An ambitious study of what it means to be a museum in the twenty-first century In Museums Inside Out, Mark W. Rectanus investigates how museums are blurring the boundaries between their gallery walls and public spaces. He examines how artists are challenging and changing museums, taking readers deep into new experiments in exhibition making. Along the way, Rectanus offers insights about how museums currently exemplify the fusion of the creative and digital economies. Exploring contemporary museum practices, initiatives, and collaborations, Rectanus analyzes projects like the Collective Museum, which foster land-based museum ecologies by co-curating with local communities. The Schirn Kunsthalle, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, and Tate Modern reflect museums as cultural zones for performance, inside and outside the museum. In addition, he studies a joint project between the Van Gogh Museum and the investment firm Deloitte Luxembourg, extracting insights on the transfer of expertise from museums to the financial sector. Wide-ranging in its case studies, and boldly putting museum studies and art into conversation, Museums Inside Out delivers vital insights into the ideas and places that museums are creating in contemporary culture.

Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship makes a contribution towards building a museum perspective of innovation that takes into consideration the unique role of museums in society. Beginning and ending with the idea of museum innovation in a wider sense, the book takes digital innovation as a particular focus. Drawing on innovation theories from business studies and case studies from national museums in the US and the UK, as well as numerous examples of innovative museum projects around the globe, the author unpacks, in practical terms, what it means for museums to be innovative and socially enterprising. As a result, Eid presents a research-based model of innovation in museums, which is flexible enough to be fully or partially adopted by any museum, regardless of size, location, mission or nature of the collections it houses. As such, this model makes innovation in museums scalable, replicable and feasible to start and operate. Supplying the museum studies field with essential terminologies and conceptual frameworks related to innovation, Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship helps to forge new ideas and create common ground with other disciplines. Therefore, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and graduate students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, digital humanities and business studies. It should also be of great interest to practitioners working in museums around the globe.

The museum boom, with its accompanying objectification and politicization of culture, finds its counterpart in the growing interest by social scientists in material culture, much of which is to be found in museums. Not surprisingly, anthropologists in particular are turning their attention again to museums, after decades of neglect, during which fieldwork became the hallmark of modern anthropology - so much so that the "social" and the "material" parted company so radically as to produce a kind of knowledge gap between historical collections and the intellectuals who might have benefitted from working on these material representations of culture. Moreover it was forgotten that museums do not only present the "pastness" of things. A great deal of what goes on in contemporary museums is literally about planning the shape of the future: making culture materialize involves mixing things from the past, taking into account current visions, and knowing that the scenes constructed will shape the perspectives of future generations. However, the (re-)invention of museum anthropology presents a series of challenges for academic teaching and research, as well as for the work of cultural production in contemporary museums - issues that are explored in this volume.

Reinventing the Museum: Relevance, Inclusion, and Global Responsibilities is the third edition following the 2004 and 2012 versions of the Reinventing series. More than a decade since the prior volume was published, this edition features all new content written since 2017 relevant to this pivotal time for museums operating in a complex world. This anthology features leading thinkers from across the globe who expertly discuss the realities facing museums, the urgency to take action, and museums as essential contributors to a more equitable and socially responsible world. The introduction highlights the issues of our times, and frames the structure of the book and intentional order of the contents. A dramatically revised Reinventing the Museum Tool serves as a springboard for discussions within museum staff and trustees, among students and faculty, and with emerging to seasoned museum professionals. The curated approach of the book unfolds with a sequence of thinking that frames the subsequent sections and chapters. The range of topics in this volume cover global realities, shifts in institutional mindset, the urgency to achieve inclusion and equity in museums, and fresh perspectives of practical approaches to actualize the reinvented museum.

Controversy in Science Museums focuses on exhibitions that approach sensitive or controversial topics. With a keen sense of past and current practices, Pedretti and Navas Iannini examine and re-imagine how museums and science centres can create exhibitions that embrace criticality and visitor agency. Drawing on international case studies and voices from visitors and museum professionals, as well as theoretical insights about scientific literacy and science communication, the authors explore the textured notion of controversy and the challenges and opportunities practitioners may encounter as they plan for and develop controversial science exhibitions. They assert that science museums can no longer serve as mere repositories for objects or sites for transmitting facts, but that they should also become spaces for conversations that are inclusive, critical, and socially responsible. Controversy in Science Museums provides an invaluable resource for museum professionals who are interested in creating and hosting controversial exhibitions, and for scholars and students working in the fields of museum studies, science communication, and social studies of science. Anyone wishing to engage in an examination and critique of the changing roles of science museums will find this book relevant, timely, and thought provoking.

Contemporary Museum Architecture and Design showcases 18 diverse essays written by people who design, work in, and study museums, offering a variety of perspectives on this complex building type. Throughout, the authors emphasize new kinds of experiences that museum architecture helps create, connecting ideas about design at various levels of analysis, from thinking about how the building sits in the city to exploring the details of technology. With sections focusing on museums as architectural icons, community engagement through design, the role of gallery spaces in the experience of museums, disability experiences, and sustainable design for museums, the collected chapters cover topics both familiar and fresh to those interested in museum architecture. Featuring over 150 color illustrations, this book celebrates successful museum architecture while the critical analysis sheds light on important issues to consider in museum design. Written by an international range of museum administrators, architects, and researchers this collection is an essential resource for understanding the social impacts of museum architecture and design for professionals, students, and museum-lovers alike.

The first book to take a "visitor's eye view" of the museum visit when it was first published in 1992, The Museum Experience revolutionized the way museum professionals understand their constituents. Falk and Dierking have updated this essential reference, incorporating advances in research, theory, and practice in the museum field over the last twenty years. Written in clear, non-technical style, The Museum Experience Revisited paints a thorough picture of why people go to museums, what they do there, how they learn, and what museum practitioners can do to enhance these experiences.

In response to systemic racism and institutions’ implications in histories of colonialism, nationalism, and exclusion, museum curators have embraced new ways of storytelling to face entangled memories and histories. Critical museum practices have consciously sought to unsettle established forms of representation, break with linear narratives of progress, and experiment with new modes of multivocal, multimedia, and subjective storytelling. The volume features analyses of narratives and narration in museums and heritage institutions today, as well as visions for future museum practices on a local, regional, national, transnational, and global scale. It is divided into three sections: Narrative Theory and Temporality, Ruptures and Repair, and Difficult Memories and Histories. Essays from a variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences examine museum practices in history, memorial, anthropological, and art museums across six continents. They develop narratological categories, reflect on immersive and virtual narratives, challenge colonial violence and hegemonic forms of representation, query the performance of heritage, parse exhibition design, and unearth techniques to express narratives of social justice.

Only a decade ago, the notion that museums, galleries and heritage organisations might engage in activist practice, with explicit intent to act upon inequalities, injustices and environmental crises, was met with scepticism and often derision. Seeking to purposefully bring about social change was viewed by many within and beyond the museum community as inappropriately political and antithetical to fundamental professional values. Today, although the idea remains controversial, the way we think about the roles and responsibilities of museums as knowledge based, social institutions is changing. Museum Activism examines the increasing significance of this activist trend in thinking and practice. At this crucial time in the evolution of museum thinking and practice, this ground-breaking volume brings together more than fifty contributors working across six continents to explore, analyse and critically reflect upon the museum’s relationship to activism. Including contributions from practitioners, artists, activists and researchers, this wide-ranging examination of new and divergent expressions of the inherent power of museums as forces for good, and as activists in civil society, aims to encourage further experimentation and enrich the debate in this nascent and uncertain field of museum practice. Museum Activism elucidates the largely untapped potential for museums as key intellectual and civic resources to address inequalities, injustice and environmental challenges. This makes the book essential reading for scholars and students of museum and heritage studies, gallery studies, arts and heritage management, and politics. It will be a source of inspiration to museum practitioners and museum leaders around the globe.

This newly revised and updated edition of the classic resource on museum marketing and strategy provides a proven framework for examining marketing and strategic goals in relation to a museum's mission, resources, opportunities, and challenges. Museum Marketing and Strategy examines the full range of marketing techniques and includes the most current information on positioning, branding, and e-marketing. The book addresses the issues of most importance to the museum community and shows how to Define the exchange process between a museum's offerings and consumer value Differentiate a museum and communicate its unique value in a competitive marketplace Find, create, and retain consumers and convert visitors to members and members to volunteers and donors Plan strategically and maximize marketing's value Achieve financial stability Develop a consumer-centered museum