Product Description
Acclaimed architect Renzo Piano's vision for the new California Academy of Sciences is one of hope and grand ambition: to create a model for sustainable design at an unprecedented scale. This is the story of an architectural masterpiece detailing the intricacies of form and function: its 2.5-acre rooftop gardenthe 60 000 photovoltaic cells designed to power the buildingand its use of natural light and ventilation. When the new museum is unveiled in September 2008this celebratory book will serve as both resource and reminder of how humans can live and work in harmony with nature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Five Star book.
As I am unable to travel or walk about the new Academy of Sciences,this bookis a wonderful way to visit and learn about the new exhibits.Of special interest was mention of Alvin Seale,first curator of Steinhart Aquariam. In my youth he was a special friend of mine and related many stories about his South Seas adventures.I recommend the book for young people as it will give them a desire to visit the Academy in person. ... Read more

Product Description
A Companion to Museum Studies captures the multidisciplinary approaches to the study of the development, roles, and significance of museums in contemporary society. It is an indispensable reference for art historians, museum curators, and art and culture lovers.

• Collects first-rate original essays by leading figures from a range of disciplines and theoretical stances, including anthropology, art history, history, literature, sociology, cultural studies, and museum studies
• Examines the complexity of the museum from cultural, political, curatorial, historical and representational perspectives
• Covers traditional subjects, such as space, display, buildings, objects and collecting, and more contemporary challenges such as visiting, commerce, community and experimental exhibition forms

Product Description
Table of Contents
* In the beginning
* Calendar time
* Sun and stars
* Water, fire and sand
* Early mechanical clocks
* Swing time
* Time at sea
* Super accuracy
* Glossary
* Index ... Read more

Product Description

The influence of digital media on the cultural heritage sector has been pervasive and profound. Today museums are reliant on new technology to manage their collections. They collect digital as well as material things. New media is embedded within their exhibition spaces. And their activity online is as important as their physical presence on site.

However, ‘digital heritage’ (as an area of practice and as a subject of study) does not exist in one single place. Its evidence base is complex, diverse and distributed, and its content is available through multiple channels, on varied media, in myriad locations, and different genres of writing.

It is this diaspora of material and practice that this Reader is intended to address. With over forty chapters (by some fifty authors and co-authors), from around the world, spanning over twenty years of museum practice and research, this volume acts as an aggregator drawing selectively from a notoriously distributed network of content. Divided into seven parts (on information, space, access, interpretation, objects, production and futures), the book presents a series of cross-sections through the body of digital heritage literature, each revealing how a different aspect of curatorship and museum provision has been informed, shaped or challenged by computing.

Museums in a Digital Age is a provocative and inspiring guide for any student or practitioner of digital heritage.

Product Description
The "bible of museum registrars," updated for the 21st century, with more than 50 all-new chapters covering the complete registration procedure, proper care and storage of objects, collections management, documentation, computerization of records, shipping and handling, insurance, security, ethics and legal issues, and much more. An indispensable reference book for museum professionals working in any kind and size of institution. Prepared by the Registrars Committee, a Standing Professional Committee of AAM. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Buy it from the source
Don't be ridiculous, buy this book from the AAM Bookstore, where it sells for $45 to members and $65 to nonmembers.But actually, don't buy it at all, because the third edition will be out in March 2010.

pretty good registration guide
this book contains sections written by a number of experienced, top registrars at museums across the nation.they know their business, and although the methods will doubtless vary from museum to museum, it gives agood overview (although a few of the authors do go into painful detail) ofthe registration process.for the most part it's a great book on ahard-to-find subject. ... Read more

Product Description

Are Museums Irrelevant?

Museums are rarely acknowledged in the global discussion of climate change, environmental degradation, the inevitability of depleted fossil fuels, and the myriad local issues concerning the well-being of particular communities – suggesting the irrelevance of museums as social institutions. At the same time, there is a growing preoccupation among museums with the marketplace, and museums, unwittingly or not, are embracing the values of relentless consumption that underlie the planetary difficulties of today.

Museums in a Troubled World argues that much more can be expected of museums as publicly supported and knowledge-based institutions. The weight of tradition and a lack of imagination are significant factors in museum inertia and these obstacles are also addressed. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, combining anthropology ethnography, museum studies and management theory, this book goes beyond conventional museum thinking.

Robert R. Janes explores the meaning and role of museums as key intellectual and civic resources in a time of profound social and environmental change. This volume is a constructive examination of what is wrong with contemporary museums, written from an insider’s perspective that is grounded in both hope and pragmatism. The book’s conclusions are optimistic and constructive, and highlight the unique contributions that museums can make as social institutions, embedded in their communities, and owned by no one.

Customer Reviews (1)

Museums in a Troubled World - from The Informal Learning Review
Book Review

Museums in a Troubled World

Robert Mac West

Bob Janes, through his writings and public presentations, offers an interesting, useful, and often challenging perspective on the current and future role of museums. Museums in a Troubled World explores the very important relationship between the museum world and the larger world of the natural and social environment of our planet. Janes' view is that museums have figured out how to do some things very well (e.g, exhibitions and collections) and are trying desperately to integrate these functions into the business/corporate world of the 21st Century. He is very concerned that this emphasis does not serve the best interests of museums and their visitors/customers/advocates and that museums are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the major issues that face society today.

The book is a good and entertaining read. Many readers, me included, stop periodically and have to reread a paragraph, asking, in so many words, "How did he come up with that analogy?" or "golly, I never thought of it that way" or "that is complete horses..." This is good, as it means that he is challenging his readers and forcing them to look at their industry/profession through some distinctly different eyes.

We often read of the continued search of museums for relevance. It pervades the writings of Liberty Science Center's Emlyn Koster and is central to John Falk's recent book Identity and the Museum Experience (2009). But what does relevance really mean? Janes asks us to look both at the personal relevance of museums and their offerings as well as the much larger picture--how are museums relevant to the 21st century and its social and environmental challenges?

Other issues that he approaches, often challenging the current activities and value systems of museums, have to do with the economics and operations of museums. Primary here is the metrics by which museum success is measured. Large numbers--attendance, operating budgets, collection size--dominate. Janes contends that these aspects of corporatism divert museums from their primary and essential social and educational roles. The emphasis on ever-larger numbers only requires museums to continue (or try to continue) what they always have been doing. This means more and grander exhibitions, including the feared "blockbusters," new and expanded activities which may or may not be related to or supportive of the museum's mission, and an obsession with fundraising and earned income to support these. Such "corporatism" is a major concern for Janes and permeates this book.

Bob Janes is not at all alone in expressing these concerns and postulating their long-term impacts on the museum as what we would like to think of as an important element of the world's cultural and educational environment. The late Steve Weil approached many of these issues in 2002 in Making Museums Matter. Very recently, in an article in the March-April issue of AAM's Museum (unfortunately self-serving at the end), Maxwell Anderson of the Indianapolis Art Museum explored many of the same issues. Finally, the international museum observer James Bradburne, in a 2004 article in the Informal Learning Review, assessed some of the funding and political issues facing museums worldwide.

Janes' book is an important contribution to the current museum literature and deserves a careful read. Please do so.

Full reference: Janes, Robert R., 2009. Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse? Routledge, New York: 208pp.

References

Anderson, Maxwell L., 2010.A Clear View: The Case for Museum Transparency. Museum, March/April, 89 (2), 48-43.

Bradburne, James M., 2004. The Museum Time Bomb: Overbuilt, Overtraded, Overdrawn. Informal Learning Review, March/April no. 65, 1, 4-13.

Falk, John, 2009. Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA. 301pp.

Weil, Stephen E., 2002. Making Museums Matter. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: 273pp.

Robert Mac West is the editor and publisher of The Informal Learning Review. He may be reached at ile@informallearning.com.
... Read more

Product Description
For more than ten years, the Science for Conservators series has been the key basic texts for conservators throughout the world. Scientific concepts are basic ot the conservation of artefacts of every type, yet many conservators have little or no scientific training. These introductory volumes provide non-scientists with the essential theoretical background to their work. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

A much-needed addition to critical museology
Williams' book is excellent. While it has been hard not to notice the swell of support worldwide for these memorial museums, no one (as far as I know) has approached them to explore what's in them, why they are being built, and what they mean for the preservation of memory.

The book effectively considers how histories of genocide, terrorism and other terrible events are shown through objects, in photos, and in architectural symbolism. Williams has a sharp critical eye and a fluid, likeable writing style. He asks some broad philosophical questions about what we expect to gain from the construction of museums devoted to the most awful aspects of our shared heritage. Very highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
Explains how popular soft drinks are created while teaching readers how they can make their own special-tasting sodas using household ingredients, and includes fifty safe and entertaining experiments on how to analyze store-bought brands. Simultaneous." ... Read more

Product Description
Museums, Society, Inequality explores the wide-ranging social roles and responsibilities of the museum. It brings together diverse international perspectives from across the globe, which collectively seek to stimulate critical debate, to inform the work of practitioners and policy makers, and to advance recognition of the agency of museums. This unusual collection gives valuable insight on the museum's relationship to the outside community, and its essential role as a social institution that influences, and must respond to, the changing characteristics and concerns of society. ... Read more

Product Description
New Museum Theory and Practice is an original collection of essays with a unique focus: the contested politics and ideologies of museum exhibition.

• Contains 12 original essays that contribute to the field while creating a collective whole for course use.
  
• Discusses theory through vivid examples and historical overviews.
  
• Offers guidance on how to put theory into practice.
  
• Covers a range of museums around the world: from art to history, anthropology to music, as well as historic houses, cultural centres, virtual sites, and commercial displays that use the conventions of the museum.
  
• Authors come from the UK, Canada, the US, and Australia, and from a variety of fields that inform cultural studies.

Customer Reviews (1)

Great and Inciteful Book!
"New Museum Theory and Practice" has been a great resource for the Museum Studies course I'm taking in college. This book is a collection of essays that addresses numerous issues that are crucial to the new outlook for museums in the 21st century. Honest and up to date, the book discusses matters such as collection processing, feminism, multiculturalism, and poses questions about the basic foundations of museums as they exist today. ... Read more

Product Description
Fully updated and extended to include the many changes that have occurred in the last decade, this second edition of world-renowned text Museum Basics provides a basic guide to all aspects of museum work and staff experience from museum organization, through collections management and conservation, to audience development and education.

Drawing on a wide range of practical experience, the authors have provided an excellent tool that enable museums throughout the world to conquer a common challenge; to keep up-to-date with new ideas and changing practices.

Organized on a modular basis, with over 100 units, Museum Basics is a reference to support day-to-day museum management, and a key text in pre-service and in-service training programmes and works brilliantly alongside cast studies, project work and group discussion.

With glossary, sources of information and a select bibliography, this is certainly a book that no museum professional, nor museum and heritage studies student will want to be without. ... Read more

Product Description

Kids and teachers can build their own science projects based on exhibits from San Francisco's premiere science museum

This revised and updated edition offers instructions for building junior versions, or "snacks," of the famed Exploratorium's exhibits. The snacks, designed by science teachers, can be used as demonstrations, labs, or as student science projects and all 100 projects are easy to build from common materials. The Exploratorium, a renowned hands-on science museum founded by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer, is noted for its interactive exhibits that richly illustrate scientific concepts and stimulate learning.

• Offers a step-by-step guide for building dynamic science projects and exhibits
• Includes tips for creating projects made from easy-to-assembly items
• Thoroughly revised and updated, including new "snacks," images, and references

Customer Reviews (1)

Good resource for homeschool labs and unit studies
The Exploratorium in San Francisco is 40 years old this year, and one of the ways they are celebrating is the republication of The Exploratorium Science Snackbook. It was originally published in 1991. This new edition has been updated with new snacks (miniature science exhibits and investigations), illustrations, references and teaching tips. Although it was created for students in grades 5-12, it can be used with all grades with adult supervision.

Part One includes snacks that focus on sight and visual perception. Part Two: electricity, energy and matter; Part Three: light and color. Part Four: Force and Motion; and Part Five: Sound.

Teachers and parents can use the snacks as demonstrations, lessons and labs.Students can use the snacks for science fairs, science lab projects, and to earn science badges.

Each snack includes an introduction, a list of materials needed, instructions how to complete the snack, and an explanation of the science behind it. Photos and illustrations are included to help you visualize the project.

Materials needed for the snacks are not always readily available, so you will need to do some shopping around for some items. This is the only reason I gave it four stars, instead of five. There is a list of science supply resources in the back of the book. One that is not on the list that I would recommend for homeschoolers is Home Science Tools. I recommend that you purchase your science supplies as needed and keep them in a safe place for your whole homeschooling career.

The Exploratorium Science Snackbook is an excellent resource for homeschool science labs, especially for those of you who do unit studies. As you study each different science topic, you can use the snacks in this book as a resource for science labs.

For instance, let's say you were doing a unit on sound. You could have your child research sound on the Internet. Next, assign some nonfiction library books and/or biographies related to sound. Then using the index and the "tuning fork" icon in the Snackbook, select snacks that relate to sound and have your child complete them for lab. For art, have your child illustrate a concept learned from his or her research. Play a sound-identification game. Download and print off worksheets or coloring pages from the Internet related to sound. Many of these can be found freeing by doing a search for "sound" and "worksheet" or "sound" and "coloring page." Finally, have your child write a report or research paper (depending on age level) on the topic. Instant unit study! ... Read more

Product Description
Reinventing the Museum gathers 35 seminal articles reflecting over 100 years of dialogue within the musem community about what it means to be a high-quality, relevant institution. Important reading for museum professionals, students, and anyone interested in museums and their development. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Reinventing the Museum
I need this book for a graduate course, and it's much more readable and interesting than a lot of the other material I'm reading. Insightful, with short chapters that are accessible and interesting. ... Read more

Product Description
With the development of institutions displaying natural science, history, and artin the late 19th century camethe debates over the role of these museum in society. This anthology collects 52 of the most important writings on museum philosophy dating from this formative period, written by the many of the American and European founders of the field. Genoways and Andrei contextualize these pieces with a series of introductions showing how the museum field developed within the social environment of the era. For those interested in museum history and philosophy or cultural history, this is an essential resource. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Museum Inquiries
Anybody interested in art and colllectibles, ideology and ethnocentrism must
pursue museum inquiries. This is a must-have book. ... Read more

Product Description

"We live in a museum age," writes Steven Conn in Do Museums Still Need Objects? And indeed, at the turn of the twenty-first century, more people are visiting museums than ever before. There are now over 17,500 accredited museums in the United States, averaging approximately 865 million visits a year, more than two million visits a day. New museums have proliferated across the cultural landscape even as older ones have undergone transformational additions: from the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan in New York to the High in Atlanta and the Getty in Los Angeles. If the golden age of museum-building came a century ago, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Field Museum of Natural History, and others were created, then it is fair to say that in the last generation we have witnessed a second golden age.

By closely observing the cultural, intellectual, and political roles that museums play in contemporary society, while also delving deeply into their institutional histories, historian Steven Conn demonstrates that museums are no longer seen simply as houses for collections of objects. Conn ranges across a wide variety of museum types—from art and anthropology to science and commercial museums—asking questions about the relationship between museums and knowledge, about the connection between culture and politics, about the role of museums in representing non-Western societies, and about public institutions and the changing nature of their constituencies. Elegantly written and deeply researched, Do Museums Still Need Objects? is essential reading for historians, museum professionals, and those who love to visit museums.

Product Description

Learning in the Museum examines major issues and shows how research in visitor studies and the philosophy of education can be applied to facilitate a meaningful educational experience in museums.

Hein combines a brief history of education in public museums, with a rigorous examination of how the educational theories of Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky and subsequent theorists relate to learning in the museum.

Surveying a wide range of research methods employed in visitor studies is illustrated with examples taken from museums around the world, Hein explores how visitors can best learn from exhibitions which are physically, socially, and intellectually accessible to every single visitor. He shows how museums can adapt to create this kind of environment, to provide what he calls the 'constructivist museum'.

Providing essential theoretical analysis for students, this volume also serves as a practical guide for all museum professionals on how to adapt their museums to maximize the educational experience of every visitor.

Customer Reviews (1)

An essential guide to the nature of museum learning.
This book provides an excellent summary of current museum learning theory. Concise and engaging, it includes a compendium of virtually all of the relevant research and concepts in the hot topic of audience-centered andinformal museum learning. This is pursuasively knit together to suggest apowerful approach - the constructivist museum. A must-read for anyoneinterested in understanding how visitors actually make meaning from theirmuseum experiences. ... Read more

Product Description