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Omnium Gatherum: Occasional Papers

Introduction

Welcome to my Omnium Gatherum: a collection of my previously published and unpublished writings, short essays, other writers blogs where my work is embedded, teaching material, personal fascinations, and meanderings. You are welcome to download and use anything that interests you for your own purposes. I hope I have picked each piece so the material can stand on its own and be useful. 

I select pieces for this Omnium with two principal audiences in mind — museum middle management throughout the world, busy trying to get things done; and museum studies teachers and their students, engaged in preparations for the future of our field. I am always interested in the practical applicability of ideas, where action implements philosophy. Having taught in various countries where museum people do not have access to material I want as much of my material free and easy to find. It gives me pleasure that someone I have never met will find something I have written or found and want to use it in their work. Please let me know if that happens to you by writing to me at egurian@egurian.com.

I have spent fifty years writing essays, each one taking quite a long time to think through and to research. I wrote no more than two pieces a year giving variations of the paper as lectures throughout that year. The writing, and then multiple deliveries, helped shape and evolve my thinking. My writings, if taken together, cohere. I wish to make museums more easily available, more meaningful to everyone and more interrelated to other civic institutions.

While this is not a blog site with a comment section, I would welcome your thoughts, additions, and suggestions. Write to egurian@egurian.com and I will be sure to respond.

I also believe in not taking myself, or others, too seriously. Hence the name Omnium Gatherum which Vocabulary.com http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/omnium-gatherum defines as  “a motley assortmentof things and lists synonyms as farrago, gallimaufry, hodgepodge, hotchpotch, melange, mingle-mangle, mishmash, oddments, odds and ends, ragbag.  I hope you will find it helpful.