European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices focuses on the intersection of heritage, dialogue and digital culture in the context of Europe. Responding to the increased emphasis on the potential for heritage and digital technologies to foster dialogue and engender communitarian identities in Europe, the book explores what kind of role digital tools, platforms and practices play in supporting and challenging dialogue about heritage in the region. Drawing on fieldwork involving several European museums and heritage organisations, the chapters in this volume critically engage with the role of digital technology in heritage work and its association with ideas of democratisation, multivocality and possibilities for feedback and dialogic engagement in the emerging digital public sphere. The book also provides a framework for understanding dialogue in relation to other commonly used approaches in heritage institutions, such as participation, engagement and intercultural exchange. The authors map out the complex landscape of digitally mediated heritage practices in Europe, both official and unofficial, by capturing three distinct areas of practice: perceptions and applications of digitally mediated dialogues around heritage within European museums and cultural policy, facilitation of dialogue between European museums and communities through participatory design approaches and non-official mobilisation of heritage on social media. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices will be of interest to both scholars and students in the fields of heritage and museum studies, digital heritage, media studies and communication, the digital humanities, sociology and memory studies. The book will also appeal to policy makers and professionals working in a variety of different fields.

The imperatives surrounding museum representations of place have shifted from the late eighteenth century to today. The political significance of place itself has changed and continues to change at all scales, from local, civic, regional to national and supranational. At the same time, changes in population flows, migration patterns and demographic movement now underscore both cultural and political practice, be it in the accommodation of 'diversity' in cultural and social policy, scholarly explorations of hybridity or in state immigration controls. This book investigates the historical and contemporary relationships between museums, places and identities. It brings together contributions from international scholars, academics, practitioners from museums and public institutions, policymakers, and representatives of associations and migrant communities to explore all these issues.

Especially in the last several decades, Museum Studies has expanded enormously to become an internationally recognized and highly interdisciplinary academic field. It draws on subjects from across the humanities and social sciences, including Art History, Cultural Studies, Ethnography, Cultural Geography, History, Sociology, Economics, Business, Marketing, and Tourism Studies. (And, beyond the academy, it has also benefited from significant contributions made by cultural policy-makers.) While intellectual diversity is a great strength of Museum Studies, its complex heritage makes it extremely challenging for the uninitiated to navigate and comprehend the subject's major works. Indeed, even those who are very familiar with particular disciplinary domains may be unaware of other important parallel debates taking place elsewhere. This new five-volume collection from Routledge, edited by Rhiannon Mason of the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University, responds to that challenge by making readily available in one panoptical 'mini library' the foundational and the very best cutting-edge research from the entire range of disciplines and subjects that contribute towards Museum Studies. In five volumes, the collection addresses the philosophical, theoretical, and ethical concerns of museums-alongside the equally important practical, organizational, and operational issues-to understand how they operate today. The collection also reflects the fact that many of the issues faced by contemporary institutions can only be understood in the context of the philosophy and history of museums as they have developed since the earliest collections of the European Renaissance. The major works brought together in Volume I ('Museums: Histories and Theories') provide a historical and philosophical context for the development of museums. They furnish a comprehensive introduction to the ideas of 'the new museology', which are so crucial to current trends in anglophone Museum Studies, and provide a conceptual framework for a fuller understanding of the following volumes. The scholarship gathered in Volume II ('Museums: Economics and Management') situates museums in the everyday context within which they operate, and investigates the different purposes that museums are said to possess by their various stakeholders, for example, as engines of economic regeneration, tourism, or 'place branding'. Volume II also focuses on the financial costs and practicalities of making museums work, enabling readers to grasp the day-to-day realities of museum work alongside the more philosophical and ethical issues raised in Volume I. Volume III ('Museums: Materiality and Practice'), meanwhile, explores the specifics of museum practice to address questions such as: how are exhibitions and displays produced? How is interpretation understood? How are collections managed? And how are objects deployed and architectural spaces navigated? The pieces collected here also tackle other areas of museum practice, including institutional context and staffing. Issues around how institutions behave and develop an ethos, and how museum staff nurture their professional skills and careers, are vital to understanding the broader museum world. As are new trends in curation, such as community co-production, and the increasing range of ways in which museums are being reconceptualized beyond their physical walls, for example, as performance spaces or platforms for user-generated digital content. Volume IV ('Museums: Visitors, Audiences, Communities, and Publics') assembles vital research on our interactions with museums. The materials collected here introduce users to the many different ways in which a museum's public can be understood, imagined, and addressed across the whole gamut of a museum's activities, from its programming and interpretation to marketing. The volume also takes full cognizance of recent attempts to expand and diversify museum audiences. The final volume in the collection ('Museums: Identities, Controversies, and Difficult Histories') brings together landmark and contemporary studies to interrogate many of the concerns which have repeatedly drawn museums into controversy over recent years. Ways in which museums find themselves caught up in public outrage and censorship include dealing with thorny issues around identity politics and sensitive historical events, such as the Holocaust, colonialism, and slavery. With a detailed and comprehensive introduction and commentary to each volume, Museum Studies is destined to be welcomed as an essential work of reference and a crucial research tool.

The imperatives surrounding museum representations of place have shifted from the late eighteenth century to today. The political significance of place itself has changed and continues to change at all scales, from local, civic, regional to national and supranational. At the same time, changes in population flows, migration patterns and demographic movement now underscore both cultural and political practice, be it in the accommodation of 'diversity' in cultural and social policy, scholarly explorations of hybridity or in state immigration controls. This book investigates the historical and contemporary relationships between museums, places and identities. It brings together contributions from international scholars, academics, practitioners from museums and public institutions, policymakers, and representatives of associations and migrant communities to explore all these issues.

European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices focuses on the intersection of heritage, dialogue and digital culture in the context of Europe. Responding to the increased emphasis on the potential for heritage and digital technologies to foster dialogue and engender communitarian identities in Europe, the book explores what kind of role digital tools, platforms and practices play in supporting and challenging dialogue about heritage in the region. Drawing on fieldwork involving several European museums and heritage organisations, the chapters in this volume critically engage with the role of digital technology in heritage work and its association with ideas of democratisation, multivocality and possibilities for feedback and dialogic engagement in the emerging digital public sphere. The book also provides a framework for understanding dialogue in relation to other commonly used approaches in heritage institutions, such as participation, engagement and intercultural exchange. The authors map out the complex landscape of digitally mediated heritage practices in Europe, both official and unofficial, by capturing three distinct areas of practice: perceptions and applications of digitally mediated dialogues around heritage within European museums and cultural policy, facilitation of dialogue between European museums and communities through participatory design approaches and non-official mobilisation of heritage on social media. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices will be of interest to both scholars and students in the fields of heritage and museum studies, digital heritage, media studies and communication, the digital humanities, sociology and memory studies. The book will also appeal to policy makers and professionals working in a variety of different fields.

Museum and Gallery Studies: The Basics is an accessible guide for the student approaching Museum and Gallery Studies for the first time. Taking a global view, it covers the key ideas, approaches and contentious issues in the field. Balancing theory and practice, the book address important questions such as:

What are museums and galleries?

Who decides which kinds of objects are worthy of collection?

How are museums and galleries funded?

What ethical concerns do practitioners need to consider?

How is the field of Museum and Gallery Studies developing?

This user-friendly text is an essential read for anyone wishing to work within museums and galleries, or seeking to understand academic debates in the field.

Table of Contents

Introduction

What this book will do

Who is this book for?

What are museum and gallery studies?

Museum and gallery studies around the world

‘Theory’ and ‘practice’?

Why study museums and galleries?

Culture as ‘soft power’

Conclusion

Further reading

Chapter 1: First principles

What is a museum or gallery? *

‘New museology’

Origins of museums

The Louvre: a turning point

Museum development: nationalism and colonialism

Do all cultures have museums?

Can anyone call any space ‘a museum’?

What is an art gallery? What is an art museum or a museum or art?

How many different kinds of museums and galleries are there?

What are museums and galleries for?

Why do societies have museums and galleries?

Public Trust

Heritage

Heritage as institution, adjective or tradition

Elite or ‘everyone’s’ heritage

Conclusion

Further reading

Chapter 2: Collecting and Collections

Curating and collecting

Collecting the past

Reconceptualising the discipline of ‘history’

Acknowledging your own standpoint

Tradition versus history

Collecting ‘the present’ for the future

Collecting historical art

Collecting contemporary art

Collecting the intangible

Collecting the digital

The lives of objects

Acquisitioning and accessioning

Disposal and de-accessioning

Creating Value

Priceless objects and ‘market value’

Regimes of Value: Exchanges and Exclusions

Protecting the nation’s interest: exports of cultural property

Managing and caring for collections

Conservation, preservation or restoration?

Conclusion *

Further reading:

Chapter 3: Visitors and Audiences

Who are museums and galleries for?

Who visits museums and galleries? Understanding visitor profiles and global trends

Understanding the statistics: an example

Does it make a difference if museums are free or charge?

Why do people visit? Understanding visitor motivations.

Audience segmentation

What is the difference between audiences, visitors and communities?

Understanding ‘non-visitors’ motivations

Understanding access, and barriers to access

Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital

Are museums and galleries ‘white spaces’?

Visiting patterns in relationship to staff demographics

Inclusion initiatives and policy agendas

Audience Development

Building new audiences through community engagement

Models of ‘community engagement’

If communities can tell their own histories do we still need curators?

Is working digitally one answer?

Conclusions

Further reading

Chapter 4: The Business of Culture

Who pays for what, for whom, and on whose behalf?

What it costs: capital and revenue

External funding sources: the state, the lottery, charities, donors, business

The museum as entrepreneur: income generation and enterprise

Fundraising, sponsorship, philanthropy, and ‘the gift’

Autonomy and instrumentalisation

Implication of cultural policy

Governance, legal status and funding models

The public interest and the private market

Tourism, leisure and marketing

Regeneration through culture (the ‘Bilbao effect’)

The ‘museum boom’, 1980-2010 – costs and consequences

Conclusions

Further reading

Chapter 5: Display, interpretation and learning

What does ‘display’ mean in a museum or gallery context? *

Classic exhibition genres

Telling and showing histories in space and time

Working with spaces

What are the relationships between display and knowledge?

The gallery as ‘white cube’

The ‘poetics’ and ‘politics’ of display

Taking responsibility?

Co-producing displays and sharing authorship

Can objects ‘speak’?

Making sense of what we see: the active visitor *

Visitor behaviour in gallery settings

From ‘education’ to ‘learning’

Creating accessibility for everyone

Conclusions

Further reading

Chapter 6: Looking forward

Power and politics

Museums as a means to foster mutual understanding

Museums and galleries as social activists

Globalisation

Changing perspectives

Valuing culture

Visitor trends

Further reading

Index…………………

　

　

Museum and Gallery Studies: The Basics is an accessible guide for the student approaching Museum and Gallery Studies for the first time. Taking a global view, it covers the key ideas, approaches and contentious issues in the field. Balancing theory and practice, the book address important questions such as: What are museums and galleries? Who decides which kinds of objects are worthy of collection? How are museums and galleries funded? What ethical concerns do practitioners need to consider? How is the field of Museum and Gallery Studies developing? This user-friendly text is an essential read for anyone wishing to work within museums and galleries, or seeking to understand academic debates in the field.