Temple's Anthropology Museum

On Monday I visited the Anthropology “museum” strategically hidden behind the café on the first floor of Gladfelter.  Eager to enter this normally overlooked museum, I almost neglected the two cased displays against the wall resting among the empty tables and sparse student company.  The other students seemed oblivious to these dormant pottery shards and post cards, evidence of past cultures and student facilitated expeditions through which these remnants of the past were found.  An overview of this collection is displayed on a wall plaque next to these noticeably public (yet ignored) exhibits.  It’s shared artifacts and knowledge cover the fields of archaeology and biological, sociocultual, and linguistic anthropology.  I approach the heavy doors of the “museum” and scan for any implication of public viewing hours.  After not finding any, and assuming it is open whenever the building is, I ring the door bell necessary to summon someone of authority to allow me access.  A student opens the door with a questioning expression.  I say I am here to see the museum, but his surprised wordless response is followed by “there is a private meeting at this time” and that I can come back later (there is no exterior notification of this temporary closing).  I return an hour later only to be met by a woman who says she is on her lunch break, but allows the student whom greeted me earlier to supervise my visit.  After he asks me a series of questions about my purpose, I am allowed into the main exhibit.  There is a small table cased-in display in the center of the room and one wall of exposed (and impressive) earthenware pottery.  A large (supposed) Native American headdress rests on top a file cabinet; my guide does not know anything about it.  There is no written explanation for the artifacts, but my guide explains them as best as he knows how.  He explains that many of these artifacts have been found by faculty or students on faculty led expeditions from historic sites in Philadelphia.  A large part of the collection was donated by the Commercial Museum after it closed.  The main purpose of this “museum” is intellectual; faculty and students of archeology and anthropology are given access to study the collection.  It is also my assumed reason as to why it is not advertised.  Can it still be labeled a museum if it does not exactly welcome student tourism?  Isn’t one of main purposes of a museum to allow public access and contribute societal knowledge?  However upon closer analysis, this section behind the heavy doors is mainly a laboratory, but it sponsors more public exhibits throughout Gladfelter.  The display in the café is very much publicly accessed, although often unnoticed, it is still shared and explained much like exhibits in institutions publically recognized as museums (even if abstractly).  My guide also informed me about another exhibit located on the 10^th floor of Gladfelter.  I rode the elevator to the quiet 10^th floor where I was greeted by an informative aesthetically charming display on early 19^th century Philadelphia tableware.  There is no mystery to these exhibits, no “revealing curtain”, although under the surface it certainly embodies many foundational aspects of modern day history museums.