Reading today's MMD posting by Robbie, I feel he hit the nail squarely
on the proverbial head!

Having grown-up all my life (54) "deep" within the field of mechanical
music, I cannot begin to count the shear numbers of collectors and
enthusiasts world-wide that we've met personally who, when posed
the query about what was that initial memory that captured their
imagination and fascination with mechanical music, answered without
a doubt that it roots itself at the earliest of our memorable years.

Whether it happened during family vacations, holidays, a birthday,
etc., that remembrance planted itself and patiently lay waiting for
years, for that secondary spark to re-ignite the passion to learn about
this truly ancient and intriguing technology that magically performs
music on demand today, just as it originally had, sometimes 375+ years
earlier (Bidermann-Langenbucher/MET, NYC).

Here at the Morris Museum ( http://www.morrismuseum.org/ ) we are
lucky enough to have created an immersive, 4500 square foot display,
featuring the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical
Instruments and Automata, having an orientation theatre, 150 objects
exhibited within "Musical Machines and Living Dolls", plenty of directly
related educational inter-actives, 8 video monitors, 8 recorded sound
stations and a publicly viewable, lower level storeroom housing over
550 more!  Even if you happen to miss out on the live demonstrations
(at 2 p.m. daily) a visitor would still have enough to capture their
interest for hours.

School group visits are of utmost importance, especially when the
Museum Staff Educators formulate programming so that it provides
essential school and state curriculum values, without which the school
outing and exposure to mechanical music would likely not happen.  In
today's economically difficult times, Board of Education cuts are
effectively reducing these visits and have been for some time.

Reduced fees for school groups and more aggressive promotion efforts
have been of benefit to all, but other productive and long standing
offered Museum services are that of "Educational Outreach" and "Museum
Loan".  Both of these services do exactly what Robbie had mentioned --
that of taking the (portable) objects, the educational programming and
even the Educator, directly into the schools!

Since opening the Guinness wing, we've worked towards fulfilling
these goals as relates to Mechanical Music (MM).  This last year we
started including MM as part of the Educational Outreach program
offerings and it has been very well received by schools, senior and
assisted living facilities, religious groups, regional public
libraries, etc.

Some of you may have seen our "Wanted-Donation" advertisement in MBSI
publications, because even with the fabulous Guinness collection, we
lack examples of small, easily portable disc musical boxes, similar to
a 6" Symphonion or 8" Regina that could be included in these programs.
The Museum is a tax exempt Institution, so please think of helping us
out in this regard. It would be highly appreciated, especially by the
kids!  Other "out-of-house" MM related efforts are in the planning
stages for 2011, but more news about them will be left to a later date.

For those who would like to see for yourselves, visit "Collections /
Guinness" on our web site.  The handsome looking gent behind our new
demonstration counter is MBSI member and museum volunteer Bob Kussner!
We're blessed and all benefit to a large degree by a core group of
about seven MBSI/AMICA members who enthusiastically present these live
public demonstrations on a daily basis.  Who better to "catch" the
collecting "bug" from but another enthusiast!

All best,
Jere Ryder - Conservator, Guinness Collection
Morris Museum
Morristown, New Jersey, USA