The public sector's cultural value system holds multipurposing as a bedrock value.In this day of excess, of ratcheting everything up to the next level, the more extreme form of multipurposing becomes any-purposing.
Enter Rick Beard, director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM). Beard has recently staged shows featuring turn-of-the-century posters, a fashion night, and he is currently mounting a tribute to a 20th Century Springfield race riot. Beard says, "“We’re about Abraham Lincoln every year, every day of the year.”
I'll drink to that. With my Abraham Lincoln shot glass.
State Historian Schwartz said that in a gift shop containing everything from obligatory shot glasses to a $6,000, hand-crafted replica bed, the most popular items sold are the books.The books speak to the single purpose institution. The glasses to multipurposing and entertainment. Entertainment is "obligatory".
Nazdrovia, as John Turchin would say..
