Whether you call yourself a Registrar, Curator, Curator of Collections, Collections Manager or any number of other titles you are most likely doing condition reports. A good condition report is an accurate and informative account of an object's state of preservation at a particular moment in time. Condition reports can have multiple functions such as recording the state of an object prior to an exhibition or loan, after exhibition or loan, to assist in collections planning, or as a tool for the treatment of an object. Most of these functions can be conducted by a registrar, curator, collections manager, or volunteer. A good condition report fills many critical needs including: Knowing the exact condition of an object before or after a loan Helping staff determine the stability of an object for exhibit or loan Limiting how often an object is handled Informing object handlers of unseen problems Showing the condition of an object over time to determine the rate of deterioration Setting priorities for conservation Assisting the staff in identifying similar objects Aiding in the valuation of an object for insurance purposes The fifth edition of Basic Condition Reporting: A Handbook proffers a standard vocabulary for all of the individuals in a museum that may be conducting condition reports. In an ideal world, everyone who does a condition report for an item would be trained in the exact same standards, use the same terminology, and use the exact same form, etc. However, the reality is that even if every registrar, collections manager, and curator in your institution does condition reports, each report will be slightly different. Then you throw in every intern, volunteer, or student that may assist and you will find a variety of methods and terminologies that appear. This volume provides a baseline that all of these people can work from so that any person who opens the condition report can understand what the problems on a particular piece include. Basic Condition Reporting, Fifth Edition is a great resource for learning the basics of doing condition reports for museum objects. The book looks at different material types and helps new and seasoned professionals identify condition issues for a variety of materials. This new addition has several new chapters including information on digital condition reporting, wood objects, mixed media objects and taxidermy while expanding the information for existing chapters. This book is a great resource for those new to the museum field and a handy reference to collections professionals.

Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions offers an in-depth analysis of the multiple roles that exhibition graphics perform in contemporary museums and exhibitions. Drawing on a study of exhibitions that took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum of London and the Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Piehl brings together approaches from museum studies, design practice and narrative theory to examine museum exhibitions as multimodal narratives in which graphics account for one set of narrative resources. The analysis underlines the importance of aspects such as accessibility and at the same time problematises conceptualisations that focus only on the effectiveness of graphics as display device, by drawing attention to the contributions that graphics make towards the content on display and to the ways in which it is experienced in the museum space. Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions argues for a critical reading of and engagement with exhibition graphic design as part of wider debates around meaning-making in museum studies and exhibition-making practice. As such, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and students from the fields of museum and design studies. Practitioners such as exhibition designers, graphic designers, curators and other exhibition makers should also find much to interest them in the book.

Marketing and Social Media: A Guide for Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Second Edition is a much-needed guide to marketing for libraries, archives, and museum professionals in the social media age. This book serves as both an introductory textbook and as a guide for working professionals interested in developing well-planned evidence-based marketing campaigns. Chapters cover coordinating efforts with the organization's mission, goals, and objectives, how to do a SWOT analysis and environmental scanning, the use of existing data as well as issues in collecting additional data, how to identify and involve stakeholders, a 4-step marketing model, considerations of price, placement, product, and promotion, market research, understanding customer groups and market segmentation, marketing mix strategy and evaluation, promotional activities, channel selection, social media marketing activities, content marketing, social media policies, guidelines, crisis communication, and evidence-based assessment. Discussion of social media and examples of social media marketing activities are included throughout the book, as well as case study examples of marketing and social media campaigns in libraries, archives and museums. This second edition further includes a new final chapter offering step-by-step guidance for brand-new social media managers on how to get started from their first day on the job with social media marketing, management, assessment, strategic planning, and content calendar planning activities, in addition to working with colleagues and managers to integrate social media into work activities across the organization. For educators, this text includes elements which can be developed into classroom or workshop assignments which include pull quotes highlighting important concepts in each chapter, key terms, discussion questions, illustrative case study examples from archives, libraries and museums, and an annotated bibliography for further reading.

For most academic libraries, archives and museums, digital content management is increasingly occurring on a holistic enterprise level. As most institutions contemplate an enterprise digital content strategy for a growing number of digitized surrogates and born-digital assets, libraries, archives, and museums understand that these expanding needs can only be met by more flexible approaches offered by a multicomponent digital asset management ecosystem (DAME). Increasingly, librarians, archivists, and curators are managing an integrated digital ecosystem by coordinating and complementing a number of existing and emerging initiatives. This guide provides a high-level overview and offers a conceptual framework for understanding a digital asset management ecosystem with discussions on digital collection typologies and assessment, planning and prioritization, the importance of a community of practice through associated workflows, and an understanding of the critical role that foresight planning plays in balancing an evolving infrastructure and expanding digital content with creative cost modeling and sustainability strategies. Borrowing from the principles of data curation, integrative collection building requires an understanding of the library's "digital ecosystem" of licensed content, digitized material, and born-digital content in order to ensure strategic growth of institutional collections in the context of long-term holistic collection management plans. Key elements discussed in this book include: -the importance of digital collection assessment, analysis, and prioritization, -the realignment of accession and appraisal methodologies for efficient digital content acquisition, -the need to think holistically relating to tool selection and infrastructure development to ensure interoperability, scalability, and sustainability of a universe of digital assets, -the creation of cross-functional workflows in accordance with policies and plans, -the importance of advocating for growing resources needed for managing, descriptive, administrative, technical, rights and preservation metadata across the institution, and -the significance of distributed digital preservation models with a growing array of associated options for cloud storage.

This breakthrough handbook for botanical garden and arboretum curators (and curators in training) has now been expanded and updated fifteen years after the last edition was published. The new edition includes up-to-date information and methods for the preservation and conservation of plants and their use in both ex-situ and in-situ conservation programs, habitat restorations, and conservation research. There are expanded and updated sections on plant acquisitions and field collecting that conform to the Convention on Biological Diversity protocols. New technologies for documenting plant collections are described including reviews of the most common software programs to streamline this process. Recommendations for plant preservation-caring for collections-have been updated with expanded information on basic horticulture practice, sustainable techniques, special applications for conservation collections, and examples of preservation plans. There is an entirely new section on collections research and applications with several chapters on the latest conservation practices, technologies, and programs involving collections. All of the basic and essential information for collections management contained within the first edition, including specific recommendations and examples, has been expanded and updated with recommendations on new technologies and procedures to assist and guide curators in their critical role as plant collection developers, managers, and programmers. What is an important resource for public garden professionals and students has now become even more essential.

A characteristic trait of the maritime museums is that they are often located in a contemporary and/or historical environment from which the collections and narratives originate. The museum can thereby be directly linked to the site and its history. It is therefore vital to investigate the maritime museums in terms of relationships between landscape, architecture, museum and collections. This volume unravels the kinds of worlds and realities the Nordic maritime museums stage, which identities and national myths they depict, and how they make use of both the surrounding maritime environments and the architectural properties of the museum buildings.

This edited collection traces the impact of monographic exhibitions on the discipline of art history from the first examples in the late eighteenth century through the present. Roughly falling into three genres (retrospectives of living artists, retrospectives of recently deceased artists, and monographic exhibitions of Old Masters), specialists examine examples of each genre within their social, cultural, political, and economic contexts. Exhbitions covered include Nathaniel Hone's 1775 exhibition, the Holbein Exhibition of 1871, the Courbet retrospective of 1882, Titian's exhibition in Venice, Poussin's Louvre retrospective of 1960, and El Greco's anniversaty exhibitions of 2014.

In recent years, popular music museums have been established in high profile locations in many of the presumed "musical capitals" of the world, such as Los Angeles, Liverpool, Seattle, Memphis, and Nashville. Most of these are defined by expansive experiential infrastructures centered around spectacular, high-tech displays of varying sizes and types. Through over-the-top acts of display, these museums influence and reflect the values and priorities in the public life of popular music. This book examines the phenomenon of the popular music museum outside the typical and familiar frames of heritage and tourism. Instead, it looks at these institutions as markers of the broader entertainment industry in the era of its rise to global dominance. It highlights the multiple manifestations of power as read across a range of institutions and material forms and discusses how this contributes to shaping the experience of popular culture.

Collecting and Conserving Net Art explores the qualities and characteristics of net art and its influence on conservation practices. By addressing and answering some of the challenges facing net art and providing an exploration of its intersection with conservation, the book casts a new light on net art, conservation, curating and museum studies. Viewing net art as a process rather than as a fixed object, the book considers how this is influenced by and executed through other systems and users. Arguing that these processes and networks are imbued with ambiguity, the book suggests that this is strategically used to create suspense, obfuscate existing systems and disrupt power structures. The rapid obsolescence of hard and software, the existence of many net artworks within restricted platforms and the fact that artworks often act as assemblages that change or mutate, make net art a challenging case for conservation. Taking the performative and interpretive roles conservators play into account, the book demonstrates how practitioners can make more informed decisions when responding to, critically analysing or working with net art, particularly software-based processes. Collecting and Conserving Net Art is intended for researchers, academics and postgraduate students, especially those engaged in the study of museum studies, conservation and heritage studies, curatorial studies, digital art and art history. The book should also be interesting to professionals who are involved in the conservation and curation of digital arts, performance, media and software.

The 'bog bodies' of north-western Europe have captured the imaginations of poets and archaeologists alike, allowing us to come face-to-face with individuals from the past. Their exceptional preservation permits us to examine minute details of their lives and deaths, making us reflect poignantly on our own mortality. But, as this book argues, the bodies must be resituated within a turbulent world of endemic violence and change. Reinterpreting the latest continental research and new discoveries, and featuring a ground-breaking 'cold case' forensic study of Worsley Man, Manchester Museum's 'bog head', it brings the bogs to life through both natural history and folklore, revealing them as places that were rich and fertile yet dangerous. The book also argues that these remains do not just pose practical conservation problems but also philosophical dilemmas, compounded by the critical debate on if - and how - they should be displayed. -- .

Creating Meaningful Museum Experiences for K-12 Audiences: How to Connect with Teachers and Engage Students is the first book in more than a decade to provide a comprehensive look at best practices in working with this crucial segment of museum visitors. With more than 40 contributors from art, history, science, natural history, and specialty museums across the country, the book asks probing questions about museum-school relationships, suggests new paradigms, and offers creative approaches. Fully up-to-date with current issues relevant to museums' work with schools, including anti-racist teaching approaches and pivoting to virtual programming during the pandemic, this book is essential for both established and emerging museum educators to ensure they are current on best practices in the field. The book features four parts: Setting the Stage looks at the how museums establish and finance K-12 programs, and how to engage with the youngest audiences. Building Blocks considers the core elements of successful K-12 programming, including mission alignment, educator recruitment and training, working with teacher advisory boards, and anti-racist teaching practices. Questions and New Paradigms presents case studies in which practitioners reconsider established approaches to museums' work with schools and engage in iterative processes to update and improve them-from evaluating K-12 museum programs to diversifying program content, to prioritizing virtual programming. Solutions and Innovative Models offers examples of programs that have been reimagined for the current landscape of museum-school collaborations, including practicing self-care for teachers and museum educators, investing in extended school relationships over one-time visits, and highlighting the stories of enslaved people who lived at historic sites.

The Culture Factory: Architecture and the Contemporary Art Museum explores the key battlegrounds in the design of the contemporary-art museum, describing the intersection of art, aesthetics and politics at the highest levels, and the commitment of states, cities and wealthy individuals to the display of art. Global in scope, the book examines key examples from Europe and the Americas to contemporary China. It describes museum building as the projection of political power, but also as a desire to acquire power. So it is a book about ambitious peripheries as much as the traditional centres: Dundee and Bilbao as well as New York and Paris. It is commonplace to assume that the contemporary-art museum has become ever more spectacular, and the place of art ever more subservient within it. This book argues that a tendency to spectacle coexists with another equally powerful tendency, to make art museums that celebrate the artistic process, typically attempting to recreate the feeling of the artist's studio. That tendency is strongly represented in the designs for the Centre Georges Pompidou, completed in 1977, and arguably in the many contemporary art museums which have adapted former industrial buildings. Richard J. Williams's stimulating text includes many historical examples to illustrate how we got to where we are now, from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, to the Guggenheim museums in New York and Bilbao, London's Tate Modern, Oscar Niemeyer's work in Brazil and beyond, and the 798 Art District in Beijing.

This volume focuses on the implementation of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL approach), designed to foster the integration of heritage management in regional and urban planning and management, and strengthen the role of heritage in sustainable urban development.Earlier publications and research looked at the underlying theory of why the HUL approach was needed and how this theory was developed and elaborated by UNESCO. A comprehensive analysis was carried out in consultation with a multitude of actors in the twenty-first-century urban scene and with disciplinary approaches that are available to heritage managers and practitioners to implement the HUL approach.This volume aims to be empirical, describing, analyzing, and comparing 28 cities taken as case studies to implement the HUL approach. From those cases, many lessons can be learned and much guidance shared on best practices concerning what can be done to make the HUL approach work.Whereas the previous studies served to illustrate issues and challenges, in this volume the studies point to innovations in regional and urban planning and management that can allow cities to avoid major conflicts and to further develop in competitiveness. These accomplishments have been possible by building partnerships, devising financial strategies, and using heritage as a key resource in sustainable urban development, to name but a few effective strategies.For these reasons, this volume is primarily pragmatic, linked to the daily work and challenges of practitioners and administrators, using specific cases to assess what was and is good about current practices and what can be improved, in accordance with the HUL approach and aims.

There is a World Heritage Craze in China. China claims to have the longest continuous civilization in the world and is seeking recognition from UNESCO. This book explores three dimensions of the UNESCO World Heritage initiative with particular relevance for China: the universal agenda, the national practices, and the local responses. With a sociological lens, this book offers comprehensive insights into World Heritage, as well as China's deep social, cultural, and political structures.

Looking at the crossroads between heritage and religion through the case study of Moravian Christiansfeld, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2015, this anthology reaches back to the eighteenth century when the church settlement was founded, examines its legacy within Danish culture and modern society, and brings this history into the present and the ongoing heritagization processes. Finally, it explores the consequences of the listing for the everyday life in Christiansfeld and discusses the possible and sustainable futures of a religious community in a World Heritage Site.

Change is Required: Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum is a book about the future of American museums. Like other institutions, museums and zoos, historic sites, gardens, and arboreta, were powerfully affected by the nested crises of the pandemic. These unprecedented crises challenged American museums. Adapting to novel circumstances and uncertainty became the order of the day; improvisation in policy and practice the new norm. Amidst upheavals and disruptions, a number of American museums have charted new directions for themselves and their communities. Many museums have taken a decisive turn to digital programming. Others have taken a turn toward community, developing new kinds of collaborations with their neighbors and local audiences. Still others have moved issues of equity and justice--internally and in the world--to the center of their institutional concerns. In every part of the country--and in every type of museum--museum workers are challenging old assumptions, conventional narratives, and customary practices as they look to the future. In Change Is Required, a unique array of 50 museum professionals--representing different disciplines, positions, and experiences--share their thinking about assessing needs and possibilities, managing people and resources, and building productive new relationships with neighbors, communities, and partner organizations. These authors argue that change is necessary--inside and beyond the museum. It is futile and unproductive to default to the old "normal." To achieve greater relevance, impact, equity, and inclusiveness, museums need to reconsider their leadership models, organizational culture, internal structures, and community collaborations Bristling with personal passion, informed by experience, and focused on the future, the essays in this volume convey the urgency to rethink traditional museum practice, offering visionary--yet practical--routes to future museum success in a volatile, complex, and ambiguous world. In its depth and range, this book constitutes an invitation to join in the growing, lively discourse about possible futures for museums in America. The invitation extends not only to museum professionals, but to all those interested in cultural affairs and institutions.

Why do the arts matter so much in rural areas? The arts are needed now more than ever to heal the social fabric, grow the population, drive the local economy and, in some cases, replace lost industries. Post-pandemic, a significant portion of the population hungers for hands-on, in-person arts experiences at a human scale. At the same time, rural areas are ripe with innovation, community connections, and an entrepreneurial spirit that fits well with creativity and arts-based community engagement. As rural areas continue to evolve past their previous ties to agriculture, industry, and mining, the arts offer new ways to enrich communities, spark local economies, and create tourist destinations, in tandem with their glorious surroundings. One goal of this book is to help dispel the myth of rural equaling white people. Six of the twelve arts organizations featured in this book are led by people of color and/or serve populations in which people of color are the majority. Eleven of the twelve organizations are led in part or entirely by female-identifying arts leaders. These numbers are happy accidents and not criteria of the selection or search process. It just turns out that, when you start looking for wonderful rural arts organizations, you find diversity. Managing the Arts in Rural Areas explores the challenges facing rural communities today and the positive impacts provided by the arts on economic development, diversity, equity, inclusion and access, fundraising, arts education, and community development. With dynamic case studies on arts organizations in rural areas from Alaska to Alabama and from Montana to Arizona, Managing the Arts in Rural Areas gives readers deep insights into how the arts are helping to define and grow rural areas today.

The Time for Endowment Building is Now: Why and How to Secure Your Organization's Future describes endowment contributions both through outright and deferred gift giving. It puts the concept of endowment development front and center and explains the steps and mindset that are necessary to create the capacity to build and increase the endowment of an organization. The role and responsibility of the executive and the board in encouraging endowment development are described, and a chapter is devoted to the identification of endowment prospects not through wealth analysis or "major gift giving" but by donative history. A highlight of the book is a case study of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation's LIFE & LEGACY Program that provides training and mentoring as well as incentives to local community-based organizations to encourage the building of endowment funds. The book will be particularly appealing to boards and staff members of those not-for-profit organizations contemplating whether to launch an endowment program or are in the beginning stages of doing so. This book will be valuable to veterans in the field considering their policies in relation to the use of endowment contributions as well as the marketing of them to prospects and donors. It will also be of interest to those teaching fundraising courses in not-for-profit management programs.

This open access book explores the multiple forms of curatorial agencies that develop when museum collection digitisations, narratives and new research findings circulate online. Focusing on Viking Age objects, it tracks the effects of antagonistic debates on discussion forums and the consequences of search engines, personalisation, and machine learning on American-based online platforms. Furthermore, it considers eco-systemic processes comprising computation, rare-earth minerals, electrical currents and data centres and cables as novel forms of curatorial actions. Thus, it explores curatorial agency as social constructivist, semiotic, algorithmic, and material. This book is of interest to scholars and students in the fields of museum studies, cultural heritage and media studies. It also appeals to museum practitioners concerned with curatorial innovation at the intersection of humanist interpretations and new materialist and more-than-human frameworks.

Museums flourished in post-apartheid South Africa. In older museums, there were renovations on the go, and at least fifty new museums opened. Most sought to depict violence and suffering under apartheid and the growth of resistance. These unlikely journeys are tracked as museums became a primary setting for contesting histories. From the renowned Robben Island Museum to the almost unknown Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, the author demonstrates how an institution concerned with the conservation of the past is simultaneously a site for changing history.

At a time of heightened international interest in the colonial dimensions of museum collections, Dividing the Spoils provides new perspectives on the motivations and circumstances whereby collections were appropriated and acquired during colonial military service. Combining approaches from the fields of material anthropology, imperial and military history, this book argues for a deeper examination of these collections within a range of intercultural histories that include alliance, diplomacy, curiosity and enquiry, as well as expropriation and cultural hegemony. As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections, Dividing the Spoils explores how the amassing of objects was understood and governed in British military culture, and considers how objects functioned in museum collections thereafter, suggesting new avenues for sustained investigation in a controversial, contested field. -- .

Interpreting the Legacy of Women's Suffrage at Museums and Historic Sites is an invaluable guide for public historians and site practitioners who are responsible for interpretation and education. The book begins with an expanded chronology linking suffrage to the broader national history of voting rights in America. This section brings to light more information on not only well known players such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but also examines the crossover and interactions between the abolition and temperance movements, and also lays the groundwork for sites to explore an expanded and thoughtful narrative that will inspire a shared dialog leaving room for new ideas and perspectives around diversity, intersectionality, and equality. A series of case studies and in depth interviews with practitioners share practical examples of women's history sites who embarked on the challenging task of reexamining their historical interpretation through a 21st Century lens with a focus of addressing the racial bias within. These also showcase highly effective interpretation methods, exhibits, and public programs that can be models for best practices, and replicated at other sites that plan to offer programs around the rich content of the Centennial of Suffrage. A guide to Facilitation and Discussion methods around difficult topics will also offer practitioner's guidance and resources on how to navigate through the politically divisive rhetoric and strike the right tone for individual historic sites, museums, and communities.

Museums have long sought to maintain relevance in the daily lives of their communities. Over the past several decades, museums have shifted, as a field, from a focus on collections to a focus on connecting with audiences. More recently, museums must confront political polarization and a decreasing sense of trust in nearly every public institution. As a result, few institutions are better positioned to serve the country than museums. In fact, polls show that museums rank among the most trusted institutions in the country, regardless of political belief. During tumultuous times, this trust means that museums have a unique and important responsibility to fulfill their civic mission. A century ago, John Cotton Dana argued that the most important thing a museum can do is "produce a public benefit." The Civic Mission of Museums argues that museums play an essential role in the cultivation of engaged and informed citizens. The book outlines a spectrum of civic learning that includes: civic knowledge, civic mindset, civic skillset, and civic action. It offers concrete examples of impactful civic programming, exhibits, and public engagement from a diverse set of museums. It ends with a practical toolkit, gleaned from across the country, for museum professionals to utilize.

The building of the Victoria and Albert Museum, begun in 1857, is the most elaborately designed and decorated museum in Britain. This book is the first to consider the V&A as a work of art in itself, presenting drawings, watercolours and historic photographs relating to the Museum's 19th-century interiors. Much of this visual material is previously unpublished and is outside the canon of Victorian art and design. The V&A's first Director, Henry Cole, conceived the Museum's building as a showcase for leading Victorian artists to design and decorate. This book reveals for the first time the ways in which Cole's expressed policy to 'assemble a splendid collection of objects representing the application of Fine Arts to manufacture' was applied to the fabric of the building, as he engaged leading painters such as Frederic Leighton , G.F. Watts and Edward Burne-Jones, as well as specialists in decoration such as Owen Jones and Morris and Company, to decorate and design for a building raised by engineers using innovatory materials and techniques.It represents a fascinating, untold chapter in the history of British 19th-century art, design, architecture and museums, and an essential backdrop to understanding the evolution of the Museum's early collections and identity.