Best museum industry books according to redditors
We found 25 Reddit comments discussing the best museum industry books. We ranked the 11 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 25 Reddit comments discussing the best museum industry books. We ranked the 11 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
There's a whole art to writing exhibit labels. In fact, there's a book about the subject. Link to book.
Personally, I'm text-phobic. My last exhibit that was done in-house has limited text: 150 words per panel, 100 words per label. People don't like to read more than that, generally. Not to mention, you don't need to fill the walls with text. Get the important and the interesting on the wall, make sure it's important and interesting to the public and not just you, and trust that the viewer will seek more information if they're curious.
In terms of how text is decided, I use a narrative approach: what will tell the best story. It's not much different from writing a screenplay or a stage play.
It took about 6 months to make our last temporary exhibit, and we're well into year two on our new permanent exhibit, which will be about French and Spanish colonization of Texas.
Do what everyone else so far has said, and also buy yourself a copy of MRM5. If you can fit on one more hat, play the role of volunteer manager; 1 - 2 dedicated volunteers can remove a lot of the burdens facing a small museum's staff.
For exhibit labels (text and graphics that accompany exhibits), try Serrell's Exhibit Labels. ADA, or your local equivalent, is either required or strongly advised; beyond that The Smithsonian has published a guide for Accessible Exhibition Design.
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For environmental control for collection care, it depends on multiple factors, especially the type of collections housed. For example, The Art Collector's Handbook by Rozell works best for general art objects, while you would probably want to read something like Ogden's Caring for American Indian Objects for objects of similar materials and make. I've seen Nitrate Won't Wait by Slide, and A Light Affliction by Binder on the shelves of my friend who works in film preservation. Otherwise, as far as I know, there aren't any "standards" like the CE or ANSI for collections preservation.
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Hope this helps.
The AIC website provides this aggregation of online resources. I find the wiki to be particularly useful and reference it often.
The Conservation of Easel Paintings is a fairly recent publication that gives a comprehensively broad, but not overly deep overview of the field of paintings conservation and was written by a worldwide group of experts.
The Science for Conservators 3 Volume Series is a great introduction to the scientific concepts involved in the field if that's something you feel you need. If the Science for Conservators Series seems overly basic for you, I recommend The Organic Chemistry of Museum Objects; this book is out dated in some of it's details, but is still a seminal book that is largely unmatched in content.
If you are interested in collecting and displaying mummies and other human remains check out the book Bone Rooms by Samuel J. Redman - https://www.amazon.com/Bone-Rooms-Scientific-Prehistory-Museums/dp/0674660412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445429549&sr=8-1&keywords=redman+bone+rooms
Another conservator piping in: you might also want to consider if you need anything special in terms of health and safety for display cases where you might put radioactive geological samples (you may or may not do that but 'earth sciences' always makes me think 'ooh, Geiger counter time!').
I'm not American so I can't recommend any training or workshops but there are a good deal of decent books out there to explore:
They aren't cheap but you might be able to find some through libraries in your area depending on where you live.
Congratulations, this is an amazing opportunity! Good luck and have fun. :D
My library (a historic private one, plus conservation lab/events venue) just got this book in.
It's a little pricey but if you can get it via an inter-library loan, go for it. Read it over the past month and while my place is pretty much up to these standards thanks to good planning, it was very insightful to me (as humble visitor services staff!). Extremely thorough about planning in ALL areas.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Care-Keeping-Cultural-Facilities/dp/0759123608/
These next ones don't have many reviews, and some are a few years old, but may also be worth looking at for sheer basics.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0759111987/
http://www.amazon.com/Museum-Administration-Introduction-American-Association/dp/0759102945/
Also, just check out top sellers (obviously, exclude the true-crime and fiction/novels) in the category on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16233621/
For general non-profit stuff, this one seems really well reviewed. A friend and I have been working on planning one, so I did a good deal of searching.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470547979/
check out this book by AAM if you dont have it already , https://www.amazon.com/Give-Receive-Handbook-Donations-Museums/dp/1933253592 . Why cant the appraiser you talked with tell you the specific IRS language they are referring to?
Exhibit Labels by Serrell is a great resource.
I also really like From Knowledge to Narrative by Roberts. Roberts walks through the process of creating an (actual) exhibit while balancing the various competing demands of the different groups that are working on the exhibit.
Congrats and good luck!
Ooh, great prompt!
The Smithsonian’s Accessibility Guidelines is super useful for anyone who has a hand in designing exhibitions. There are some great Universal Design recommendations online as well.
I also really enjoy reading other institutions’ guidelines for gallery text. I’ve definitely consulted the V&A’s guide and the Getty’s guide before.
This may be a little entry level, but Serrel’s Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach is another great resource for writing exhibition text.
Hi there... exhibit labels are super tough and require a bunch of revisions. Don't interpret continually revising as failure or that you're not doing a good job... it's the nature of the craft. Do some tests and ask visitors, if you can.
That said, I highly reccomend "Exhibit Labels" by Beverly Serrell: http://www.amazon.com/Exhibit-Labels-Interpretive-Approach-VIP/dp/0761991069/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404587205&sr=8-1&keywords=beverly+serrell
She gives a lot of concrete examples and methods for different groups. A necessity. You don't see a lot of museum books with 5 stars on Amazon... I'm sure it's saved many-a-curator as well. :)
I just finished up an MA in Anthropology, with one of my main interests lying in museum anthropology. Here's a couple suggestions for you, although some of these works are considered to be more in the realm of public history than museum anthropology. Nonetheless, if you end up doing a master's in museum studies it is likely you will encounter reading material similar to this:
Academic Anthropology and the Museum: Back to the Future
History from Things: Essays on Material Culture
Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture
Anthropology Goes to the Fair: The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift
Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History
Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890 - 1970
Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture
American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture
He just wrote a good book on the subject worth checking out (though it's depressing, I had to read it in spurts).
Also check out the new book Bone Rooms on the history of collecting and exhibiting human remains (many of them from the American West) in museums like the Smithsonian - https://www.amazon.com/Bone-Rooms-Scientific-Prehistory-Museums/dp/0674660412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445429549&sr=8-1&keywords=redman+bone+rooms
The three programs /u/necroturd recommended are excellent, and for the most part free.
I would also recommend thinking about your cataloging process completely before starting. You really don't want to be halfway through the process of cataloging your artifacts when you realize how you decided to do it won't work for whatever reason.
To help with that, I'd suggest picking up a copy of Museum Registration Methods. It lays out pretty simply most of the different aspects of collections management.