this 9/11 After complaining about the institution’s stifling scholarships, the Museum of the City of New York is removing rare restrictions on researchers.
At least until August 21, the country September 11 The website of the Memorial Museum details the “rules and regulations of academic research” for visiting its collections. They asked researchers to allow museum staff to review their works before publication, and use “any text changes” proposed by the museum as a condition for obtaining the institution’s “consent” for publication.
The rules say that if researchers fail to comply, the agency has the right to seek “legal remedies,” although the museum says it has never done so and is now canceling review requirements and legal threats.
Clifford Chanin, the museum’s executive vice president, said that earlier, “we were most concerned about the misuse of materials donated to the museum in order to misrepresent the 9/11 terrorist attacks”, but museum leaders now believe these The rules are unnecessary and will not work.
“We learned a lesson from our experience,” he said.
Archives and museums have different requirements for researchers, but experts say that 9/11 museum regulations seem to be extremely onerous.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Stephanie Brown, who teaches museum studies at Johns Hopkins University, who has served as a museum curator, curator, and archivist. She said this policy may prompt scholars to look for materials elsewhere: “It just feels very micro-management.”
In fact, at least two researchers have hesitated about the rules when seeking interviews in the past few years. Chanin said that he said the museum agreed to the interview anyway and started to reconsider this summer after the latest academic objections appeared. The policy.
Then, two filmmakers’ lawyers provided the museum with a large number of 9/11 related videos_ but later produced a critical documentary about it_ in a letter dated August 13 accusing it of “limiting Free historical research, exploration and use”.
“We don’t think there should be any restrictions on what people post,” film producer Steven Rosenbaum said in an interview.
This year, he and his wife and co-director Pamela Yoder had a dispute with the museum over their opposition to their documentary “The Outsider.” Although the museum’s review of their films was negotiated separately from the research rules, Rosenbaum believes that both indicate that the agency wants to “control the 9/11 story.”
“There is a factual pattern here that is really disturbing,” he said, because “the place where the United States remembers this story and investigates.”
(At the same time, the chief attorney of the museum criticized Rosenbaum and Yoder in a letter on August 27 for their own restrictions on donated videos: they charge a license fee to anyone who tries to use these shots in movies or other works. Rosenbaum says this is “beyond irrelevance” and there is no comparability between the archives of small film companies and non-profit museums.)
Research policies for museums and archives may vary from institution to institution. Some donors set conditions for their gifts, such as protecting highly personal information after their relatives or others mentioned in them are alive.
The museum on September 11 shoulders complex responsibilities. It is not only a memorial, but also a place for education and research on the events of living survivors. Nevertheless, other institutions with similar missions do not have high requirements for scholars.
The Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum’s website calls on researchers to submit abstracts of their projects and where they plan to publish them, but not to review them in advance. There is no United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Washington. The website there only asks applicants for research purposes, such as coursework, books, or genealogy.
Michael Berenbaum, a professor of Jewish studies at Jewish University in the United States, who oversaw the creation of the Holocaust Museum, said: “Access should be as unhindered as possible.” He favors “maximum openness and minimum restrictions. Even if it means sensitive materials.”
Channing, who has been involved since 2005, said that on September 11, the museum began processing research requests before it opened in 2014. He could not specify when the academic research rules would take effect, but said that this was to “systematize” the institution’s transactions and researchers seeking access to materials or interviews with staff.
Channing said that the museum had asked researchers to review their works before publication, but never insisted on, tried to prevent publication or took legal action. He added that few academic requirements (if any) end up causing people to warn about “abuse” or misquotes.
Channing said that deciding on this policy “is something we need to move on.” Museum leaders have removed it from the website and plan to draft a new policy soon.
He anticipates that it will distinguish between academic interviews and material requests, and will ask researchers about the basics of their projects and what they are looking for _ but will no longer require formal outlines and interview questions, requiring pre-publishing approval or talking to researchers Take legal action.
© 2021 Canadian Press
