ABSTRACT
Today museums vary enormously. They range in size and activity from great international museums such as Washington’s Smithsonian Institution to the smallest one-room village museum. They vary enormously, too, in their purpose. Some are intended purely to amuse and entertain holidaymakers; others preserve the data on which scientific and historical research is based. They vary in their collections: from insects to historic industrial machinery, from ancient statues to pathological specimens, from modern paintings to revolutionary flags. They vary in who runs them. They vary in the public they seek to serve.
