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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Museums & museology
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Extinct Monsters to Deep Time - Conflict, Compromise, and the Making of Smithsonian's Fossil Halls (Paperback)
Loot Price: R640
Discovery Miles 6 400
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Extinct Monsters to Deep Time - Conflict, Compromise, and the Making of Smithsonian's Fossil Halls (Paperback)
Series: Museums and Collections
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Via the Smithsonian Institution, an exploration of the growing
friction between the research and outreach functions of museums in
the 21st century. Describing participant observation and historical
research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History as
it prepared for its largest-ever exhibit renovation, Deep Time, the
author provides a grounded perspective on the inner-workings of the
world's largest natural history museum and the social processes of
communicating science to the public. From the introduction: In
exhibit projects, the tension plays out between curatorial
staff-academic, research, or scientific staff charged with
content-and exhibitions, public engagement, or educational
staff-which I broadly group together as "audience advocates"
charged with translating content for a broader public. I have heard
Kirk Johnson, Sant Director of the NMNH, say many times that if you
look at dinosaur halls at different museums across the country, you
can see whether the curators or the exhibits staff has "won." At
the American Museum of Natural History in New York, it was the
curators. The hall is stark white and organized by phylogeny-or the
evolutionary relationships of species-with simple, albeit long,
text panels. At the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago,
Johnson will tell you, it was the "exhibits people." The hall is
story driven and chronologically organized, full of big graphic
prints, bold fonts, immersive and interactive spaces, and
touchscreens. At the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, where
Johnson had previously been vice president and chief curator, "we
actually fought to a draw." That, he says, is the best outcome; a
win on either side skews the final product too extremely in one
direction or the other. This creative tension, when based on mutual
respect, is often what makes good exhibitions.
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