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If you add up the attendance for every major-league baseball, basketball, football and hockey game this year, the combined total will come to about 140 million people. That’s a big number, but it’s barely a fraction of the number of people who will visit American museums this year.

Bell says that though museums are a part of the community — and there are more than 17,500 of them throughout the U.S. — their role is not well-understood or well-publicized. And then there’s also the “boring” factor. Night At The Museum (a 2006 movie about a watchman who discovers museum exhibits come to life at night) honed in on the stereotype of museums as boring … but filled with really cool stuff.

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