Museums under threat
From Professor Keith Thomson Sir: I am wondering what sensitive nerve I must have struck to cause Charles Saumarez Smith (Books, 19 January) so to misrepresent the essay that he sneeringly refers to as a non-conformist tract. He says that the core of my thesis is that the mission of a museum is separable from its collections when my conclusion is that 'in the future, museums will no longer be defined by their collections, but collections defined by their museums'. Is he afraid of that subtle distinction? My book, Treasures on Earth: Museums, Collections, Paradoxes, is not about the disposing of large numbers of objects from museum collections, but about the paradoxes inherent in there being so many museums and so many treasures with so little funding. If we cannot afford the museums we have now, those of us who love and value museums and their collections will have to think more creatively than Mr Smith (on this evidence) seems prepared to do, in order to have options in the future.
Keith Thomson
Oxford
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