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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
people who created the masterpieces of arts and crafts. These people were carriers of age-old traditions. By representing them it was possible to help them in their self-esteem. It was British imperialists who succeeded in effacing peoples' pride in their creativity. By separating the craftsmen from their creations the museums unconsciously de-humanized the local traditional crafts. The specimens on display were treated as mcrc merchandise which were created for markcts. This was quite contrary to the honourablc collaborative place which craftsmen had in actual territorial- cultural situations.
It is necessary to impress on the museum authorities and museum workers that after independence, museums in Gujarat ought to accept now missions. The pre-occupation with fragmentary collections of material as ends-in-themselves must be replaced with holistic view "Nature-in-relation to man" and "crafts-in-relation to the craftsmen should be now slogans. Each muscum object is capable of telling a story far beyond its material existence. If this ideal is overlooked, the museums will serve only the specialists who are knowledgable of the things. When British started muscums they were scholar-collectors of objects. They wanted indigenous material to be placed in muscums for protection so that other scholars can study them. The early museum men never found out what their visitors required or expected. There was a big gap between what the lay visitors knew or capable of knowing and what the muscums wanted to convey. In those days if the muscums had more realistic ideas, they would have helped all categories of visitors to know and enjoy the material on display. The failure of the muscums led to the common notion that museums are of history and they have hardly any relevance to the problems of visiting population today. The museums in the past never were willing to accept the responsibility of solving problems of people. Muscums were indifferent to society at large. They could not realize that success of museums lies in not only what takes place inside muscums but how they influence the society.
It is ncecessary to accept new yardsticks of judging the effectiveness of museum services in Gujarat. It is better to appreciate that if museums care their collections of objects, the motivation for it is the connections between "objectsand-society", not "objects-and-museums". Collections cnter into museuns because they are required to tell the story of man. So the worth of a museum is not assessed in terms of the number of objects it possesses but how most of the visitors are provided opportunities to usc thc muscun resources. The use of the word "resourcc" implics potentiality of uses. A muscum is held to be a common man's university. An important step in putting muscum facilities to actual uses is to understand the concept of "de-massification". In simple words, it means not to trcat possible users as mcrc numbers or alike or same. Museums must study the vital differences which individuals and groups show in their motivations, expectations and fields of interest. A service to society should start from what various groups want, not what museum curators want to offer. It is a pcoplc-oricnted and active
as dulciais - Altel.-d. al., 2001.4
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