You are the collector in the gallery of your life. You collect. You might not mean to but you do. One out of three people collects tangible things such as cats, photos and noisy toys. There are among some 40 collections that are being shown at "The Museum Of"--the first of several new museums which, over the next two years, will exhibit the objects accumulated by unknown collectors. In doing so, they will promote a popular culture of museums, not what museums normally represent. Some of the collections are fairly common--records, model houses. Others are strangely beautiful--branches that have fallen from tree, for example. But they all reveal  a lot of things: ask someone what they collect and their answers will tell you who they are. Other on the way include "The museum of Collectors" and "The Museum of Me."These new ones, it is hoped, will build on the success of "The Museum Of." The thinkers behind the project want to explore why people collect, and what it means to do so. They hope that visitors who may not have considered themselves collectors will begin to see they, too, collect. Some collectors say they started or stopped making collections at important point: the beginning or end of adolescence--"it's a growing-up thing; you stop when you grow up,"says one. Other painful times are mentioned, such as the end of a relationship. For time and life can seem so uncontrollable that a steady serial arrangement is comforting. What can be learned about collectors from their collections?
Who they are. How old they are. Where they were born. Why they might not mean to collect.