Museum Collecting Lessons

Museum Collecting Lessons explains how and why museums meet their fundamental duty to collect. It is the first book of its kind to explore the diverse ways these unique institutions acquire what is preserved and used for exhibitions, programs, publications, and online applications. The 11 chapters that make up the volume are written by museum practitioners working in art, history, and science museums in the United States, Canada, and India. Together, the essays provide fascinating insights into a wide variety of significant acquisitions and museum collecting initiatives. The authors explain customary collecting methods, including donation, purchase, and field retrieval. Commonly shared acquisition denominators are also covered and include mission pertinence, quality control, the feasibility and legality of acquisition, personnel and volunteer involvement, and long-term retention assurances. The philosophies and realities presented within the case studies shine light on recent debates about who is included or excluded in museum collections – especially when it comes to race, ethnicity, gender, political perspectives, places of habitation, and economic status. Museum Collecting Lessons reflects upon past and ongoing issues relating to museum acquisition practices. Offering valuable insights about philosophical, practical, and ethical collecting practices, the book will be of interest to aspiring, beginner, and experienced museum professionals around the world.

Museum Object Lessons for the Digital Age explores the nature of digital objects in museums, asking us to question our assumptions about the material, social and political foundations of digital practices. Through four wide-ranging chapters, each focused on a single object – a box, pen, effigy and cloak – this short, accessible book explores the legacies of earlier museum practices of collection, older forms of media (from dioramas to photography), and theories of how knowledge is produced in museums on a wide range of digital projects. Swooping from Ethnographic to Decorative Arts Collections, from the Google Art Project to bespoke digital experiments, Haidy Geismar explores the object lessons contained in digital form and asks what they can tell us about both the past and the future. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience working with collections across the world, Geismar argues for an understanding of digital media as material, rather than immaterial, and advocates for a more nuanced, ethnographic and historicised view of museum digitisation projects than those usually adopted in the celebratory accounts of new media in museums. By locating the digital as part of a longer history of material engagements, transformations and processes of translation, this book broadens our understanding of the reality effects that digital technologies create, and of how digital media can be mobilised in different parts of the world to very different effects.

This landmark publication is the first to draw together all aspects of museum collections management in one handbook. It is designed for anyone with responsibility for a cultural collection and covers everything a collections manager needs to know. It describes professional practice in managing cultural objects and works of art, whatever the size and nature of the collection. The book includes essential information on: Legal aspects of collections Ethical issues such as due diligence and immunity from seizure Up to date concerns such as sustainability, crossing borders and financial constraints Loans, acquisitions, inventory and movement. The book describes all collections management procedures in a simple step-by-step process and is clear and easy to use with all procedures based on international museum practice. Examples of real forms, policies and documents drawn from major museums are included throughout the text and act as guides for any transaction. Readership: Packed full of practical information, advice and good practice, this will be essential reading for all museum professionals, curators of private collections and museum studies students.

Museum Object Lessons for the Digital Age explores the nature of digital objects in museums, asking us to question our assumptions about the material, social and political foundations of digital practices. Through four wide-ranging chapters, each focused on a single object – a box, pen, effigy and cloak – this short, accessible book explores the legacies of earlier museum practices of collection, older forms of media (from dioramas to photography), and theories of how knowledge is produced in museums on a wide range of digital projects. Swooping from Ethnographic to Decorative Arts Collections, from the Google Art Project to bespoke digital experiments, Haidy Geismar explores the object lessons contained in digital form and asks what they can tell us about both the past and the future. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience working with collections across the world, Geismar argues for an understanding of digital media as material, rather than immaterial, and advocates for a more nuanced, ethnographic and historicised view of museum digitisation projects than those usually adopted in the celebratory accounts of new media in museums. By locating the digital as part of a longer history of material engagements, transformations and processes of translation, this book broadens our understanding of the reality effects that digital technologies create, and of how digital media can be mobilised in different parts of the world to very different effects.

Amongst recent contemporary art and museological publications, there have been relatively few which direct attention to the distinct contributions that twentieth and twenty-first century artists have made to gallery and museum interpretation practices. There are fewer still that recognise the pedagogic potential of interventionist artworks in galleries and museums. This book fills that gap and demonstrates how artists have been making curious but, none-the-less, useful contributions to museum education and curation for some time. Claire Robins investigates in depth the phenomenon of artists' interventions in museums and examines their pedagogic implications. She also brings to light and seeks to resolve many of the contradictions surrounding artists' interventions, where on the one hand contemporary artists have been accused of alienating audiences and, on the other, appear to have played a significant role in orchestrating positive developments to the way that learning is defined and configured in museums. She examines the disruptive and parodic strategies that artists have employed, and argues for that they can be understood as part of a move to re-establish the museum as a discursive forum. This valuable book will be essential reading for students and scholars of museum studies, as well as art and cultural studies.

Collections Care and Stewardship: Innovative Approaches for Museums considers best practices and innovations related to documenting collections with regard to movement and safe handling of items for transport, display, photography, and treatment; collections storage; and information-sharing within and beyond the museum.

Museums and the Working Class is the first book to take an intersectional and international approach to the issues of economic diversity and class within the field of museum studies. Bringing together 16 contributors from eight countries, this book has emerged from the significant global dialogue concerning museums’ obligation to be inclusive, participate in meaningful engagement and advocate for social change. As part of the push for museums to be more accessible and inclusive, museums have been challenged to critically examine their power relationships and how these are played out in what they collect, whose stories they exhibit and who is made to feel welcome in their halls. This volume will further this professional and academic debate through the discussion of class. Contributions to the book will also reinforce the importance of the working class – not only in collection and exhibition policy, but also for the organisational psychology of institutions. Museums and the Working Class is essential reading for scholars and students of museum, gallery and heritage studies, cultural studies, sociology, labour studies and history. It will also serve as a source of honest and research-led inspiration to practitioners working in museums, galleries, libraries, archives and at heritage sites around the world.