Talk:Open-air museum

Merge with Living museum
Living museum is just a list of living/open air museums, which happens to include articles like Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum. Is there a substantial difference between "Living Museum" and "Open Air Museum"? Either the two pages should be merged, or if one remains a list, their names should be the same. -- TheMightyQuill 01:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks to Verne Equinox for being bold and completing the merger. Sorry I messed up the merge tag. =( -- TheMightyQuill 20:20, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

So, does someone feel like merging the categories now? - TheMightyQuill 07:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry that I just saw this, but living museums and open air museums are two different concepts. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:05, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Vegaswikian, see my comment below. --Zeamays (talk) 07:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Not for profit?
"Like other museums, an open air museum is a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development..." This seems a bit naive. See Colonial Williamsburg or Korean Folk Village. —  AjaxSmack    18:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The Williamsburg Foundation is non-profit, to be clear. Naive is the wrong word; limited would be a better description.  There certainly are for-profit museums.  In the US, we often consider them tourist traps.  Colonial Willimasburg is certainly not one of those. --Zeamays (talk) 07:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Farm museums?
There are a fair number of entries under category:Farm museums - should they be listed here also? Simesa (talk) 13:30, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with Simesa, see my comment below. --Zeamays (talk) 07:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Split it up: Outdoor museums / Living history museums are different.
The introduction seems Scandinavian-centric, claiming and origin to outdoor and architectural museums in Scandinavia, but ignoring the opening to the public of a number of historically important buildings and their associated buildings even earlier in other places (Versailles in France, Mount Vernon in Virginia, for example). On the other hand, living history museums provide a much more complete experience than outdoor building museums and that should be recognized by a separate article. Farm museums are one type of living history museum, and fit well into it, but don't fit in with outdoor/building museums. I note that all USA living history museums are relegated to a separate article, which I think proves my point. --Zeamays (talk) 07:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Do we need to condone errors in punctuation?
User:Bermicourt added "also frequently open air museum". Lots of companies and organizations misspell, miscapitalize and mispunctuate their own names (it's their name, and they can abuse it any way they see fit), but every reliable dictionary says to use a hyphen in "open-air" when it is used as an adjective. Many of the Wikipedia articles where the hyphen is omitted from the name of a museum are about museums in continental Europe (Germany, the Netherlands, etc.), and they cannot be expected to master English punctuation, so they should not be used as a standard for the English language. The edit makes it appear that omitting the hyphen is acceptable when the term is used generically; this is simply not true. Should we change that to "also frequently mispunctuated as open air museum"? Or, better yet, take that phrase out. It is not the place of Wikipedia to override dictionaries of the English language and encourage the omission of required punctuation. Chris the speller  yack  22:13, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Never mind me, I'm just one editor. But many open-air museums in English-speaking countries spell their official name "Foo Open Air Museum" and also "every reliable dictionary" doesn't appear to include the Oxford Dictionary of English which just has "open air". It is the place of Wikipedia to balance good practice with the aim of reflecting the real world. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:17, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Does Oxford Dictionary of English define "open air" as a noun or adjective or both? My local library does not have a copy. If it has "open air" as an adjective, then I would say that it was probably not a reliable dictionary, though you could claim otherwise. If it only has "open air" as a noun, then I think we have our answer. Chris the speller   yack  16:59, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think you can write off a flagship dictionary as not reliable! As it happens the OED lists "open air" as both a noun and adjective. And having looked at the example (in tiny print) it is hyphenated when used as an adjective. So that seems reasonable and I'll try to remember to include the hyphen in the generic term. However, what a commercial museum calls itself is another matter and I'm not sure we can change their formatting willy nilly. Unless maybe they've translated it from a foreign language and missed the hyphen. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:22, 9 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, the hyphenated version is more proper, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the unhyphenated version. There's little chance of it being misunderstood as "air museum which is open", since "air museum" isn't really a thing. That said, there's also no reason to give it in bold in the first sentence. I've just removed that. --BDD (talk) 20:24, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

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