Is There a Future for Old-Fashioned Museums?

What happens when you get two museums on the same Mall in Washington, both run by the Smithsonian, that produce wildly different versions of the truth -- like Natural History's version of what Indians were about, and that of the Museum of the American Indian? The latter never once mentions people traversing a land bridge across the Bering Strait. It prefers to tell the story of the Tohono O'odham of Arizona, who believe two creators, Earth Medicine Man and I'itoi, produced the world . . . and that the Tohono O'odham have been here since the start of time.

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"People look to different points of validation for what constitutes the truth," says Merritt.

'Entertainment Over Learning'

"There is only a limited amount of discretionary time that people have for recreation, and we're competing for that," says Ford W. Bell, the new president and chief executive officer of the AAM.

This competition creates wildly veering markets, made no easier to fathom by museums' fuzzy data.

The Air and Space Museum, for example, seems to be crashing.

If you believe the official numbers, attendance soared to 14.4 million in 1984, two years before the Challenger disintegrated, hovered around 9 million from 1997 to 2003, and skimmed the weeds in 2004 with an all-time low of 4.9 million. It barely cleared 5 million in 2006. Even attendance at the museum's four-year-old Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles is in decline.

The problem is, no one knows if these numbers -- or most others in the museum world -- are to be believed.

"One would think museums can and do count who comes through the door," an AAM report says. But no. "Some museums include attendance at off-site programs. Some count those who attend fairs and festivals held on the grounds; others do not. Some museums do not even have 'doors' (think interpreted grounds with no fences or gates)." The list goes on.

The AAM recently estimated national museum attendance with a huge range from 600 million to 2.4 billion.

For what it's worth, the same study states that of all the different kinds of museums, the most visited are zoos. Science and technology museums are No. 2, arboretums/botanical gardens No. 3. Only when you get to No. 5 do you find art museums -- behind children's museums. History museums are No. 11.

Also, Washington institutions seem to be statistically extreme. Of museums surveyed in 2004 by the AAM, typical annual attendance was 34,000. That's less than the Anacostia Community Museum's. It's a mere solid weekend for the National Museum of Natural History.

While many museums report stable attendance, certain kinds already seem to be tanking. Historical reenactment places such as Colonial Williamsburg and Massachusetts's Sturbridge Village are hurting, Merritt says, as well as a plethora of minor-league historic homes around the country.