What Is a Museum?

Harriet Baskas’s entertaining piece, What Is a Museum? (All Things Considered, 8:13), raises the question of definition: What constitutes a museum? Does it have to have a real (brick-and-mortar) existence, or can it just exist virtually (online)? There is much to play with on this single issue. Surely, no one would claim that a business has to have brick-and-mortar form to be a business—think of Amazon.com. Yet, for some, museum seems to be a different matter, perhaps because the word itself seems to carry a certain level of cultural authority: Not just any old place where things are collected but a place where certain things are collected in a certain (proper?) way. Students often are asked to write definition papers, and here is as good a place as any in which to begin such an assignment.

But there is much more here, as the virtual museums mentioned here are utterly delightful places, including American Dime Museum, Gallery of Skate Park IDs, and the Guide to Whistling Records. These are fun places to visit and open up the endlessly fascinating topic of roadside attractions and our general interest in oddities. The Museum of Online Museums, mentioned in the piece, is a good place to start exploring--another is RoadsideAmerica.com-- although many students may have knowledge of more local, even family collections. Let the fun begin!