Understanding the visitor experience provides essential insights into how museums can affect people's lives. Personal drives, group identity, decision-making and meaning-making strategies, memory, and leisure preferences, all enter into the visitor experience, which extends far beyond the walls of the institution both in time and space. Drawing upon a career in studying museum visitors, renowned researcher John Falk attempts to create a predictive model of visitor experience, one that can help museum professionals better meet those visitors' needs. He identifies five key types of visitors who attend museums and then defines the internal processes that drive them there over and over again. Through an understanding of how museums shape and reflect their personal and group identity, Falk is able to show not only how museums can increase their attendance and revenue, but also their meaningfulness to their constituents.

Classic set of 45 articles from the first decade of the Journal of Museum Education and its predecessor, Roundtable Reports. Articles and essays focus on teaching strategies, introspective glances at the museum education field, reports of program successes and near successes, evaluative studies, and reviews of exhibitions and literature related to object-based learning. This title is sponsored by The Museum Education Roundtable. The Museum Education Roundtable (MER) is a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, dedicated to enriching and promoting the field of Museum Education.

This comprehensive history of museums begins with the origins of collecting in prehistory and traces the evolution of museums from grave goods to treasure troves, from the Alexandrian Temple of the Muses to the Renaissance cabinets of curiosities, and onto the diverse array of modern institutions worldwide. The development of museums as public institutions is explored in the context of world history with a special emphasis on the significance of objects and collecting. The book examines how the successful exportation of the European museum model and its international adaptations have created public institutions that are critical tools in diverse societies for understanding the world. Rather than focusing on a specialized aspect of museum history, this volume provides a comprehensive synthesis of museums worldwide from their earliest origins to the present. Museums: A History tells the fascinating story of how museums respond to the needs of the cultures that create them. Readers will come away with an understanding of: the comprehensive history of museums from prehistoric collections to the present the evolution of museums presented in the context of world history the development of museums considered in diverse cultural contexts global perspective on museums the object-centered history of museums museums as memory institutions A constant theme throughout the book is that museums have evolved to become institutions in which objects and learning are associated to help human beings understand the world around them. Illustrations amplify the discussions.

Heritage and Identity explores the complex ways in which heritage actively contributes to the construction and representation of identities in contemporary societies, providing a comprehensive account of the diverse conceptions of heritage and identity across different continents and cultures.

This collection of thought-provoking articles from experts in the field captures the richness and diversity of the interlinked themes of heritage and identity. Heritage is more than a simple legacy from the past, and incorporates all elements, past and present, that have the ability to represent particular identities in the public sphere.

The editors introduce and discuss a wide range of interconnected topics, including multiculturalism and globalization, local and regional identity, urban heritage, difficult memories, conceptions of history, ethnic representations, repatriation, ownership, controversy, contestation, and ethics and social responsibility.

The volume places empirical data within a theoretical and analytical framework and presents an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the representation of the past, invaluable for anyone interested in heritage and museum studies.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of cultural and heritage tourism in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the many complexities that heritage sites and tourist attractions face. The MENA region has long been regarded as the cradle of Western and Arab civilisation and is the home of many of the world's major religions. Because of this, the region is rich in heritage sites that serve as major tourist attractions and as icons of national, cultural and religious identity. However, as this book examines, heritage in the region is simultaneously highly contested and has even become a target for terrorism creating a situation that brought major challenges for heritage management and sustainable tourism development. Many of the region's innumerable cultural sites are threatened, in some cases by overuse, in others by neglect and, in many, simply by the pressures of economic development. This book is therefore of interest not only to heritage managers and policy makers but those academics who seek to address the delicate balance between tourism development, communities and the tourists who visit such sites in a turbulent but highly significant region of the world.

Museum Representations of Chinese Diasporas is the first book to analyse the recent upsurge in museums on Chinese diasporas in China. Examining heritage-making beyond the nation state, the book provides a much-needed, critical examination of China's engagement with its diasporic communities. Drawing on fieldwork in more than ten museums, as well as interviews with museum practitioners and archival study, Wang offers a timely analysis of the complex ways in which Chinese diasporas are represented in the museum space of China, the ancestral homeland. Arguing that diasporic heritage is highly ambivalent and introducing a diasporic perspective to the study of cultural heritage, this book opens up a new avenue of inquiry into the study and management of cultural heritage in China and beyond. Most importantly, perhaps, Wang sheds new light on the dynamic between China and Chinese diasporas through the lens of the museum. Museum Representations of Chinese Diasporas takes a transnational perspective that will draw attention to the under-researched connections between heritage, mobility and meaning in a global context. As such, this cross-disciplinary work will be of interest to scholars and students working in the museum and heritage studies fields, as well as those studying Asia, China, migration and diaspora, anthropology, history and culture.

The Great War of 1914-1918 was fought on the battlefield, on the sea and in the air, and in the heart. Museums Victoria's exhibition World War I: Love and Sorrow exposed not just the nature of that war, but its depth and duration in personal and familial lives. Hailed by eminent scholar Jay Winter as "one of the best which the centenary of the Great War has occasioned", the exhibition delved into the war's continuing emotional claims on descendants and on those who encounter the war through museums today. Contributors to this volume, drawn largely from the exhibition's curators and advisory panel, grapple with the complexities of recovering and presenting difficult histories of the war. In eleven essays the book presents a new, more sensitive and nuanced narrative of the Great War, in which families and individuals take centre stage. Together they uncover private reckonings with the costs of that experience, not only in the years immediately after the war, but in the century since.

Museums everywhere have the potential to serve as agents of change-bringing people together, contributing to local communities, and changing people's lives. So how can we, as individuals, radically expand the work of museums to live up to this potential? How can we more fiercely recognize the meaningful work that museums are doing to enact change around the relevant issues in our communities? How can we work together to build a stronger culture of equity and care within museums ? Questions like these are increasingly vital for all museum professionals to consider, no matter what your role is within your institution. They are also important questions for all of us to be thinking about more deeply as citizens and community members. This book is about the work we need to do to become changemakers and demand that that our museums take action toward positive social change and bring people together into a more just, equitable, compassionate, and connected society. It is a journey toward tapping the energies within all of us to make change happen and proactively shape a new future.

Heritage processes vary according to cultural, national, geographical, and historical contexts. This volume is unique in that it is dedicated to approaching the analysis of heritage through the concepts of social movements. Adapting the latest developments in the field of social movements, the chapters examine the formation, use and contestation of heritage by various official, non-official and activist players and the spaces where such ongoing negotiations and contestation take place. By bringing social movements into heritage studies, the book advocates a shift of perspective in understanding heritage, one that is no longer bound by (at times arbitrary) divisions such as those assumed between the state and people or between experts and non-experts.

New York Times 'Best Art Books' 2020 'Essential' - Sunday Times 'Brilliantly enraged' - New York Review of Books 'A real game-changer'- Economist Walk into any Western museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen. Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of metal plaques and sculptures depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections. The Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. Since its first publication, museums across the western world have begun to return their Bronzes to Nigeria, heralding a new era in the way we understand the collections of empire we once took for granted.

By juxtaposing theoretical and legal frameworks and conceptual contexts alongside a wide distribution of geographical and temporal case studies, this book throws light upon the risks, and the realizations, of art and heritage destruction. Exploring the variety of forces that drive the destruction of heritage, the volume also contains contributions that consider what forms heritage destruction takes and in which contexts and circumstances it manifests. Contributors, including local scholars, also consider how these drivers and contexts change, and what effect this has on heritage destruction and how we conceptualise it. Overall, the book establishes the importance of the need to study the destruction of art and cultural heritage within a wider framework that encompasses not only theory, but also legal, military, social, and ontological issues. The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Destruction will contribute to the development of a more complete understanding and analysis of heritage destruction The Handbook will be useful to academics, students and professionals with an interest in heritage, conservation and preservation, history and art history, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy and law.

Rethinking Research in the Art Museum presents an original and radical perspective on how research can function as an agent of change in art museums today. The book analyses a range of art organisations and draws on numerous interviews with museum professionals to outline the limitations of existing models of museum research. Arguing for a more democratic formulation in tune with the current needs and ambitions of the art institution, Emily Pringle puts forward a framework for practitioner-led, co-produced research that redefines how knowledge is created in the museum. Recognising that museums today negotiate multiple agendas, the book outlines the value of constructing the art museum professional as a practitioner researcher and their work as a mode of practice-based research, be they educators, archivists, curators or conservators. Locating these arguments within the framework of new museology, critical pedagogy, professional and organisational studies and epistemology, the book offers insights and guidance for those interested in how art museums function and the role research plays within these complex institutions. Rethinking Research in the Art Museum provides a timely and important resource for museum professionals and scholars, students, artists and community members. It should be of particular interest to those invested in exploring how art museums can continue to make the most of their unique resources, whilst becoming more collaborative, inclusive and relevant to the twenty-first century.

1. The book provides informal educators with practical resources that will help them to build dynamic digital engagement experiences within their own cultural organizations. 2. It will be an essential guide for professionals who are tasked with interpreting the content of a cultural organization and building lasting digital engagement opportunities. It will also be of interest to practitioners-in-training. 3. This is the first book on interactive virtual learning to be written for those working in the field of museum education.

Curating Art Now is a timely reflection on the practice of curating and the role of the art curator during a period of rapid change. Curating has a pivotal position in the art world: it is embedded in the identity and expertise of the museum and plays an ever-increasing role in the commercial art sector too. Current curatorial practice encompasses a wide range of activities, from the care of collections in museums to the presentation of large-scale contemporary biennials, and from collaboration with artists to presentations of work on digital platforms. Curating has grown substantially in the last decades, and in the early 2020s is undergoing a significant period of transition as it grapples with some fundamental questions. How diverse and inclusive is curating as a profession, and how does that inform the art and artists who come to prominence? How possible is it to conduct exploratory and inclusive curatorial work in the challenging economic climate of the early 2020s? What is the extent of a curator's autonomy within the various institutions and structures in which they work, and what power dynamics are at work between artists and curators? Finally, how might digital art and exhibition-making give way to hybrid forms of practice, and even challenge the face of traditional curating? Lilian Cameron's lively review addresses all of these issues, and considers the future landscape of curating in an uncertain world.

How does one turn a house containing artworks into a museum? How does one narrate the story of the lives that were lived there? How authentic can a retrospective reconstruction of interior spaces and their contents be?
The contributors of "The Modern Period Room," drawn from a broad range of disciplines, consider the interiors of the modern era and their more recent reconstruction from a variety of different viewpoints. Beneath the conceptual and physical strategy of the representational technique of the modern period room lie numerous conflicting intentions.
This collection of essays by design historians, architects and curators engages with these tensions. The authors explore themes and examples by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Truus Schroeder and Gerrit Rietveld, Erno Goldfinger and others in a bid to reveal the specific cultural encoding of presented interior spaces.
The book's critical engagement with the issues and conventions which surround the modern period room will allow historians and theorists of architecture, design and social history to investigate the contexts in which this representational device has been used. The various models of period room enables the reader to understand just how dynamic, contributory and ultimately interventionist the presentation of the period room is in the process of architectural and design history making.

Material Culture in Transit: Theory and Practice constellates curators and scholars actively working with material culture within academic and museal institutions through theory and practice. The rich collection of essays critically addresses the multivalent ways in which mobility reshapes the characteristics of artefacts, specifically under prevailing issues of representation and colonial liabilities. The volume attests to material culture as central to understanding the repercussions of problematic histories and proposes novel ways to address them. It offers valuable reading for scholars of anthropology, museum studies, history and others with an interest in material culture.

This very practical book guides museums on how to create the highest quality experience possible for their visitors. Creating an environment that supports visitor engagement with collections means examining every stage of the visit, from the initial impetus to go to a particular institution, to front-of-house management, interpretive approach and qualitative analysis afterwards. This holistic approach will be immensely helpful to museums in meeting the needs and expectations of visitors and building their audience base. Because "The Engaging Museum" ""offers a set of principles that can be adapted to any museum in any location, it will be a valuable resource for institutions of every shape and size.
Especially designed to be user-friendly, "The Engaging Museum "includes:
* Chapter introductions and discussion sections
* Supporting case studies to show how ideas are put into practice
* A lavish selection of tables, figures and plates to support and illustrate the discussion
* Boxes showing ideas, models and planning suggestions to guide development
* An up-to-date bibliography of landmark research
"The Engaging Museum "will appeal internationally to students and teachers from a wide range of post-graduate museum courses in museology, museum studies, gallery studies, heritage studies and management, as well as to those studying tourism and visitor attraction management. It is also highly relevant to any professional planning a new museum exhibition or applying for grant aid for exhibition development.

This book explores the memory and representation of genocide as they affect individuals, communities and families, and artistic representations. It brings together a variety of disciplines from public health to philosophy, anthropology to architecture, offering readers interdisciplinary and international insights into one of the most important challenges in the 21st century. The book begins by describing the definitions and concepts of genocide from historical and philosophical perspectives. Next, it reviews memories of genocide in bodies and in societies as well as genocide in memory through lives, mental health and transgenerational effects. The book also examines the ways genocide has affected artistic works. From poetry to film, photography to theatre, it explores a range of artistic approaches to help demonstrate the heterogeneity of representations. This book provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging assessment of the many ways genocide has been remembered and represented. It presents an ideal foundation for understanding genocide and possibly preventing it from occurring again.

Each chapter is organized around a central contradiction, including: finances ("Who will pay for museums?"; demographic shifts ("Who will come to museums?); the roles of narratives ("Whose story is it?"), ownership of objects ("Who owns the artifact?" as well as learning and teaching ("What is learning and how can we teach equitably?" The reculturing stance taken by Ash promotes social justice and equity, 'making change' first, within museums, called inreach, rather than outside the museum, called outreach; challenges existing norms; is sensitive to neoliberal and deficit ideologies; and pays attention to the structure agency dialectic.

Museum collections are often perceived as static entities hidden away in storerooms or trapped behind glass cases. By focusing on the dynamic histories of museum collections, new research reveals their pivotal role in shaping a wide range of social relations. Over time and across space the interactions between these artefacts and the people and institutions who made, traded, collected, researched and exhibited them have generated complex networks of material and social agency.

In this innovative volume, the contributors draw on a broad range of source materials to explore the cross-cultural interactions which have created museum collections. These case studies contribute significantly to the development of new theoretical frameworks to examine broader questions of materiality, agency, and identity in the past and present.

Grounded in case studies from individual objects and museum collections from North America, Europe, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and Australia, this truly international volume juxtaposes historical, geographical, and cross-cultural studies.

This work will be of great interest to archaeologists and anthropologists studying material culture, as well as researchers in museum studies and cultural heritage management."