ABSTRACT
The processes involved with keeping a museum functioning, especially those of collection management, demand some form of continuity. Museums have long-term purposes: what they hold must be passed on, in good order, to future generations. The work must therefore be pursued with meticulous care. This is usually time-consuming, expensive and hidden from public view. Yet, particularly in the last twenty-five years, pressures on museums to be more responsive to the public have prompted the reassessment of the agenda. For some museums, the agenda has been rewritten completely. The ability to change or, better still, to modify museum activities to ensure the meeting of both long-and short-term aims has been an important element of museum survival.
