A few weeks ago, a fire at the 200-year-old Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, obliterated years of Latin American history, science, and culture. Investigations revealed the extent of disrepair the museum had experienced, stemming from a lack of government funding over the past few years. Multiple news outlets reported on the museum’s use of crowdfunding to pay for expenses and lack of digitized records. A public museum, this spurred international outcries over budget cuts experienced by public museums, libraries, and archives worldwide. I started to think about the collection at FWMoA, what would be lost for the residents of Fort Wayne, and Indiana at large, if our museum was there one day and gone the next.
In the News: What’s a Museum without Objects?
