Libraries and Museums in a Hands-On Age

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The very word "museum" makes some people, even library professionals, screw up their faces in distaste. They have bought the argument that "museum" means a boring, irrelevant, musty thing of the past, and the only good ones are "hands-on" places full of screaming children pawing every exhibit.

As we have noted in these pages before, the same is true of the word "library." An ALA member once told me with certainty during an ALA conference that American Libraries ought to replace the "Libraries" in its name. "American Information?" I asked. But she wasn't sure what the replacement word should be, only that "Libraries" was a thing of the past and had to go.

Proud past