be exhibited at one time.
> 
> Meteorites are displayed in the Buhl Planetarium
> with its Hall of the Universe. The fifth largest meteorite
> fragment [746 pounds/340 kilograms] from Barringer
> Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. (Meteorite now
> displayed outside of the Henry Buhl, Jr. Planetarium
> at the Science Center.
> 
> The Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems in the Natural
> History includes a few meteorites from the hundreds of
> specimens included in this Hall's permanent collection,
> they say. What photos I can find seem old, dark and
> dirty.
> 
> Best shot at a meteorite display? Get a Death of The
> Dinosaurs exhibit on Chicxulub with a lot meteorites
> in it --- tall and narrow; slip it in right next to the
> famous Diplodocus carnegii... He's fiberglass; he
> won't mind.
> 
> The lack of local reference, due to the fact that only
> eight meteorites have been found in Pennsylvania,
> may be largely responsible for the lack of emphasis
> on them.
> 
> 
> Sterling K. Webb
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Dunklee" <steve.dunklee at yahoo.com>
> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>;
> "Peter Davidson" <P.Davidson at nms.ac.uk>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 1:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] No Meteorites on display!!!!
> 
> 
> Very good and well written response! I love art and am an
> artist myself. I love Monet manet Salvador Dali. Frederic
> Remington. ect. And I actually like some Andy Warhol. and
> not to mention Picasso and Rembrant. i have some Monet
> prints and an original on loan to a museum. as well as some
> other original paintings sculptures and pottery. The
> presentation of meteorites or mineral samples compared to a
> major exhibit would actually be low cost antdonly take up a
> small corner of space.  One of the museums here in
> arkansas did an Egyptian exhibit in 2008. they spent
> millions of dollars setting it up then the market crashed.
> tickets for an adult were around $40 and for students $22.
> they lost money big time! had the price been lower like $12
> fror adults and $8 for students they would have had many
> more people viewing the exhibit and buying merchandise at
> the show. every ticket sale at any event nationwide has an
> average of $30 in ancillary sales. parking, food,
> prints, programs,tshirts, maps ect. so for a $12 ticket you
> would have at least 10 more people who would view and spend
> money as opposed to a $44 ticket. 10 people spending $44 is
> $440. one person spending $44 for a ticket then spending an
> additional $30 is only $74. A small corner in a museum lets
> say 16 feet long with meteorite men advertisement and Rocks
> from Space ads with unclassified real but weathered
> meteorites for sale next to the shark teeth would be a low
> cost and maintainance money maker for any museum.
> Cheers
> Steve
> 
> --- On Wed, 5/25/11, Peter Davidson <P.Davidson at nms.ac.uk>
> wrote:
> 
> > From: Peter Davidson <P.Davidson at nms.ac.uk>
> > Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] No Meteorites on
> display!!!!
> > To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> > Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 8:49 AM
> > Good Morning everyone on the List
> > 
> > I would like to thank Mike Antonelli for his e-mail
> drawing
> > attention to the situation at The Carnegie Museum of
> Natural
> > History in Pittsburgh. The lack of a meteorite display
> there
> > highlights one of the problems many museums have
> around the
> > World in deciding what to exhibit and what not.
> > 
> > Can I first say that I have no particular insight into
> the
> > museum's policies for exhibition, nor do I personally
> know
> > any of the curators. However I know many, many
> curators from
> > other museums around the World and I can draw on this
> > knowledge to get a feel for the problems the Carnegie
> has.
> > 
> > The notion that museums are somehow divorced from the
> > everyday World and that curators exist in tax-payer
> funded
> > ivory towers trying to devise as many ways as we can
> > possibly think of to avoid putting our collection on
> display
> > to the public is one that bears no resemblance to
> reality.
> > Museums around the World are under increasing pressure
> from
> > their funding bodies, whether that be National
> Governments,
> > local governments or town councils, to cut costs and
> to
> > justify their dwindling expenditure by housing
> exhibitions
> > that have some kind of "WOW" factor. These
> blockbuster
> > exhibitions may indeed, as Steve Dunklee rightly
> points out,
> > have little to do with Natural History. But it is
> likely to
> > attract big sponsorship and media attention and this
> may
> > have a trickle down benefit to the museum through
> increased
> > visitor numbers and heightened awareness. This
> inevitably
> > leads to hard decisions about the best (or most
> profitable)
> > use of the limited space museums have. If a museum
> director
> > has to choose between a high profile Andy Warhol
> exhibition
> > that will attract major corporate sponsorship and
> generate a
> > good deal of media interest or a much more worthy
> display of
> > objects from the museum's own collections that will
> bring in
> > no income and little media attention, then I am afraid
> that
> > in today's world Warhol wins!
> > 
> > Other factors to consider here are that a museum's
> policies
> > are largely decided by the Director (or equivalent -
> the
> > Head Honcho in any case) who may not have any interest
> in
> > meteorites, whether they have a good collection or
> not.
> > Perhaps there is no dedicated meteorite curator to
> look
> > after and promote the collection. This can be a
> serious
> > problem for any collection. After all, I myself am a
> > mineralogist who happens to have an interest in
> meteorites
> > and have been active in promoting the collection
> whenever I
> > can. Had I not had this interest, the collection
> would
> > indeed be stored away and might never see the light of
> day.
> > As it is we will have meteorites in our new galleries
> (not
> > enough in my view) but this is something!
> > 
> > There are other ways to promote the collection other
> than
> > by display. Taking the collection into the community
> is a
> > vital role museums can and do play. This can be done
> by
> > organising temporary or touring exhibitions, by
> school
> > visits or talks and lectures to people of all ages
> and
> > experiences.
> > 
> > I agree with MikeG to some extent in that private
> > collectors have a very important role in complementing
> the
> > work that museums do. Most collectors I know have an
> > enthusiasm, dedication and depth of knowledge in
> their
> > particular field that museums often lack. Clearly
> > co-operation and mutual appreciation is better than
> conflict
> > and constant criticism.
> > 
> > Please believe me when I tell you that as curators, we
> are
> > trying to do our very best under difficult
> circumstances.
> > Museums are often viewed by governments as an easy
> target
> > for funding cuts - expensive white elephants is a
> phrase
> > that often crops up - so the axe is often wielded
> here
> > quickest and deepest than in other areas. Collectors
> and
> > others should use every method available to highlight
> this
> > problem and contributing to online blogs, forums,
> Twitter
> > and Facebook are very useful weapons - use them.
> > 
> > Thanks for listening
> > 
> > Peter Davidson
> > Curator of Minerals
> > 
> > Department of Natural Sciences
> > National Museums Collection Centre
> > 242 West Granton Road
> > Edinburgh EH5 1JA
> > Scotland
> > Tel: 00 44 131 247 4283
> > E-mail: p.davidson at nms.ac.uk
> > 
> > New exhibition A Passion for Glass, National Museum
> of
> > Scotland, Fri 20 May - Sun 11 September. Free entry.
> > www.nms.ac.uk/glass
> > 
> > National Museums Scotland, Scottish Charity, No. SC
> 011130
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