Full Description
This broad introduction to museums benefits all educators who teach introductory museum studies, addressing the discipline from a holistic, dynamic, and document-centered perspective.
Museums serve to help us understand the past and navigate our future—as individuals, as societies, and as a global community. A careful and accurate assessment of a museum's purpose is crucial to its ability to serve its users effectively. Foundations of Museum Studies: Evolving Systems of Knowledge offers a holistic introduction to museums and the study of them from the perspective of specialization in museum studies within the context of library and information science (LIS).
The book strikes a balance between theory and practice, examining museums from a systems perspective that considers museums to be document-centered institutions—that objects are documents that generate and convey information, meaning, and inspiration. The authors utilize examples drawn from their experience with institutions in the United States that can be applied to museums across the world. Future museum professionals who read this book will have a broader perspective, an expanded skill set, and the adaptability to span the spectrum of traditional academic disciplines.
Contents
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
SECTION I: INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1: Defining Museums and Museum Studies
Chapter 2: The Origins of Museums
SECTION II: HOW
Chapter 3: The Museum System
Chapter 4: Dimensions of Museums
SECTION III: WHAT
Chapter 5: Species of Museums--A Museological Bestiary
Chapter 6: The Meaningful Physical Resource
SECTION IV: WHO
Chapter 7: Museum Workers
Chapter 8: Museum Users
SECTION V: WHERE
Chapter 9: Museums around the World
SECTION VI: WHY
Chapter 10: The Future of Museums
Index
