Science Museums in Transition

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Author :
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822982757
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Science Museums in Transition by : Carin Berkowitz

Download or read book Science Museums in Transition written by Carin Berkowitz and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2017-07-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Outstanding Academic Title 2017, Choice Magazine The nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic shift in the display and dissemination of natural knowledge across Britain and America, from private collections of miscellaneous artifacts and objects to public exhibitions and state-sponsored museums. The science museum as we know it—an institution of expert knowledge built to inform a lay public—was still very much in formation during this dynamic period. Science Museums in Transition provides a nuanced, comparative study of the diverse places and spaces in which science was displayed at a time when science and spectacle were still deeply intertwined; when leading naturalists, curators, and popular showmen were debating both how to display their knowledge and how and whether they should profit from scientific work; and when ideals of nationalism, class politics, and democracy were permeating the museum’s walls. Contributors examine a constellation of people, spaces, display practices, experiences, and politics that worked not only to define the museum, but to shape public science and scientific knowledge. Taken together, the chapters in this volume span the Atlantic, exploring private and public museums, short and long-term exhibitions, and museums built for entertainment, education, and research, and in turn raise a host of important questions, about expertise, and about who speaks for nature and for history.

Science Museums in Transition

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351036327
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Science Museums in Transition by : Hooley McLaughlin

Download or read book Science Museums in Transition written by Hooley McLaughlin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-23 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science Museums in Transition: Unheard Voices considers how museums can adapt their exhibits, programs, and organizational structures to the diversity of ideas, people, and cultures that speak to modern science. This collection contains individual expressions by museum insiders addressing a range of particular perspectives – Native American, African American, Latinx, Islamic, Israeli, Danish, white North American. These reflections provide guidance to the museum community as to how their institutions can become more thoughtful, more welcoming to diverse audiences, and more cognizant of the ways that different people incorporate science into their daily lives. As a whole, the book emphasizes the need for museums to engage in dialogue with their visitors – not merely to present them with information – and to offer the opportunities to share experiences, exchange perspectives, and thereby advance science learning through a dynamic and collective process. Science Museums in Transition is intended to further discussion on how museums address the political and social ramifications of science and, as such, should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the fields of museum studies, science, anthropology, education and history. It should also be essential reading for museum professionals around the globe.

Life on Display

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022607983X
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis Life on Display by : Karen A. Rader

Download or read book Life on Display written by Karen A. Rader and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rich with archival detail and compelling characters, Life on Display uses the history of biological exhibitions to analyze museums’ shifting roles in twentieth-century American science and society. Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain chronicle profound changes in these exhibitions—and the institutions that housed them—between 1910 and 1990, ultimately offering new perspectives on the history of museums, science, and science education. Rader and Cain explain why science and natural history museums began to welcome new audiences between the 1900s and the 1920s and chronicle the turmoil that resulted from the introduction of new kinds of biological displays. They describe how these displays of life changed dramatically once again in the 1930s and 1940s, as museums negotiated changing, often conflicting interests of scientists, educators, and visitors. The authors then reveal how museum staffs, facing intense public and scientific scrutiny, experimented with wildly different definitions of life science and life science education from the 1950s through the 1980s. The book concludes with a discussion of the influence that corporate sponsorship and blockbuster economics wielded over science and natural history museums in the century’s last decades. A vivid, entertaining study of the ways science and natural history museums shaped and were shaped by understandings of science and public education in the twentieth-century United States, Life on Display will appeal to historians, sociologists, and ethnographers of American science and culture, as well as museum practitioners and general readers.

The New Town Square

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Publisher : Rowman Altamira
ISBN 13 : 075911563X
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (591 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Town Square by : Robert R. Archibald

Download or read book The New Town Square written by Robert R. Archibald and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2004-05-17 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lyrical volume Robert R. Archibald explores a growing crisis of modern America: the dissolution of place that leads to a dangerous rupture of community. Community_born historically within the collective space of the town square where citizens come together to share stories and make meaning of their common histories_is dissipating as Americans are increasingly isolated from that shared space and are being submerged into an individualistic consumer monoculture with disregard for the common good. This volume examines how public history museums and historians can help restore community by offering a source of identity for people and their places, becoming a wellspring of community and an incubator of democracy, a consciousness of connection with a responsibility to those in our past and future. The New Town Square offers its readers a space to understand and celebrate the shared space of community, and is a vital resource for public historians and those interested in restoring the meaning of community.

Do Museums Still Need Objects?

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Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812221559
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Do Museums Still Need Objects? by : Steven Conn

Download or read book Do Museums Still Need Objects? written by Steven Conn and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this broadly conceived study Steven Conn examines the development of American museums across the twentieth century with a historian's attention and a critic's eye. He focuses on an array of museum types and asks illuminating questions about the relationship between museums and American cultural life.

The Museum in Transition

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Author :
Publisher : Smithsonian Institution
ISBN 13 : 158834410X
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (883 download)

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Book Synopsis The Museum in Transition by : Hilde S. Hein

Download or read book The Museum in Transition written by Hilde S. Hein and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the past thirty years, museums of all kinds have tried to become more responsive to the interests of a diverse public. With exhibitions becoming people-centered, idea-oriented, and contextualized, the boundaries between museums and the “real” world are eroding. Setting the transition from object-centered to story-centered exhibitions in a philosophical framework, Hilde S. Hein contends that glorifying the museum experience at the expense of objects deflects the museum's educative, ethical, and aesthetic roles. Referring to institutions ranging from art museums to theme parks, she shows how deployment has replaced amassing as a goal and discusses how museums now actively shape and create values.

Useful Objects

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197553486
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis Useful Objects by : Reed Gochberg

Download or read book Useful Objects written by Reed Gochberg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Useful Objects' examines the cultural history of nineteenth-century American museums through the eyes of writers, visitors, and collectors. Throughout this period, museums gradually transformed from encyclopedic cabinets to more specialized public institutions. These changes prompted wider debates about how museums determine what objects to select, preserve, and display-and who gets to decide. Drawing on a wide range of archival materials and accounts in fiction, guidebooks, and periodicals, this text shows how the challenges facing nineteenth-century museums continue to resonate in debates about their role in American culture today.

Museums in Motion

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Publisher : Rowman Altamira
ISBN 13 : 9780759105096
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Museums in Motion by : Edward Porter Alexander

Download or read book Museums in Motion written by Edward Porter Alexander and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2008 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1979, Edward P. Alexander's Museums in Motion was hailed as a much-needed addition to the museum literature. In combining the history of museums since the eighteenth century with a detailed examination of the function of museums and museum workers in modern society, it served as an essential resource for those seeking to enter to the museum profession and for established professionals looking for an expanded understanding of their own discipline. Now, Mary Alexander has produced a newly revised edition of the classic text, bringing it the twenty-first century with coverage of emerging trends, resources, and challenges. New material also includes a discussion of the children's museum as a distinct type of institution and an exploration of the role computers play in both outreach and traditional in-person visits.

New Solutions for House Museums

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Publisher : AltaMira Press
ISBN 13 : 0759113823
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (591 download)

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Book Synopsis New Solutions for House Museums by : Donna Ann Harris

Download or read book New Solutions for House Museums written by Donna Ann Harris and published by AltaMira Press. This book was released on 2007-04-16 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A generational shift is occurring at historic house museums as board members and volunteers retire while few young people step forward to take their place. These landmarks are also plagued by serious deferred maintenance, and many have no endowment funds. What will happen to these sites in the next ten years, and what can be done to assure their continued preservation for generations to come? In New Solutions for House Museums Harris examines possible options and provides a decision-making methodology as well as a dozen case studies of house museums that have made a successful transition to a new owner or user.

Nature's Colony

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Author :
Publisher : Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.
ISBN 13 : 9814722456
Total Pages : 451 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Nature's Colony by : Timothy P Barnard

Download or read book Nature's Colony written by Timothy P Barnard and published by Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.. This book was released on 2018-04-27 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Established in 1859, Singapore's Botanic Gardens has served as a park for Singaporeans and visitors, a scientific institution, and a testing ground for tropical plantation crops. Each function has its own story, while the Gardens also fuel an underlying narrative of the juncture of administrative authority and the natural world. Created to help exploit natural resources for the British Empire, the Gardens became contested ground in conflicts involving administrators and scientists that reveal shifting understandings of power, science and nature in Singapore and in Britain. This continued after independence, when the Gardens featured in the "e;greening"e; of the nation-state, and became Singapore's first World Heritage Site. Positioning the Singapore Botanic Gardens alongside the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and gardens in India, Ceylon, Mauritius and the West Indies, this book tells the story of nature's colony-a place where plants were collected, classified and cultivated to change our understanding of the region and world.

The Future of Natural History Museums

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315531879
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (155 download)

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Book Synopsis The Future of Natural History Museums by : Eric Dorfman

Download or read book The Future of Natural History Museums written by Eric Dorfman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural history museums are changing, both because of their own internal development and in response to changes in context. Historically, the aim of collecting from nature was to develop encyclopedic assemblages to satisfy human curiosity and build a basis for taxonomic information. Today, with global biodiversity in rapid decline, there are new reasons to build and maintain collections, while audiences are more diverse, numerous, and technically savvy. Institutions must learn to embrace new technology while retaining the authenticity of their stories and the value placed on their objects. The Future of Natural History Museums begins to develop a cohesive discourse that balances the disparate issues that our institutions will face over the next decades. It disassembles the topic into various key elements and, through commentary and synthesis, explores a cohesive picture of the trajectory of the natural history museum sector. This book contributes to the study of collections, teaching and learning, ethics, and running non-profit businesses and will be of interest to museum and heritage professionals and academics and senior students in Biological Sciences and Museum Studies.

Exhibitions as Research

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317239032
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (172 download)

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Book Synopsis Exhibitions as Research by : Peter Bjerregaard

Download or read book Exhibitions as Research written by Peter Bjerregaard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exhibitions as Research contends that museums would be more attractive to both researchers and audiences if we consider exhibitions as knowledge-in-the-making rather than platforms for disseminating already-established insights. Analysing the theoretical underpinnings and practical challenges of such an approach, the book questions whether it is possible to exhibit knowledge that is still in the making, whilst also considering which concepts of "knowledge" apply to such a format. The book also considers what the role of audience might be if research is extended into the exhibition itself. Providing concrete case studies of projects where museum professionals have approached exhibition making as a knowledge-generating process, the book considers tools of application and the challenges that might emerge from pursuing such an approach. Theoretically, the volume analyses the emergence of exhibitions as research as part of recent developments within materiality theories, object-oriented ontology and participatory approaches to exhibition-making. Exhibitions as Research will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of museology, material culture, anthropology and archaeology. It will also appeal to museum professionals with an interest in current trends in exhibition-making.

Our Indigenous Ancestors

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Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271073195
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Our Indigenous Ancestors by : Carolyne R. Larson

Download or read book Our Indigenous Ancestors written by Carolyne R. Larson and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-13 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Indigenous Ancestors complicates the history of the erasure of native cultures and the perceived domination of white, European heritage in Argentina through a study of anthropology museums in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Carolyne Larson demonstrates how scientists, collectors, the press, and the public engaged with Argentina’s native American artifacts and remains (and sometimes living peoples) in the process of constructing an “authentic” national heritage. She explores the founding and functioning of three museums in Argentina, as well as the origins and consolidation of Argentine archaeology and the professional lives of a handful of dynamic curators and archaeologists, using these institutions and individuals as a window onto nation building, modernization, urban-rural tensions, and problems of race and ethnicity in turn-of-the-century Argentina. Museums and archaeology, she argues, allowed Argentine elites to build a modern national identity distinct from the country’s indigenous past, even as it rested on a celebrated, extinct version of that past. As Larson shows, contrary to widespread belief, elements of Argentina’s native American past were reshaped and integrated into the construction of Argentine national identity as white and European at the turn of the century. Our Indigenous Ancestors provides a unique look at the folklore movement, nation building, science, institutional change, and the divide between elite, scientific, and popular culture in Argentina and the Americas at a time of rapid, sweeping changes in Latin American culture and society.

Science Communication

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Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110393212
Total Pages : 555 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Science Communication by : Annette Leßmöllmann

Download or read book Science Communication written by Annette Leßmöllmann and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science is an essentially cooperative, critical, and dynamic enterprise. Were it not for the continuous creation and improvement of special forms of communication, argumentation, and innovation, all of them suitable for its three key features, scientific knowledge and progress could hardly be achieved. The aim of this volume is to explore the nature of science communication in its several functions, modalities, combinations, and evolution - past, present, and future. One of our objectives is to provide an overview of the richness and variety of elements that take part in performing the complex tasks and fulfilling the functions of science communication. The overall structure and criteria for the choice of topics: 1. The origin and target of a communication episode - its source(s) and addressee(s). 2. The media of communication employed. 3. The thematic field and content types. 4. The distinction between aspects of science communication (e.g., media, texttypes, domains, communicative maxims) and aspects of research on science communication (e.g., the contribution of different research traditions to the understanding of science communication). 5. The history and dynamics of science communication (past, present, and future), both in an empirical perspective (e.g., the development of the research article) and a systematic perspective (e.g., what are basic types and mechanisms of change in science communication).

Curators

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022638943X
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

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Book Synopsis Curators by : Lance Grande

Download or read book Curators written by Lance Grande and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the centuries, natural history museums have evolved from being little more than musty repositories of stuffed animals and pinned bugs, to being crucial generators of new scientific knowledge. They have also become vibrant educational centers, full of engaging exhibits that share those discoveries with students and an enthusiastic general public. At the heart of it all from the very start have been curators. Yet after three decades as a natural history curator, Lance Grande found that he still had to explain to people what he does. This book is the answer—and, oh, what an answer it is: lively, exciting, up-to-date, it offers a portrait of curators and their research like none we’ve seen, one that conveys the intellectual excitement and the educational and social value of curation. Grande uses the personal story of his own career—most of it spent at Chicago’s storied Field Museum—to structure his account as he explores the value of research and collections, the importance of public engagement, changing ecological and ethical considerations, and the impact of rapidly improving technology. Throughout, we are guided by Grande’s keen sense of mission, of a job where the why is always as important as the what. This beautifully written and richly illustrated book is a clear-eyed but loving account of natural history museums, their curators, and their ever-expanding roles in the twenty-first century.

Reimagining Museums for Climate Action

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Author :
Publisher : Museums for Climate Action
ISBN 13 : 1739971515
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (399 download)

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Book Synopsis Reimagining Museums for Climate Action by : Rodney Harrison

Download or read book Reimagining Museums for Climate Action written by Rodney Harrison and published by Museums for Climate Action. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is not a typical academic edited volume. Nor does it subscribe to the usual dictates of an exhibition catalogue. It does not seek to provide a comprehensive overview of work on climate change and museums or claim to have discovered One Quick Trick to Solve the Climate Emergency. Instead, the book reflects the main characteristics of the Reimagining Museums for Climate Action project: it is collaborative, distributed, conversational, subversive, nomadic and, at times, playful. The arguments it puts forward emerge through dialogue and speculation just as much as they respond to and build on empirical research. In this sense, the book is perhaps best seen as a partial and in many ways still evolving artefact of the Reimagining Museums project. It can be read from cover-to-cover, or its varied contents can be traversed in a less rigid fashion. It is one “output” among many, and its main aim is to prompt further transdisciplinary alliances, rather than set out a particular position or manifesto. To this end, the book invites peripatetic readings and strange deviations. It is anchored by eight concepts that reflect the diversity and creativity of museums, but it is also motivated by a desire to (re)situate this field within a broader set of debates on the roots of social and environmental injustice, and the role of museums in these histories.

Learning Science in Informal Environments

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Author :
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309141133
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Learning Science in Informal Environments by : National Research Council

Download or read book Learning Science in Informal Environments written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-05-27 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Informal science is a burgeoning field that operates across a broad range of venues and envisages learning outcomes for individuals, schools, families, and society. The evidence base that describes informal science, its promise, and effects is informed by a range of disciplines and perspectives, including field-based research, visitor studies, and psychological and anthropological studies of learning. Learning Science in Informal Environments draws together disparate literatures, synthesizes the state of knowledge, and articulates a common framework for the next generation of research on learning science in informal environments across a life span. Contributors include recognized experts in a range of disciplines-research and evaluation, exhibit designers, program developers, and educators. They also have experience in a range of settings-museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, aquariums, zoos, state parks, and botanical gardens. Learning Science in Informal Environments is an invaluable guide for program and exhibit designers, evaluators, staff of science-rich informal learning institutions and community-based organizations, scientists interested in educational outreach, federal science agency education staff, and K-12 science educators.