I think this depends on the toy, honestly. Would you rather my daughter was in her stroller drawing on her Magnadoodle, or hollering to get out, or tearing around the museum? (Not that I would keep her in the museum at all in the latter two scenarios, but I think a well-chosen toy or two can be very considerate of the other museum-goers.)
Quiet toys that don’t interfere with the other visitors = good as long as they don’t get tossed around.
Noisy toys should be banished to the third circle of hell.
I read over the article and I disagree with the author on a couple of points.
My museum doesn’t use any such products.
We don’t use fabric-covered or foam-padded book cradles. Ours are hard plastic or wood. The obvious reason why is that fabric can catch on delicate leather covers.
Our archive employees keep an eye out for that sort of thing: if they see any dirt on the glove, they offer the researcher a new pair.
I’m pretty puzzled by this. Okay, so maybe the palms don’t secrete oil, but the fingers certainly do. I, personally, have worked on artifacts which were damaged by fingerprints. The author doesn’t seem to acknowledge that such damage takes a long time to become apparent to the eye but it is there, nevertheless.
Sure, a vigorous handwashing might do as well as cotton gloves (for a visit short in duration) but wouldn’t bare hands gather the chemical residue from the furniture and get makeup all over them when a nose was scratched just like was pointed out as being a flaw of glove-wearing?
About two days ago, actually.
I’ve never had problems with this, and I’ve never heard complaints from the archivists that the researchers have lost their manual dexterity due to a thin layer of cotton. Yes, it’s possible that ragged pages could catch on a glove, but they can also catch on a sleeve or a calloused finger.
Lastly, I roll my eyes at the author’s notion that a “physical connection” with the artifacts is somehow more enriching and should be part of the experience.
According to this, sebaceous glands exist by hair follicles, and not on the plams or soles of the feet. I would assume this includes fingertips since they aren’t hairy either. I agree with you though that fingers and gloves would both get oily and dirty from touching other things. No reason to think bare fingers would be any btter than gloves.
Well, one way or another, fingertips and palms secrete something, otherwise, I wouldn’t be wiping the cases constantly.
Every time I see this I’m tempted to smash the toys with the hammer I bring along to museums to break off the dirty, dirty penises from nude statues.
Kids who hang on the stansions (is that how you spell it?)-those polls that hold up the ropes to form our admission lines. Those things are extremely fucking heavy-I’m just waiting for one to topple over, and crack someone’s skull open.
Kids who think that those roller sneakers entitle them to use the lobby as a skating rink.