Share and share alike

I’ve decided not to share anything anymore. Too much of a hassle, really. I have to trust the person not to mess my stuff up, then I have to trust them to give it back. And really, what’s in it for me? I don’t make any money off sharing. I don’t get any satisfaction from it. Why should I give my hard earned stuff away to some stranger?

Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But this type of logic has hit the museum world. Let’s take the Smithsonian, for example. They recently signed an exclusive deal with Showtime, the pay cable service, which gives Showtime first dibs to the Smithsonian’s collection and any documentary projects around that collection.

Even a small museum I worked at forgot about sharing. An effort to digitize and provide access to the collection online was hampered to the point of uselessness by thick watermarks across every tiny, grainy jpeg photo. Why? Because we made money selling prints. And the risk of a few people turning them into mugs or t-shirts or mouse pads meant we wouldn’t share with anyone.

The last time I decided not to share was in kindergarten. It was Mrs. Lukrek’s class, and I refused to share a banana for snack. I learned two valuable lessons since then. One, never eat paste. It just doesn’t taste good. And two, we all benefit from sharing. Those I’m willing to share with are much more likely to share something with me, and it might be something I really need. Closing myself off to this river of items flowing freely from person to person is like cutting myself off from the internet. Sure, I could do it, but think about what I’d miss.

Museums too learned the benefit of sharing. By providing access to collections online, museums opened their doors to new audiences. Loaning artifacts for special exhibitions broadens a museum’s name recognition way beyond its traditional boundaries. Email forums, message boards, and seminars share information about museum work, and they’re invaluable tools for thousands of museum professionals.

I guess a few museum professionals skipped kindergarten. For example, fundraising people see sharing artifacts as a potential for income. Stodgy curators stand in front of the storage building with a shotgun forbidding anyone from removing artifacts from their dark, safe haven. Directors worry people will take the jpegs posted online and turn them into a poster, then sell them for profit.

Sure, I run risks when I share my stuff. The person might mess up my stuff, or forget to give it back. I’ve lost a book or a movie or two, and frankly, I guiltily harbor a few from others. But just like we’re seeing with the Smithsonian, cutting off the flow of sharing is a surefire way to make people mad at you.

We all know people who refuse to share, who greedily hoard everything they own. Maybe they needed a better kindergarten teacher.