Vol. I/2: Spring 2000
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Editorial
Dr. Linda Ellis
Director--San Francisco State University Museum Studies Program
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Minerva Online: Journal of Museum Studies and Conservation!
 
The purpose of this online journal is to provide a forum for the publishing of articles and professional resources in any domain of relevance to museums: administration, conservation, collections management, curation, education, exhibit design, history of collections, information technology, theory, trusteeship, and visitor studies. By museum we intend to be inclusive rather than exclusive, as long as the institution is non-profit and provides educational services -- including anthropology museums, aquaria, arboreta, archives, archaeological repositories, art museums, botanical gardens, children's museums ethnographic and cultural life museums, galleries, herbaria, heritage interpretation centers, historic landmarks, historical societies, history museums, industry and technology museums, natural history museums, planetaria, science centers and museums, transportation museums, and zoos, as well as many institutions with specialized areas of collecting.
 
The comprehensive and multi-disciplinary nature of this journal is purposeful firstly, in order to attract as wide a readership as possible, and secondly, to encourage the dissemination of ideas which may find useful application in a variety of cross-disciplinary contexts. In the spirit of this endeavor, the first issue of Minerva Online includes submissions which cover a wide range of practical and thought-provoking topics, and all of the authors have years of experience in their respective areas of interest. The two articles on educational programming by D. Bain and D. Kisich derive from two opposite ends of the scholarly spectrum -- art museums and zoos, respectively -- but both demonstrate the objective of this journal to provide ideas and methods applicable to museums of any academic discipline. The article by C. Stankowski not only brings wider attention to a very real crisis in archaeological collections management, but also provides avenues to begin addressing this nationwide problem. As a trustee for many years, H. Regev offers a unique perspective on alternative ways of career building which should be informative to both seasoned museum professionals as well as to Museum Studies graduate students. Finally, it is our intention to offer not only research articles but also resources and reference materials for museum professionals. A. Carlson has produced an extensive glossary to assist condition reporting for a variety of materials found in most museum collections.
 
The impetus for establishing this journal derived from the fact that, in the United States, there are few opportunities for publishing much of the innovative research being conducted in museums and related university programs nationwide. Developing a scholarly journal in print medium is prohibitive, given that publishing a single issue can cost as high as $30,000. The Internet has brought both a means for wider dissemination of information to urban and rural museums and has also democratized the process of publishing.
 
Minerva Online is a juried journal and welcomes submissions from museum professionals in the U.S. and from graduate students and alumni of Museum Studies, Historic Preservation and Conservation Programs at American universities. Current graduate students should submit a cover letter, from a university faculty member, confirming that the paper has been initially read and approved for consideration. Anyone interested in submitting a manuscript for publication should refer to the submission guidelines located in this web site. Because of time constraints, submissions which do not follow our guidelines cannot be reviewed. If accepted by the editorial board, all copies of the manuscript, with comments, will be returned to the author for editing. The final version of the paper should be sent on disk to the Webmaster.
 
Finally, why is this journal named after the Roman goddess Minerva? The Museum Studies Program at San Francisco State University was founded by the Department of Classics & Classical Archaeology, which owns the Sutro Egyptian Collection, an extensive Greco-Roman coin collection, and antiquities from Amarna and Etruria. Although the Museum Studies Program is an interdisciplinary, free-standing M.A. degree, we wanted to acknowledge the efforts of our colleagues in Classics who, at considerable effort, introduced museum work at SFSU in the 1970s and eventually founded our current degree program in 1987. Therefore, a logo inspired by the classical world was deemed appropriate. A few years ago, I accidentally came across a Latin inscription in an old archaeological publication:
 
Deae Minervae, matri musarum
[To the Goddess Minerva, mother of muses]
 
This inscription was carved in marble, probably for use on a building, and was found on an archaeological site, dating to the period of Roman colonization in southeastern Romania, near the Black Sea. Since the first mouseion was a temple of learning dedicated to the muses, and since Minerva was the goddess of handicrafts who also presided over the professions and arts, this connection seemed natural. There were several temples dedicated to Minerva in Rome and her shrine on the Aventine Hill was a meeting place for guilds of craftsmen, who made it their headquarters. However, it is the derivation of her name from the word "remember" which is most significant for those working and volunteering in museums to preserve the memory of humankind.
Minerva Online Vol. I/1: Spring/Summer 1998
 
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