Museums Are Essential to Our National Heritage

That's the name of a petition sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution at this Web site. It reads as follows:

Do you remember your first visit to a museum? You may have uncovered a passion for geology as a student on a field trip. Or realized you wanted to be a pilot while gazing up at the Spirit of St. Louis. Or maybe you started visiting museums with your children, and watched as they touched a rock from the moon or stared wide-eyed at a Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil.

Every year, millions of visitors pass through the doors of America's history, science and art museums. One of the principal goals of these institutions is to create lifelong memories of discovery for visitors.

Museums are an integral part of American culture. What is your favorite museum story, memory or exhibit?

The goal is 15,000 signatures, and it's currently up to 9,375. We encourage you to sign it, but also to browse through the comments left so far in answer to the last question. A surprising number of them reference the "Night at the Museum" movies, and they're pretty heavy on the exclamation points, but they show a wonderful range of personal responses to many different kinds of museums.

ACUMG Petition

The Association of College and University Museums and Galleries has a statement of support for which it is seeking signatories. We encourage you to go and add your name:

A Message Concerning University and College Museums

We the undersigned believe that:

Great colleges and universities look both forward and back; they shape our shared future by being stewards of our shared past.

They perform this service not merely through the commitment of countless faculty and other resources to the cause of teaching, learning and scholarship, but also by building, preserving, providing access to, and interpreting tangible objects, ranging from manuscripts and rare books to works of art and biological and natural-history specimens and artifacts.

Our college and university collections, found in our great academic archives, libraries and museums, are deep repositories of past and present human creativity, in all its diversity and richness.

These collections present students, teachers and local communities with unique opportunities to experience, to learn, and to grow. They speak to the youngest child and to the lifelong learner. They advance teaching and learning across the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences, while also inspiring new and exciting forms of interdisciplinary scholarship.

They engage entire communities in the perpetuation and dissemination of knowledge, in their understanding of society and culture, in the value of cultural and scientific literacy to our democracy and, thus, in the practice of developing good and educated citizens.

Archivists, librarians and museum professionals--and the array of services they provide--play an essential role in the educational enterprise by facilitating access to, as well as the appreciation and interpretation of, our college and university collections.

At the heart of many of our great colleges and universities stand museums of art, science, archaeology, anthropology, and history, as well as arboreta and other collections of living specimens. Along with our libraries and archives, these academic museums advance learning through teaching and research. They are the nation's keepers of its history, culture and knowledge. They are essential to the academic experience and to the entire educational enterprise.

Founded, like universities, to serve humankind, museums are no more disposable assets than are libraries and archives.

Great Universities have Great Museums.

Those who have signed are listed here.