Across the country, museums and historic sites welcome visitors into a world long gone but fundamental to America today. Military history in particular is etched into our country's culture and the public's imagination. The trouble, though, for museums and historical sites lies in continuing to make it both accessible and relevant to today's audiences. Through Interpreting American Military History at Museums and Historic Sites, Marc K. Blackburn tackles the difficult task of helping those institutions charged with the care of sites, collections and stories that relate to our past relatable while still maintaining the dignity and reverence of their rich history. Looking at the various components of American military history such as battles and famous figures, Blackburn provides alternatives to the traditional museum experience. The 21st century is a culmination of the past and it is more important than ever to remember and learn from the triumphs and failures, and this guide provides and explains those strategies for making our stories and collections relevant to modern audiences. This books acts as a primer for those unfamiliar with academic trends of the last forty years. Historiography of American military history, like that of other sub-fields, shifts as new information surfaces or as perspectives change. Blackburn modernizes this area through new interpretative methods, as well as through case studies of museums and historic sites that have created programs, interpretive media, outreach strategies, and mission goals updated to meet the needs of today's patrons. Armed with these strategies, historic institutions will have the foundation to provide compelling, relevant, and engaging experiences for the 21st century audience.

This engaging volume reveals how politics permeates all facets of museum practice, particularly in regions of political conflict. In these settings, museums can be extraordinarily influential for shaping identity and collective memory and for peace building. Using key Cypriote archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and art museums as examples, this book: provides a multifaceted and deeper understanding of how politics, conflict, national agendas, and individual initiatives can shape museums and their narratives; discusses how these forces contribute to the creation of, and conflict over, national, community and personal identities; examines how museums use inclusion and exclusion in their collections, exhibitions, objects and interpretive material as a way of selectively constructing collective memories. This book will be an important resource for museum professionals, as well as scholars interested in the effects of politics on museums and interpretations of the past.

Across the country, museums and historic sites welcome visitors into a world long gone but fundamental to America today. Military history in particular is etched into our country's culture and the public's imagination. The trouble, though, for museums and historical sites lies in continuing to make it both accessible and relevant to today's audiences. Through Interpreting American Military History at Museums and Historic Sites, Marc K. Blackburn tackles the difficult task of helping those institutions charged with the care of sites, collections and stories that relate to our past relatable while still maintaining the dignity and reverence of their rich history. Looking at the various components of American military history such as battles and famous figures, Blackburn provides alternatives to the traditional museum experience. The 21st century is a culmination of the past and it is more important than ever to remember and learn from the triumphs and failures, and this guide provides and explains those strategies for making our stories and collections relevant to modern audiences. This books acts as a primer for those unfamiliar with academic trends of the last forty years. Historiography of American military history, like that of other sub-fields, shifts as new information surfaces or as perspectives change. Blackburn modernizes this area through new interpretative methods, as well as through case studies of museums and historic sites that have created programs, interpretive media, outreach strategies, and mission goals updated to meet the needs of today's patrons. Armed with these strategies, historic institutions will have the foundation to provide compelling, relevant, and engaging experiences for the 21st century audience.

Here's a one-stop marketing guide just for small museums and historic sites. In an age when many local historical associations and museums take money from their marketing budget because resources are tight, which can start a vicious cycle of reduced marketing reach, lower visitation, and then even less money for marketing, this guide will help those who need it the most expand their marketing reach as inexpensively as possible. Deborah Pitel covers the pros and cons of each promotional tool so they can judge what is best for their organization. She writes specifically for colleagues who have no formal marketing training and have to work off the "trial and error" method. She covers: *Marketing Strategies for Museum Professionals or Anyone Promoting an Event *Expanding Your Audience with Little Money *Gaining Insight From Small Local Museums and Historic Sites *Learning to Use Social Media and Other Free Services to Grow Your Promotional Reach *Creating an Website on a Small Budget Examples of successful marketing tools from small museums and historic sites accompany each chapter.

Collections of textiles-historic costume, quilts, needlework samplers, and the like-have benefited greatly from the digital turn in museum and archival work. Both institutional online repositories and collections-based social media sites have fostered unprecedented access to textile collections that have traditionally been marginalized in museums. How can curators, interpreters, and collections managers make best use of these new opportunities? To answer this question, the author worked with sites including the Great Lakes Quilt Center at the Michigan State University Museum, the Design Center at Philadelphia University, the International Quilt Study Center and Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the WGBH Boston Media Library and Archives, as well as user-curated social sites online such as Tumblr and Polyvore, to create four compelling case studies on the preservation, access, curation, and interpretation of textile objects. The book explores: *The nature of digital material culture. *The role of audience participation versus curatorial authority online. *Audience-friendly collections metadata and tagging. *Visual, rather than text-based, searching and cataloging. *The legality of ownership and access of museum collections online. *Gender equity in museums and archives. This book is essential reading for anyone who cares for, collects, exhibits, or interprets historic costume or textile collections, but its broad implications for the future of museum work make it relevant for anyone with an interest in museum work online. And because the focus of this volume is theory and praxis, rather than specific technologies that are likely to become obsolete, it will be staple on your bookshelf for years to come.

Administrators of museums and other informal-learning centers often need to demonstrate, in some tangible way, the effectiveness of their institutions as teaching tools. Practical Evaluation Guide discusses specific methods for analyzing audience learning and behavior in museums, zoos, botanic gardens, nature centers, camps, and youth programs. Evaluation is essential because it allows you to answer critical questions like: *How can one measure the impacts of educational experiences in a museum, zoo, or aquarium? *Are digital technologies more effective than traditional exhibits for enhancing visitor interest and understanding? *How does one measure learning in these informal environments where visitors themselves decide what they will experience? *Since we know many visitors come to informal institutions for social interaction and play, how does one access these social impacts? The Practical Evaluation Guide is an all-in-one resource to guide professionals working in museums and other informal educational institutions. This new edition includes updates throughout and features a brand-new chapter on evaluating digital interactive exhibits. The section on observational tools includes a new section on using video recordings and the section on interviews includes recent studies from countries outside the U.S. Practical Evaluation Guide serves as a basic, easy-to-follow guide for museum professionals and students who want to understand the effects of such public institutions on the people who visit them.

The 1980s and early 1990s have seen a marked increase in public interest in our historic environment. The museum and heritage industry has expanded as the past is exploited for commercial profit. In The Representation of the Past, Kevin Walsh examines this international trend and questions the packaging of history which serves only to distance people from their own heritage. A superficial, unquestioning portrayal of the past, he feels, separates us from an understanding of our cultural and political present. Here, Walsh suggests a number of ways in which the museum can fulfill its potential - by facilitating our comprehension of cultural identity.

Based on extensive research and decades of experience, museum analyst and planner John W. Jacobsen provides both the theoretical underpinnings and the operational pragmatics of measuring any museum's intentional impact and performance by using 1,025 indicators drawn from 51 expert sources. Measuring Museum Impact and Performance: Theory and Practice provides museum professionals internationally with a clear, very open process that will improve their museum's value and performance by selecting indicators that monitor whether they are realizing their desired public, private, personal and institutional values. The book is not prescriptive, but liberating, as the framework recognizes that each museum needs to decide on its own purposes and priorities. The book is organized in two parts: "Part 1: Theory" is scholarly and builds on the museum field's rich literature; and "Part 2: Practice" provides step-by-step methods for any museum to set up its own dashboard of prioritized impact and performance indicators. Substantive attachments include: the list of the 51 source documents for the MIIP indicators; definitions of terms and data fields; a long list of precedented museum impacts; measurement formulas and worksheet templates, filled in for a sample museum; and the MIIP 1.0 database available online. Readers will get the following benefits: *A literature review of prior work on measuring museum value *An analysis of eleven well-established evaluation frameworks that synthesize into a revolutionary, yet practical, Museum Theory of Action *A robust and searchable menu of 1,025 existing and aspirational indicators (the MIIP 1.0 database) that you can use to start your own selection *An analysis of the MIIP database using the Theory of Action that reveals 14 areas of potential museum impacts and benefits *A process to select and prioritize your museum's intentional purposes and desired impacts *A process to determine, measure and compare your museum's key performance indicators (KPIs) *A process to set-up and conduct peer museum comparisons *Procedures and examples of how to capture and report data used in your selected indicators *Principles for using indicator data to inform museum management decisions

Collections of textiles-historic costume, quilts, needlework samplers, and the like-have benefited greatly from the digital turn in museum and archival work. Both institutional online repositories and collections-based social media sites have fostered unprecedented access to textile collections that have traditionally been marginalized in museums. How can curators, interpreters, and collections managers make best use of these new opportunities? To answer this question, the author worked with sites including the Great Lakes Quilt Center at the Michigan State University Museum, the Design Center at Philadelphia University, the International Quilt Study Center and Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the WGBH Boston Media Library and Archives, as well as user-curated social sites online such as Tumblr and Polyvore, to create four compelling case studies on the preservation, access, curation, and interpretation of textile objects. The book explores: *The nature of digital material culture. *The role of audience participation versus curatorial authority online. *Audience-friendly collections metadata and tagging. *Visual, rather than text-based, searching and cataloging. *The legality of ownership and access of museum collections online. *Gender equity in museums and archives. This book is essential reading for anyone who cares for, collects, exhibits, or interprets historic costume or textile collections, but its broad implications for the future of museum work make it relevant for anyone with an interest in museum work online. And because the focus of this volume is theory and praxis, rather than specific technologies that are likely to become obsolete, it will be staple on your bookshelf for years to come.

This book identifies the-now moribund-Modernist spirit of the twentieth century, with its "make it new" attitude in the arts, and its tendency towards abstraction and the scientific process, as the impetus behind the academic structures of universities and museums, together with the development of discrete scholarly disciplines such as literary theory, sociology, and art history based on quasi-scientific principles. Arguing that the Modernist project is approaching exhaustion and that the insights that it has left to yield are approaching triviality, it explores the Modernist links between the arts and academic pursuits of the West-and their relationship with street protests-in the long twentieth century, considering what might follow this Modernist era. An examination of the broad cultural and intellectual-and now political-trends of our age, and their decline, The End of the Modernist Era in Arts and Academia will appeal to scholars and students of social theory, philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies.

-Focuses on what actually works in development practice, in order to inform and inspire practitioners and students -Impressive global reach, with a wide range of case studies drawn from across Algeria, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, India, Kosovo, Taiwan, USA, South Africa, Malawi, and China -Highlights development projects at the small and large scale and across a range of visual and performing arts

Are your collections up for grabs? Does the spouse of one of your trustees have too much to say about developing the exhibition schedule? How much is too much public participation? Where does a curator's authority begin and end? With money increasingly difficult to raise, is a museum more likely to accede to potential funders' demands even when those demands might compromise the museum's integrity? When a museum is struggling with debilitating debt, should the sale of selected items from its collections and the use of the resulting proceeds bring the museum into a more stable financial position? When a museum attempts to build its attendance and attract local visitors by crowdsourcing exhibitions, is it undermining its integrity? Ethical questions about museum activities are legion, yet they are usually only discussed when they become headlines in newspapers. Museum staff respond to such problems under pressure, often unable to take the time required to think through the sensitive and complex issues involved. Grounded in a series of case studies, A Practical Guide to Museum Ethics confronts types of ethical dilemmas museums face and explores attempts to resolve them in chapters dealing with *accessibility, disability, and diversity; *collections; *conflict of interest; *governance; *management; *deaccessioning; and *accountability and transparency. Suitable for classroom use as well as a professional reference, here is a comprehensive, practical guide for dealing with ethical issues in museums.

Based on extensive research and decades of experience, museum analyst and planner John W. Jacobsen provides both the theoretical underpinnings and the operational pragmatics of measuring any museum's intentional impact and performance by using 1,025 indicators drawn from 51 expert sources. Measuring Museum Impact and Performance: Theory and Practice provides museum professionals internationally with a clear, very open process that will improve their museum's value and performance by selecting indicators that monitor whether they are realizing their desired public, private, personal and institutional values. The book is not prescriptive, but liberating, as the framework recognizes that each museum needs to decide on its own purposes and priorities. The book is organized in two parts: "Part 1: Theory" is scholarly and builds on the museum field's rich literature; and "Part 2: Practice" provides step-by-step methods for any museum to set up its own dashboard of prioritized impact and performance indicators. Substantive attachments include: the list of the 51 source documents for the MIIP indicators; definitions of terms and data fields; a long list of precedented museum impacts; measurement formulas and worksheet templates, filled in for a sample museum; and the MIIP 1.0 database available online. Readers will get the following benefits: *A literature review of prior work on measuring museum value *An analysis of eleven well-established evaluation frameworks that synthesize into a revolutionary, yet practical, Museum Theory of Action *A robust and searchable menu of 1,025 existing and aspirational indicators (the MIIP 1.0 database) that you can use to start your own selection *An analysis of the MIIP database using the Theory of Action that reveals 14 areas of potential museum impacts and benefits *A process to select and prioritize your museum's intentional purposes and desired impacts *A process to determine, measure and compare your museum's key performance indicators (KPIs) *A process to set-up and conduct peer museum comparisons *Procedures and examples of how to capture and report data used in your selected indicators *Principles for using indicator data to inform museum management decisions

Here's a one-stop marketing guide just for small museums and historic sites. In an age when many local historical associations and museums take money from their marketing budget because resources are tight, which can start a vicious cycle of reduced marketing reach, lower visitation, and then even less money for marketing, this guide will help those who need it the most expand their marketing reach as inexpensively as possible. Deborah Pitel covers the pros and cons of each promotional tool so they can judge what is best for their organization. She writes specifically for colleagues who have no formal marketing training and have to work off the "trial and error" method. She covers: *Marketing Strategies for Museum Professionals or Anyone Promoting an Event *Expanding Your Audience with Little Money *Gaining Insight From Small Local Museums and Historic Sites *Learning to Use Social Media and Other Free Services to Grow Your Promotional Reach *Creating an Website on a Small Budget Examples of successful marketing tools from small museums and historic sites accompany each chapter.

Are your collections up for grabs? Does the spouse of one of your trustees have too much to say about developing the exhibition schedule? How much is too much public participation? Where does a curator's authority begin and end? With money increasingly difficult to raise, is a museum more likely to accede to potential funders' demands even when those demands might compromise the museum's integrity? When a museum is struggling with debilitating debt, should the sale of selected items from its collections and the use of the resulting proceeds bring the museum into a more stable financial position? When a museum attempts to build its attendance and attract local visitors by crowdsourcing exhibitions, is it undermining its integrity? Ethical questions about museum activities are legion, yet they are usually only discussed when they become headlines in newspapers. Museum staff respond to such problems under pressure, often unable to take the time required to think through the sensitive and complex issues involved. Grounded in a series of case studies, A Practical Guide to Museum Ethics confronts types of ethical dilemmas museums face and explores attempts to resolve them in chapters dealing with *accessibility, disability, and diversity; *collections; *conflict of interest; *governance; *management; *deaccessioning; and *accountability and transparency. Suitable for classroom use as well as a professional reference, here is a comprehensive, practical guide for dealing with ethical issues in museums.

Cemetery Tours and Programming: A Guide shows the range and opportunities of cemetery programming that go beyond basic starting points like dog-walking or traditional historic walking tours. It illustrates the reuses of both historic and contemporary burial grounds through the lenses of recreation, education, and reflection. This guide takes readers through the historical roots of cemetery programming, options for creating diverse programming, and step-by-step suggestions for executing events. While most cemeteries do not have a large paid staff, this book is accessible to anyone (paid staff members, volunteers, a Friends Group, or museum or historical society) looking to broaden the scope of how their local cemetery is utilized.

Cemetery Tours and Programming: A Guide shows the range and opportunities of cemetery programming that go beyond basic starting points like dog-walking or traditional historic walking tours. It illustrates the reuses of both historic and contemporary burial grounds through the lenses of recreation, education, and reflection. This guide takes readers through the historical roots of cemetery programming, options for creating diverse programming, and step-by-step suggestions for executing events. While most cemeteries do not have a large paid staff, this book is accessible to anyone (paid staff members, volunteers, a Friends Group, or museum or historical society) looking to broaden the scope of how their local cemetery is utilized.

Explaining and critically reviewing management procedures such as performance indicators and strategic planning, this book shows how techniques from mainstream management can be used to facilitate a holistic and professional approach to the business of conservation and collection preservation. It offers practical guidance on strategy, quantitative planning and condition surveying, and presents many solutions to the challenges faced by museum staff and conservation specialists. This new edition takes into account changes such as the arrival of the Heritage Lottery Fund, policies for access and the growing convergence of museums, libraries and archives. It also highlights the advent of digital collections and the use of information and communications technology.

Are national galleries different from other kinds of art gallery or museum? What value is there for the nation in a collection of international masterpieces? How are national galleries involved in the construction national art? National Galleries is the first book to undertake a panoramic view of a type of national institution - which are sometimes called national museums of fine art - that is now found in almost every nation on earth. Adopting a richly illustrated, globally inclusive, comparative view, Simon Knell argues that national galleries should not be understood as 'great galleries' but as peculiar sites where art is made to perform in acts of nation building. A book that fundamentally rewrites the history of these institutions and encourages the reader to dispense with elitist views of their worth, Knell reveals an unseen geography and a rich complexity of performance. He considers the ways the national galleries entangle art and nation, and the differing trajectories and purposes of international and national art. Exploring galleries, artists and artworks from around the world, National Galleries is an argument about how we think about and study these institutions. Privileging the situatedness of each national gallery performance, and valuing localism over universalism, Knell looks particularly at how national art is constructed and represented. He ends with examples that show the mutability of national art and by questioning the necessity of art nationalism.

The 1980s and early 1990s have seen a marked increase in public interest in our historic environment. The museum and heritage industry has expanded as the past is exploited for commercial profit. In The Representation of the Past, Kevin Walsh examines this international trend and questions the packaging of history which serves only to distance people from their own heritage. A superficial, unquestioning portrayal of the past, he feels, separates us from an understanding of our cultural and political present. Here, Walsh suggests a number of ways in which the museum can fulfill its potential - by facilitating our comprehension of cultural identity.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203075722

We are in the middle of a museum paradigm shift and a new type of museum volunteer is emerging from the community. Non-profit volunteers are looking for unique and satisfying ways to engage in their communities and museums are primed to offer just the experiences these volunteers are looking for. Here's a practical exploration of the differences between the "then" and "now" volunteers and solid advice on volunteer recruitment, communication, and retention strategies. Kristy Van Hoven and Loni Wellman will help you answer the questions: *What are new volunteers looking for? *What is their motivation? *How can you spot the hidden gems in your local community? *How can you develop a successful relationship with potential volunteers? *How do you keep the museum volunteer motivated and happy? *What can teens, adults and retiring professionals bring to your organization? *How can your museum support a robust and active volunteer program? *How do you reward volunteers and keep them for the long term? and, most importantly, *How can you meet volunteer's needs and still benefit from their work? The Guide highlights successful projects, incentives, and general museum culture which support volunteer activities and includes examples of Volunteer Job Descriptions, Calls for Volunteers, Evaluation forms, as well as volunteer project outlines. Written in a light hearted spirit, Recruiting and Managing Volunteers in Museums: A Handbook to Volunteer Management will engage and inform any professional tasked with developing and managing a volunteer program at their institution. Museums offer an amazing array of volunteer opportunities that help create a greater sense of belonging and purpose for the volunteer. With a growing number of retiring professionals and students looking for professional experiences, now is the time to embark on developing a volunteer program that will thrive in the years to come.

We are in the middle of a museum paradigm shift and a new type of museum volunteer is emerging from the community. Non-profit volunteers are looking for unique and satisfying ways to engage in their communities and museums are primed to offer just the experiences these volunteers are looking for. Here's a practical exploration of the differences between the "then" and "now" volunteers and solid advice on volunteer recruitment, communication, and retention strategies. Kristy Van Hoven and Loni Wellman will help you answer the questions: *What are new volunteers looking for? *What is their motivation? *How can you spot the hidden gems in your local community? *How can you develop a successful relationship with potential volunteers? *How do you keep the museum volunteer motivated and happy? *What can teens, adults and retiring professionals bring to your organization? *How can your museum support a robust and active volunteer program? *How do you reward volunteers and keep them for the long term? and, most importantly, *How can you meet volunteer's needs and still benefit from their work? The Guide highlights successful projects, incentives, and general museum culture which support volunteer activities and includes examples of Volunteer Job Descriptions, Calls for Volunteers, Evaluation forms, as well as volunteer project outlines. Written in a light hearted spirit, Recruiting and Managing Volunteers in Museums: A Handbook to Volunteer Management will engage and inform any professional tasked with developing and managing a volunteer program at their institution. Museums offer an amazing array of volunteer opportunities that help create a greater sense of belonging and purpose for the volunteer. With a growing number of retiring professionals and students looking for professional experiences, now is the time to embark on developing a volunteer program that will thrive in the years to come.

Museum learning is a vital component of the lifelong-learning process. In this new edition of The Manual of Museum Learning, leading museum education professionals offer practical advice for creating successful learning experiences in museums and related institutions (such as galleries, zoos, and botanic gardens) that can attract and intrigue diverse audiences. The original Manual of Museum Learning was published in 2007. The editors have totally rethought this new edition. This second edition focuses on the ways museum staffs (and the departments for which they work) can facilitate the experience in a way that capitalizes on their individual institutional strengths. The goal of this new edition is to provide museums with guidance in developing a strategic approach to their learning programs. There is a close connection between institution-wide strategic planning - where an institution decides what course and direction it will take for a five to seven-year period - and its approach to museum learning. One size does not fit all, and what each museum is (or aspires to be) will affect its individual approach. Thus there are many routes for museums to take, many alternative ways for them to play this role. No one museum can be all things to all prospective learners; they will be better suited to some approaches than to others. This new edition identifies these approaches and enables museums to find the paths for which they are individually best suited, to help them identify their own unique approaches to facilitating museum learning. Each one's mission and vision, its relationships with institutional and public stakeholders, local cultural and market factors, its individual collection and programmatic strengths, its financial position - all of these things matter. This second edition aims to help each museum find the right approach to learning for its unique situation by showing them the range of museum "personalities" in terms of their being learning institutions, what constitutes each type, and what the implications are of choosing one or another approach for a particular museum. A major theme of the 2nd edition of The Manual of Museum Learning is museum as connector; the ways in which museums are facilitating self-directed learning by connecting people with resources. Not all will connect audiences with learning vehicles in the same way. If museum learning is affective learning, then it is the role of the museum to connect its visitors, program participants and others who benefit from its knowledge to the learning resources that best suit the institution's strengths and matches them to the learning needs of the museum's audiences. By connecting users to the resources they are most interested in, or which best suit each individual's particular learning styles, museums are at their best when they empower individuals to design their own learning experience in ways that resonate best with each individual.

Drawing together nearly 40 years of experience, Museums without Borders presents the key works of one of the most respected practitioners and scholars in the field. Through these selected writings, Robert R. Janes demonstrates that museums have a broader role to play in society than is conventionally assumed. He approaches the fundamental questions of why museums exist and what they mean in terms of identity, community, and the future of civil life. This book consists of four Parts: Indigenous Peoples; Managing Change; Social Responsibility, and Activism and Ethics. The Parts are ordered chronologically and each begins with an introduction and an overview of the ensuing articles which situates the papers in their historical and cultural contexts. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines anthropology, ethnography, museum studies and management theory, Janes both questions and supports mainstream museum practice in a constructive and self-reflective manner, offering readers alternative viewpoints on important issues. Considering concepts not generally recognized in museum practice, such as the Roman leadership model of primus inter pares and the Buddhist concept of mindfulness, Janes argues that the global museum community must examine how they can meet the needs of the planet and its inhabitants. Museums without Borders charts the evolving role of the contemporary museum in the face of environmental, societal and ethical challenges, and explores issues that have, and will, continue to shape the museum sector for decades to come. This book demonstrates that it is both reasonable and essential to expand the purpose of museums at this point in history - not only because of their unique characteristics and value to society, but also because of Janes' respect and admiration for their rich legacy. It is time that museums assist in the creation of a new, caring, and more conscious future for themselves and their communities. This can only be done through authentic engagement with contemporary issues and aspirations.

Museums and historic sites faced with small budgets and staff can find it intimidating to redesign or create a website from scratch. Concerns over resources make coding and designing (or hiring someone to do so) daunting and expensive. It does not have to be so. Content creation is inescapable when making a website, but designing and constructing a unique website can be as simple as taking an afternoon to use a color chart to pick a color scheme and paste in text from a Word document. All of the tools discussed in the book are free at the base level, and some offer upgrade packages with even more features. The advice and techniques are all created with an eye to making websites work for smaller institutions with limited budgets and timeframes. Every museum professional has come across issues when adapting general software for an institution's specific needs, and the information in this book will anticipate some of these needs by offering easytoimplement workarounds and information on related software or services that integrate with each website. Features include: *Howto guides for Wix, Weebly, WordPress, and Google Sites *Detailed comparisons of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors by cost, features, and easeofuse so that you can easily identify which platforms meet your needs *Mythbusting of common website and computer assumptions *Stepbystep content and design planning guide *Basic HTML coding tricks and tips for the slightly more advanced users (or those who want to become so) * A free companion Web site includes links to online resources, ongoing updates to this book to keep it current, and links to other free online tools and software. Go to http://www.freethemuseum.net to request access on this author-created and managed companion site.