I do get what you're saying, rewt, and I agree with the sentiment: I do want a wider audience for the results of my research, otherwise why do it? At the end of the day, we all want people to discuss our research, right?

Update on my work situation: I received an email today, saying "hope you don't mind if [we] use parts of your research paper, on two panels in our exhibition?". I have replied to say I'm happy for it to be used, but I have already submitted the paper to my University as part of my course work, and in order to protect the 'original research' status of my work, that they should credit my contribution to the exhibition by printing my name and University alongside the parts they have used.

Gosh, I hope that was the right thing to do! Does anybody know?

Thanks for your reply, I'm afraid this only confirms what I have seen so far. Bearing that in mind, I will think very carefully in terms of how much of my research I am prepared to discuss in a conference situation.

I would love to communicate my frustration to the people who have used my work without crediting, Cucaracha! Unfortunately, they are the managers, and I need the work in order to continue my studies. It is very difficult to complain when there is such an imbalance of power.

I would appreciate some advice over my reluctance to fall in with my University's constant urging to be "collegiate", and share lots of information about my thesis.
I study part-time, and work to pay for my study. The work is in my field of study - but that is the problem! I am a good researcher, and have done numerous short pieces of original research already. However, the sector in which I work (heritage) is competitive, and I have found that, as soon as I share my discoveries with colleagues, they quickly absorb my findings into their own work streams, and, before I know it, are doing talks, preparing exhibitions, and generally acting and speaking as if the work I laboured so hard to do, was their own idea.It is immensely frustrating! - and makes me feel that I really don't want to run that risk with my thesis research.
I am trying to keep this all in perspective: of course, I want to share discoveries in order to improve academic knowledge. I do know that it is usually people's enthusiasm for the topic that makes them speak as if "they" know, what I have discovered. I also know that I can be too sensitive and defensive!
But at the same time, I can feel exploited and taken advantage of. An example: I wrote a short paper last autumn - which I did not present to my direct supervisors, but to another team at work, whose area it fell more naturally into. I was not prepared for the enthusiasm with which it was received - nor for the fact that one of this team then went and discovered one of the items I had argued in my paper belonged to our collection, and started negotiating with the owner to buy it back!
I then reluctantly sent my paper to my own supervisors, knowing that they would get to hear of it. I have now discovered that they have "added" a second exhibition this season, to the one already planned. Guess what, the added exhibition is about the part of our collection that I wrote about - and, going on past performances from them, I expect that they will be using some of my work in the exhibition, without one word of credit or mention of what I did.
With this sort of behaviour as my working background, perhaps you can understand my concern about sharing my work? How do I get over this? And how do I protect my work? I would really like to submit a conference abstract - but I worry about having my work stolen.