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Appendix

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Secretary Adams' comments

Smithsonian horizons

[[image - drawing of the Smithsonian Castle]]

A population shift to the Sunbelt, as recorded in the latest census, prompts questions on the Smithsonian's future

The recently published findings of the 1990 census were accompanied in many newspapers by a map of the United States, redrawn to make the size of each state proportional to its population. This arresting depiction adds a newly massive Floridian thumb but otherwise leaves few but the largest coastline states recognizable by their shapes. Nothing could make clearer the cumulative impact of an extraordinary migration into the Sunbelt that now has almost an eighth of our entire population living in California.

That last result, coupled with the confident, further demographic projection that Los Angeles will surpass New York City's metropolitan population early in the new millennium, prompts some thought on the Smithsonian's own line of future development as a complex of national museums. It has long been our policy to concentrate our museum efforts in and around the national capital Different criteria apply to research facilities, while the New York elements of the National Museum of the American Indian and the Cooper-Hewitt are exceptions arising from legal constraints on those great collections.

Encouraging public visitation of the seat of government by concentrating in this way is, after all, a valid objective of public investment. Other compelling arguments for the same course of action are based on economies of administration and on facilitating exhibition and scholarly study by concentrating rather than dispersing individual collections. Difficulties also can be foreseen in selecting among alternative expansion proposals that would surely follow any opening of the door to even one of them. But at what point, if any, should the ongoing redistribution of our citizenry farther and farther away from Washington bring new and potentially countervailing consideration into play?

Wholesale transfer of existing facilities seems most unlikely. On the other hand, I do not think it would be unreasonable to adopt a different locational rationale if a proposal came along that raised no question of dividing or moving present collections. The Hirshhorn Museum, the National Museum of African Art, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and now the onset of planning for the Museum of the American Indian all illustrate a pattern of growth largely governed by the addition of new collections. Who knows what exciting new opportunity might attract sufficiently broad support to go forward - not under present circumstances, to be sure, but, say, a decade or more hence?

The Smithsonian's Board of Regents is its governing and policy-making body. Were it to opt for a major new initiative, Congressional approval would then be sought through the authorization and appropriations processes. Authorizing legislation often represents expressions of intent that are not immediately pursued; 15 years elapsed between the authorization of the National Air and Space Museum and the initial appropriation for its construction in 1972. Matching private contributions also may be needed, as they were for our Quadrangle, and as we have just begun to seek for the new American Indian museum. But appropriations are where the rubber really meets the road for ideas to move beyond the discussion stage and into a serious planning process.

Grant the proposition (if only for the moment) that eventually some regional diversification of the Smithsonian is likely. Still, that need not occur only by additions of bricks and mortar under the Institution's direct control. The legislation for the American Indian museum, for example, anticipates extensive training functions, information exchange on collections, assistance with exhibits, and other support activities on behalf of regional and community museums and other native-American organizations. A similar concern for cooperating with - thus strengthening rather than competing with - existing museums has been raised by a committee that the Smithsonian has convened to consider prospects for a new African-American facility. New, Information Age technology can greatly facilitate such "networking."

There are, in short, plenty of cons as well as pros. But it is at least plausible to consider whether the Smithsonian should one day establish some sort of West Coast foothold (beyond the small offices currently maintained in Los Angeles and San Francisco by our Archives of American Art). As the population balance shifts West, such a presence could help in finding better ways for the Smithsonian to track and represent the proliferating expressions of our country's diversity. But budgetary considerations alone are sufficient to suggest that initially this could be at best a very small-scale effort - a listening post, perhaps, or a standing invitation for a dialogue.

These musings are more tentative than most that appear in the column. No new policy is likely either to embody them or set them aside without a lengthy deliberative process that has not even begun. But a concern for the long run, however provisional it must be, is integral to the Smithsonian. Hence the opinions of readers will be warmly welcomed.

Robert McC Adams