A definitve guide to best practice in museums, at a time in which all museums require ever more innovative solutions to processes of interpreting the world;s cultural and scientific heritage.

This volume is a guide to the difficult ethical questions museums work entails. While promoting the value of ethical theory and practice in museums, Edson tackles several key controversies and also corrects a number of prevailing misconceptions about museum ethics, such as the difference between social morals and professional ethics as they relate to the museum context. Drawing on the author's extensive teaching experience, Museum Ethics in Practice offers clear and practical guidance on the application of ethics to the museum profession. Using example-driven arguments that incorporate varied case studies from around the world, this book is an excellent resource for museum studies students and professionals currently working in museums.

This volume is a guide to the difficult ethical questions museums work entails. While promoting the value of ethical theory and practice in museums, Edson tackles several key controversies and also corrects a number of prevailing misconceptions about museum ethics, such as the difference between social morals and professional ethics as they relate to the museum context. Drawing on the author's extensive teaching experience, Museum Ethics in Practice offers clear and practical guidance on the application of ethics to the museum profession. Using example-driven arguments that incorporate varied case studies from around the world, this book is an excellent resource for museum studies students and professionals currently working in museums.

A number of developments in the museum movement during the last few years have forced museums to give greater attention to ethical issues. Members of a profession are increasingly regarded constituting an ethical community. Every person with such a community must have a sense of personal obligation as well as a responsibilty for others to assure ethical achievement. This volume firmly places notions of ethics in the field of action.
Museum Ethics considers the theoretical and practical elements of the philosophy of conduct in relation to critical contemporaty issues and museums. This discussion encompasses the procurement of artifacts, the rights of indigenous peoples, repatriation, the politics of display, the conservation of objects and the role of education, as well as the day-to-day management of a museum. All persons active in museum matters, whether custodian, curator, or trustee have an ethical obligation to the museum profession and the public. This volume will allow the professional and student to work towards a more responsible and responsive museum community.

A number of developments in the museum movement during the last few years have forced museums to give greater attention to ethical issues. Members of a profession are increasingly regarded constituting an ethical community. Every person with such a community must have a sense of personal obligation as well as a responsibilty for others to assure ethical achievement. This volume firmly places notions of ethics in the field of action.
Museum Ethics considers the theoretical and practical elements of the philosophy of conduct in relation to critical contemporaty issues and museums. This discussion encompasses the procurement of artifacts, the rights of indigenous peoples, repatriation, the politics of display, the conservation of objects and the role of education, as well as the day-to-day management of a museum. All persons active in museum matters, whether custodian, curator, or trustee have an ethical obligation to the museum profession and the public. This volume will allow the professional and student to work towards a more responsible and responsive museum community.

"International Directory of Museum Training" provides a standard international reference guide to the needs and opportunities of museum professional training. Surveying over 600 museum training programs throughout the world, the volume also illustrates the variations in training needs from region to region, as determined by regional experts. Each entry offers a wealth of information, including the type of course, its range and coverage, and other useful contact information.
In planning for the future, author Gary Edson argues, the museum profession must look beyond the traditional strength of the collections and recognize the value of the human resource. The concept of the museum as not only a collection of objects but as a collection of professionals dedicated to protecting, using, and interpreting the objects for the purposes for which they were brought together is an imperative element of proper stewardship. The professional museum worker also requires adequate care and training to guarantee the correct and appropriate response to collection and constituency needs.
Addressing the increasingly complex training requirements for contemporary museum professionals, this volume distills the information supplied by course providers throughout the world into a form that allows readers to see at a glance which course would be most suitable for their needs.

Handbook for Museums provides basic information for people working in the museum world. Formed around a commitment to professionalism in museum practice, the sections provide basic information on management, security, conservation and education, and include technical notes and international reading lists. The book is intended as a manual for managing and training, and provides a field-tested guide to `best practice.'

Lynwood Krenecks screenprints are recognized throughout the world for their imaginative, often humor-filled content, vivid colors, and always superb technical execution. His print series, such as ""Space Probes"", ""Earths Mysteries Solved"", ""Great Moments in Domestic Mishaps"", and ""Clownz"", show wit combined with care and passion for the screenprinting form. This personal, casual, and straightforward story follows the artists rise from a lonely childhood on a South Texas farm to recognition as one of the leading printmakers in the world today. The story begins with Krenecks youth during the lean World War II years and continues through his education in advertising at the University of Texas in Austin, his mentoring by printmaker and teacher Constance Forsyth, and his decision to abandon a successful advertising career to make his own art. After earning his MFA at the University of Texas, Kreneck joined the faculty at Texas Tech University, where he has remained through a career of nearly four decades. As a teacher, Kreneck has himself been a mentor to many printmakers. He is also the founder of Colorprint U.S.A., one of the most influential print exhibits in the world today, and he has had a primary influence on the development of water-based inks, which have made screenprinting labs safer for teachers, students, and professional artists. This book is filled with full-color reproductions of many of Krenecks screenprints, and it includes a step-by-step description of the artists new screenprinting technique, which he calls no prints. It also gives readers a glimpse of some of the outrageously inventive ideas of this colorful yet careful printmaker, who has dedicated his career to making his art, paving the way for others to make their art, and promoting printmaking as an art form. Owning this beautiful book will be a pleasure not only for the insight it gives into Krenecks body of work, but also for its fascinating, personal resume of his life and career.

Individuals often view "culture" as activities beyond their interests, associating the concept with exclusivity or high art. To be cultured is often synonymous with engaging in physical expressions of art, like opera, a classical music concert, a museum exhibit or a theater performance. While culture does indeed extend to all these things, it is the internal processes of memory, language, imagination and thought that frequently have more significance than any real-world activity. Culture is day-to-day life, ideas, identity and perception. This book investigates the ways in which thought and belief have inspired collective human endeavors and traditions. The text brings the act of thinking into clear focus, outlining its effect on civic development while exploring the history of cultural epistemology. Spanning across time periods and geographic regions, chapters derive new and unique meaning from the connection between thought, belief, tradition and the cultures they create. It explores how active thinking leads to group identity and documents the multigenerational ideas and attitudes that have strengthened cultural memory.

The ancient practice of shamanism touches many cultures and spiritual philosophies. This book offers an in-depth look at the beliefs and practices centered on the shaman, a person believed to have powers to heal and communicate with the spirit world. It explores shamanism and its associated myths, artifacts, and legends as a communally endorsed acknowledgment of the supernatural or spirit world that evolved in the Neolithic Period and continues to appeal today. The work is heavily illustrated, featuring more than 90 of the author's drawings of masks, fetishes, carvings and ongon, and 40 rare photographs of shamans, medicine men and women, and healers.

An in-depth look into the foundations of mysticism and alchemy, this book describes both physical and spiritual aspects of the various theories and practices of transformation, with attention to the beliefs of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sufism, Tantrism, Taoism and Yoga. The connection between early mystical pursuits and the development of alchemy from ancient China, India, and Egypt through Moorish Spain and into Latin Europe are illuminated, along with the activities of early alchemists. The book, which is heavily illustrated, describes the beliefs, experiments, and secret messages that drew the believers and dreamers of the world together in search of wealth and immortality.

For at least 20,000 years, masking has been a mark of cultural evolution and an indication of magical-religious sophistication in society. Ancient cave paintings depict figures with animal masks; early Egyptians left images of humans with animal "heads"; and Incan burial chambers contained masks of gold to cover the faces of the dead. Ancient peoples wore masks to survive the elements, succeed in combat, confirm their identity, attract spouses, celebrate important events, and venerate their personal and collective gods. Current literature suggests an early association between masking and pietistic practice. These and many other uses of masking are an important part of the record of human existence, shedding light on the origins of belief systems and spiritualism in the earliest human societies.

Placing the mask in the broader context of the evolution of humanity, this book argues that the mask itself should not be assessed in the service of any single function. Instead, the chapters integrate all functions to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mask as a powerful cultural phenomenon--a means by which individual communities attempted to communicate their dignity and sense of purpose, as well as to establish a continuum between the natural and supernatural worlds. The book addresses the distinctive environments within which masks flourished, and the mask is analyzed as a manifestation of art, ethnology and anthropology. The discussion is augmented by more than 100 illustrations of masks chosen for what they reveal about fundamental emotional and spiritual perspectives, as well as for their different styles, shapes, and designs.