The Value of Museums
The Value of Museums

Author: John H. Falk

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-10-11

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1538149222

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Written by one of the world’s leading authorities on the public use of museums, The Value of Museums: Enhancing Societal Well-Being provides a timely and compelling way for museum professionals to better understand and explain the benefits created by museum experiences. The key insight this book advances is that museum experiences successfully support a major driver of human behavior – the desire for enhanced well-being. Knowingly or not, the business of museums has always been to support and enhance the public’s personal, intellectual, social and physical well-being. Over the years, museums have excelled at this task, as evidenced by the almost indelible memories museum experiences engender. People report that museum experiences make them feel better about themselves, more informed, happier, healthier and more enriched; all outcomes directly related to enhanced well-being. Historically, benefits such as enhanced well-being were seen as vague and intangible, but Falk shows that enhanced well-being, when properly conceptualized, can not only be defined and measured, but also can be monetized. However, as many in the museum world are painfully aware, what worked yesterday for museums may not work in the future as recessions and pandemics rapidly alter the landscape. Although insights about past experiences are interesting, what is needed now is a roadmap for the future. Fortunately for museums, the public’s need for enhanced well-being will not be disappearing any time soon; enhanced well-being is now, and will always be, a fundamental and on-going human need. What has and will change, though, is how people choose to satisfy their well-being-related needs. The Value of Museums provides tangible suggestions for how museum professionals can build on their legacy of success at supporting the public’s well-being, adapting to changing times, and remaining relevant and sustainable in the future.

Museum Experience Revisited
Museum Experience Revisited

Author: John H Falk

Publisher: Left Coast Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1611320453

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The first book to take a "visitor's eye view" of the museum visit, updated to incorporate advances in research, theory, and practice in the museum field over the last twenty years.

Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience
Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience

Author: John H Falk

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-06-16

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 1315427044

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Drawing upon a career in studying museum visitors, renowned researcher John Falk attempts to create a predictive model of visitor experience, one that can help museum professionals better meet those visitors’ needs.

Museums and Public Value
Museums and Public Value

Author: Carol A. Scott

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-22

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1317092880

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Public Value speaks to our time - to the role that museums can play in creating civil societies, to the challenges involved in using limited assets strategically, to the demand for results that make a difference and to the imperative that we build the kind of engagement that sustains our futures. This book assists museum leaders to implement a Public Value approach in their management, planning, programming and relationship building. The benefits are long term public engagement and support, which can be used to demonstrate that valuable returns result from public investment in museums. A range of authors from around the world unpack the concept of Public Value and examine its implications for museums. They situate Public Value within current management theory and practice, offer tools for implementation, highlight examples of successful practice and examine the evidence of Public Value that governments seek to inform policy and funding decisions. The book will be required reading for senior professionals in museums, as well as museum and heritage studies students.

Museums, Societies and the Creation of Value
Museums, Societies and the Creation of Value

Author: Taylor & Francis Group

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-30

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9780367688486

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Museums, Societies and the Creation of Value focuses on the ways in which museums and the use of their collections have contributed to, and continue to be engaged with, value creation processes. Including chapters from many of the leading figures in museum anthropology, as well as from outstanding early-career researchers, this volume presents a diverse range of international case studies that bridge the gap between theory and practice. It demonstrates that ethnographic collections and the museums that hold and curate them have played a central role in the value creation processes that have changed attitudes to cultural difference. The essays engage richly with many of the important issues of contemporary museum discourse and practice. They show how collections exist at the ever-changing point of articulation between the source communities and the people and cultures of the museum and challenge presentist critiques of museums that position them as locked into the time that they emerged. Museums, Societies and the Creation of Value provides examples of the productive outcomes of collaborative work and relationships, showing how they can be mutually beneficial. The book will be of great interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museums and heritage, anthropology, culture, Indigenous peoples, postcolonialism, history and sociology. It will also be of interest to museum professionals.

The Social Work of Museums
The Social Work of Museums

Author: Lois H. Silverman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-12-04

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1135190496

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Museums may not seem at first glance to be engaged in social work. Yet, Lois H. Silverman brings together here relevant visitor studies, trends in international practice, and compelling examples that demonstrate how museums everywhere are using their unique resources to benefit human relationships and, ultimately, to repair the world. In this groundbreaking book, Silverman forges a framework of key social work perspectives to show how museums are evolving a needs-based approach to provide what promises to be universal social service. In partnership with social workers, social agencies, and clients, museums are helping people cope and even thrive in circumstances ranging from personal challenges to social injustices. The Social Work of Museums provides the first integrative survey of this emerging interdisciplinary practice and an essential foundation on which to build for the future. The Social Work of Museums is not only a vital and visionary resource for museum training and practice in the 21st century, but also an invaluable tool for social workers, creative arts therapists, and students seeking to broaden their horizons. It will inspire and empower policymakers, directors, clinicians, and evaluators alike to work together toward museums for the next age.

The Value of an Archaeological Open-air Museum is in Its Use
The Value of an Archaeological Open-air Museum is in Its Use

Author: Roeland Paardekooper

Publisher: Sidestone Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9088901031

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There are about 300 archaeological open-air museums in Europe, which do more than simply present (re)constructed outdoor sceneries based on archaeology. They have an important role as education facilities and many showcase archaeology in a variety of ways. This research assesses the value of archaeological open-air museums, their management and their visitors, and is the first to do so in such breadth and detail. After a literature study and general data collection among 199 of such museums in Europe, eight archaeological open-air museums from different countries were selected as case studies. Management and visitors have different perspectives leading to different priorities and appreciation levels. The studies conclude with recommendations, ideas and strategies which are applicable not just to the eight archaeological open-air museums under study, but to any such museum in general. The recommendations are divided into the six categories of management, staff, collections, marketing, interpretation and the visitors.

Museum Rhetoric
Museum Rhetoric

Author: M. Elizabeth Weiser

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2017-10-16

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0271080221

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In today’s diverse societies, museums are the primary institutions within the public sphere in which individuals can both engage critical thought and celebrate community. This volume uses the lens of rhetoric to explore the role these societal repositories play in establishing and altering cultural heritage and national identity. Based on fieldwork conducted in over sixty museums in twenty-two countries across six continents, Museum Rhetoric explores how heritage museum exhibits persuade visitors to unite their own sense of identity with that of the broader civic society and how the latter changes in response. Elizabeth Weiser examines what compels communities, organizations, and nations to create museum spaces, and how museums operate as sites of both civic engagement and rhetorical persuasion. Moving beyond rhetorical explorations of museums as “memory sites,” she shows how they intentionally straddle the divides between style and content, intellect and affect, and unity and diversity, and why their portrayal of the past matters to civic life—and particularly studies of nationalism—in the present and future. Deeply researched and artfully argued, Museum Rhetoric sheds light on the public impact of cultural and aesthetic heritage and opens avenues of inquiry for scholars of museum studies and public history.

Beyond the Turnstile
Beyond the Turnstile

Author: Selma Holo

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9780759112216

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This handbook of values will help museums of every kind and size articulate their value to their community at a time when economic woes cause even supporters to question their importance.

The Role of Today's Museum
The Role of Today's Museum

Author: Clive Gray

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1000059324

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The Role of Today’s Museum provides a thorough investigation of what museums do and why. Arguing that museums are multifunctional institutions, the book examines the consequences of this for the services that museums provide, the publics to whom they are provided and the providers themselves. Adopting a wide perspective on understandings of the roles of museums and considering the different environments within which museums operate, Gray and McCall provide a new perspective on how transformations, as well as the gaps between intended policies and the actual work that is undertaken within museums, can be both identified and understood. By differentiating between social, economic and political visions and expectations of museums, the analysis in this book allows for a fuller understanding of what these organisations do and provide for their societies and the struggles and negotiations that surround their existence. The Role of Today’s Museum takes a critical, interdisciplinary approach to studying museums and museum policy. As a result, the book will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of museums, cultural policy, social policy, cultural sociology, public policy and cultural and political economy. Highlighting the gaps that exist between policy ideals and museum practices, the book also provides valuable insights to policy-makers and practitioners.