We in the New York metropolitan area are spoiled by having such wonderful and diverse museums.

When traveling through rural America, I am surprised by what some communities are willing to call a museum. I have seen a museum that included only thimbles. I myself am not anti-thimble but I feel that the term museum should be qualified in this case.

To call a small collection of objects a museum and to call the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 82nd St. and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan by the same name is definitely misleading.

At the Metropolitan, there are usually 10 to 15 different exhibits being shown at any one time. Paintings, furniture, jewelry, sculpture, photography, documents are confined within the walls of this great institution in separate wings and little nooks of this huge building. The permanent house paintings and statuary are enormous not to mention the Egyptian and Greek rooms.

It is often difficult to find the collection in which we are interested. We must ask directions from at least three to five museum guards to at last find the treasured exhibit that we seek.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, I wandered slowly through the "Green Bay Packer Museum." I left Lorraine in the car outside as we both felt that there was nothing inside to interest her. I enjoyed every minute of my tour through this local and single-interest museum. Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr, Paul Hornung and Ray Nietschke all came back to my life in my mind and revived the 1960's. I guess this is what museums are supposed to accomplish.

Small is not necessarily a negative when we speak of a museum. If the exhibition makes a point that is all we really should expect and require. I would be in favor of a better title than museum when comparing thimbles and the Green Bay Packers to some of my favorite museums. My list of favorites: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Natural History, The Guggenheim, The Frick Collection, The Jewish Museum, MOMA, The Whitney Out of Town Museum, The Louvre, The Hermitage, The British Museum, The Reichs Museum in Amsterdam, The Rocky Museum in Philadelphia, The Corcoran in Washington.

If any of my readers has a favorite museum, please send me word of it. E-mail at shgreenbug@aol.com or write to Stanley Greenberg c/o Syosset-Jericho Tribune, 132 East Second Street. Mineola, NY 11501. Thanks!