The Metropolitan Museum of Art as an Adjunct of Factory: Richard F. Bach and the Resolution Between Gilman’s Temple and Dana’s Department Store

Abstract This article examines the metaphors used by museum leaders in the early twentieth century. Richard F. Bach’s metaphor for the Metropolitan Museum of Art as an adjunct of factory is positioned as a philosophical resolution between those of two prominent contemporaries: Benjamin Ives Gilman’s metaphor of the art museum as a temple and John Cotton Dana’s metaphor of the museum as a department store, which are often viewed by historians in a dichotomy of unresolved tension. While examining differences in institutional agendas suggested by these metaphors, this article illuminates the common goal among them: Museums explicitly saw themselves as serving an essential role in American society to refine public taste and the aesthetic sophistication of their audiences. A close analysis of the metaphors reveals three historical models that offered varying visitor experiences for exercising good taste.     

Information policy, information access, and democratic participation: The national and international implications of the Bush administration’s information politics

Much of information policy is focused on establishing the parameters of information access—ensuring or limiting access to certain types of information. Given how central information access is to virtually every aspect of society, policy can be seen as one of the most significant forces influencing the information society. Recent events, however, have fueled changes in the ways that some governments use policy to shape access, none more significantly than the United States. This paper examines the meanings of and relationships between policy and access, as well as their key roles in society and democratic participation. Following an examination of the historical and social impacts of policies about access, the article analyzes the perspectives of the Bush administration on how policy should shape information access as an illustration of the relationships between policy and access. The paper examines the issues raised by the Bush administration’s views on access and policy and the implications of their policies for the United States, for the global information society, and for research related to information. Ultimately, the paper raises questions about the extent to which information policies about access can be used for overtly political purposes, what might be described as “information politics,” without significantly altering the meaning of information access in a society.