After Thoughts
The most affirming part of attending the European Museums Forum was seeing that there are plenty of museums out there not corrupted by English anti-intellectualism or New Labour. You see curators who quote Proust (“the truly imperfect earth is not one which is devoid of masterpieces of art but one which is full of them and does not know how to love them or preserve them”) rather than their performance indicator regime. The comparison was most striking comparison for me was the presentation by Weston Park Museum in Sheffield ( http://www.sheffieldgalleries.org.uk/coresite/html/WPM.asp ) and Museo degli Sguardi. Rimini's Ethnographic Collections ( http://www.riminiturismo.it/CMS2/main.php?elemId=322&classId=33&lang_index=1&seq_index=7 ). The former proudly told us how their public had been completely involved in every stage of the design and selection of displays; how they had won the Guardian’s Family Friendly Museum of the Year Award; how the community was at the heart