Curators work in museums and similar institutions that serve as repositories for objects that document and explain the artistic, historical, or scientific conditions of human existence. Such settings can be thought of as distinct types of "information systems" that exist to disseminate the kind of knowledge that resides in representative objects or specimens. Like books, documents, or records, museum objects are made useful when they are arranged according to particular principles and are disseminated on the basis of their context and communicative capacity. Within a museum setting, it is the curator who performs this function, using professional expertise to generate vital associations among objects to satisfy the curiosity of the general public and to meet community educational and scholarly needs. Curators are found in art museums, children's museums, history museums, maritime museums, and science and technology museums, in botanical gardens and arboretums, and in cultural societies and zoos...