[meteorite-list] Lorton, Smithsonian and "cool" scientists thinking

From: Greg Catterton <star_wars_collector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:54:34 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <975432.54597.qm_at_web46407.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Steve wrote:

?I am not sure of all of the reasons, and who made the actual
decision to deny us and our audience the opportunity to see
it first hand, but it seems that because the Smithsonian
now has their own new cable TV network, and as such it is
now their policy to not give any competing TV networks any
access to shooting any of their stuff in their collections.?

I may be wrong, but is the Smithsonian not supposed to be "owned" by the tax payers and US citizens?
If this is the case, would we not legally be able to photograph and document items there as long as damage was not done?

Perhaps some of the issue here is possible profit you/others could make off what you/they are doing and the fact the Smithsonian would not get a "piece of the pie"?

I have never had dealings directly with them, but I have to say that I would rather a meteorite be there on display for all then for it to be cut into pieces and spread into a private collectors market with only a 20g/20% deposit available for the "public" to see.

I do think some should be made public and Im sure some will eventually make its way into the market, most likely for the a good amount more then the $100 per gram price collectors would have likely been asked to pay (based on the trend recent falls have seen)
It all depends on who offers them something they want that is not NWA material I guess.

For all anyone knows, there may have been more found, just not made public yet...

Greg Catterton
www.wanderingstarmeteorites.com
IMCA member 4682
On Ebay: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/wanderingstarmeteorites


--- On Fri, 1/29/10, Paul H. <oxytropidoceras at cox.net> wrote:

> From: Paul H. <oxytropidoceras at cox.net>
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Lorton, Smithsonian and "cool" scientists thinking
> To: "meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Date: Friday, January 29, 2010, 4:39 PM
> Steve wrote:
>
> ?I am not sure of all of the reasons, and who made the
> actual
> decision to deny us and our audience the opportunity to see
>
> it first hand,? but it seems that because the
> Smithsonian
> now has their own new cable TV network, and as such it is
> now their policy to not give any competing TV networks any
>
> access to shooting any of their stuff in their
> collections.?
>
> and
>
> ?Apparently, other networks have had severe access
> challenges
> lately in wanting to get footage of other national
> treasures
> since the Smithsonian cable network was formed. In our case
> it
> seems to be a real shame as it would have generated great
> PR
> for both our TV show and for the Smithsonian and for
> meteorites
> in general.?
>
> Having had a little dealing with the Smithsonian in
> matters,
> unrelated to meteorites, the impression that got is that
> with
> continuing cuts in their federal funding, the Smithsonian
> has
> had to more and more rely on generating income from private
>
> sources. One result of this is that in order to generate
> income
> to support the operation of the museum, many activities
> have been commercialized, including the selling of
> exclusive,
> first come, media rights to certain newsworthy events. I
> doubt
> that any ?prejudice against the collecting community?
> has
> anything to do with your treatment. It is simply that in
> order
> to generate income from private sources to replace federal
>
> budget cuts, they have sold the media rights to
> ?discoveries,?
> like the Lorton meteorite, to a private company. I suspect
> that
> it is an outside company, not the Smithsonian, who now make
>
> the decisions on such matters. I suspect that a number of
> the
> people at the Smithsonian are as unhappy as you are with
> this
> state of affairs.? However, it would be a bad career
> move for
> anyone to either openly or privately disagree with, express
> any
> displeasure of, or violate the contracts / agreements that
> they
> have with various outside companies.
>
> This growing commercilization and turning research into
> commodities managed by outside companies is a growing
> trend ion many museums. Go read:
>
> Caveat Venditor? Museum Merchandising, Nonprofit
> Commercialization, and the Case of the Metropolitan
> Museum in New York by Stephen Teopler in ?International
> Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations? at:
>
> http://www.springerlink.com/content/9229h92302851283/
>
> MUSEUM MERCHANDISING: AN EXPLORATION OF ITS USES
> AND LIMITATIONS at:
>
> http://museumstudies.si.edu/Fellowships/toepler.html
>
> The cost of journal articles, like the above one, is
> another
> aspect of this problem.
>
> While working at an archaeological site, which I was
> working at
> and shall remain nameless, some friends of mine were
> prohibited
> from taking pictures of the site while visiting me because
> a
> well-known, national organization that was funding the dig
> had
> exclusive media rights as part of the funding agreement.
> Even I,
> theoretically was prohibited from taking my own personal
> pictures.
> However, since I actually worked there, people, the
> director just
> looked the other way. However, there were a couple of times
> when
> representatives from the funders were visiting, we all were
> told to
> hide our personal cameras for the duration of their visit.
>
> Yours,
>
> Paul H.
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Received on Fri 29 Jan 2010 04:54:34 PM PST