Abe Lincoln and the World of Tomorrow.

"Bob Rogers, BRC's founder and chairman...draws two circles, labeled 'scholarship' and 'showmanship,' on a sheet of yellow paper. The circles overlap, but only slightly. That tiny slice of shared space, he says, is where the museum needs to be."
By way of Dangerous Meta, the Washington Post examines the mild controversy surrounding high-tech exhibits at the Abe Lincoln library. If BRC is consulting a sizable number of outside historians on the scholarship, as they seem to be doing, then what's the problem? Gimmicks like Tim Russert introducing 1860 campaign ads are a bit facile, sure, but if they help get more laypeople intrigued in Lincoln's life and times (and don't unduly misrepresent the history), I'm all for it. Besides, my feeling is, if historians don't get behind such efforts, they're going to happen anyway, and with much less historical rigor to them.