ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests how changes in publicness have strong implications for the future role of museums such as the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) as ‘public’ institutions in our society. ‘The public’ for the ROM did not radically change as a result of the renaissance development, except in one small respect: its enlargement to include more ethnic communities. The apparent debasement of the ‘public service’ functions of research and education to encroaching business and management mentalities reflecting private enterprise attitudes was an underlying concern for many of the workers and volunteers interviewed. The old ROM, pre-renaissance, was a troubled, inward-looking institution, at the service of a small segment of the population, and conflicted in its public role. The ROM succeeded in creating a new crystal face to display for world attention, a publicness that demonstrated its wealth and relevance in a celebratory fashion. Celebrity publicness, in a way, protected the museum inside from the authority-challenging, unmanaged nature of democratic publicness.
