There’s been much discussion in the past few weeks on the differing roles of curators and directors, which seem increasingly confounded with MoCA’s stated plan for administrative realignment. So, too, the museum’s various identities as civic institution, broad entertainment, as business, and as refuge for critical scholarship have been called upon to justify or criticize its relevance in contemporary society.

It’s a debate that’s been going on for well over twenty years, apparently. In this 1987 New York Times article, Douglas C. McGill addresses the changes in public persona and internal organization of museums as a “growth industry.”