The Best Museum Administration & Museology Books 2025

1. Mastering Civic Engagement : A Challenge to Museums, Used [Paperback]

This call to action from AAM's Museums and Community Initiative challenges museums to pursue their potential as active, visible players in community life. An opening essay urges museums to reinvigorate their civic role and purposes and offers guideposts for inquiry and transformation. Other essays and reflections - from museum professionals and community practitioners - offer food for thought on the complex process of changing the terms of engagement between communities and museums.

Mastering Civic Engagement : A Challenge to Museums, Used [Paperback]

2. Museum Management, Used [Hardcover]

Collecting a selection of essential writings by some of the leading authors in the field, Kevin Moore examines the developments in, and effectiveness of, museum management in a world dominated by new and exciting heritage and leisure attractions. The selected papers in Museum Management outline the development of museum management to date, the challenges museums currently face, and the key areas of future development in management and marketing practice, and addresses: strategic management issues: policy formulation, corporate planning and performance measurement human resource management financial management the importance of marketing. This volume is an invaluable introduction to the key issues, controversies and debates in the subject. It will be essential reading for all students, museum managers and staff who need to keep up to date with latest developments in this field.

Museum Management, Used [Hardcover]

3. National Standards and Best Practices for U.S. Museums, Used [Paperback]

For the first time, the U.S. museum profession's current operating standards in areas from public accountability to facilities and risk management are available in a single publication. This guide is an essential reference work for the museum community, presenting the ideals that should be upheld by every museum striving to maintain excellence in its operations.? An introductory section explains how virtually anyone associated with museums will find the book valuable, from trustees to staff to funders and the media. It is followed by a full outline of the standards, including the overarching Characteristics of Excellence and the seven areas of performance they address. Throughout the book is commentary by Elizabeth E. Merritt, former director of AAM's Museum Advancement and Excellence Department and founding director of AAM's Center for the Future of Museums.

National Standards and Best Practices for U. S. Museums, Used [Paperback]

4. Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Museums have been active in shaping knowledge over the last six hundred years. Yet what is their function within today's society? At the present time, when funding is becoming increasingly scarce, difficult questions are being asked about the justification of museums. Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge presents a critical survey of major changes in current assumptions about the nature of museums. Through the examination of case studies, Eilean Hooper-Greenhill reveals a variety of different roles for museums in the production and shaping of knowledge. Today, museums are once again organising their spaces and collections to present themselves as environments for experimental and self-directed learning.

Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge [Paperback - Used]

5. Museum Basics (Heritage: Care-Preservation-Management) [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Fully updated and extended to examine 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, a key text in pre-service and in-service training programmes, and works brilliantly alongside case studies, project work and group discussion. With a 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.

Museums Basics Ed2, Used [Paperback]

6. The Manual of Strategic Planning for Museums, Used [Paperback]

While some view strategic planning with trepidation, it is one of a museum's strongest tools for improving quality, motivating staff and Board members, adapting to environmental changes, and preparing the groundwork for future initiatives. The Manual of Strategic Planning for Museums offers proven methods for successful strategic planning in museums from two experienced leaders in the field.

The Manual of Strategic Planning for Museums, Used [Paperback]

7. Starting Right: A Basic Guide to Museum Planning (American Association for State and Local History) [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Explains the basics of museum planning. this handbook defines what a museum is, both philosophically and historically, discusses the pros and cons of establishing your museum, outlines where to get help, and proffers advice on various aspects of museums from the choice of a building through collections care, registration and exhibitions.

Starting Right: A Basic Guide to Museum Planning (American Association for State and Local History), Used [Paperback]

8. Intentional Practice for Museums: A Guide for Maximizing Impact [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Intentional practice is an impact-driven way of thinking and working that places a museum's raison d' tre--achieving impact--at the center of its work. A prerequisite to achieving impact is articulating the kind of impact the museum would like to achieve. An impact statement embodies three essential ideas: staff members' passions for their work, the museum's distinct qualities, and notions of what is relevant to audiences. The statement, as well as other work generated from intentional practice, becomes part of an Impact Framework that serves as a guidepost for all subsequent work, as any and all museum work should focus on achieving its intended impact. If the museum chooses work that moves it away from its central purpose, it is wasting resources--dollars and staff time. Intentional Practice for Museums: A Guide for Maximizing Impact first explains how the idea of intentional practice grew from a confluence of political concerns, observations of museum in the marketplace, and the increasingly-deafening call for museums to be accountable. The book presents and deconstructs the Cycle of Intentional Practice, which includes four quadrants with actions and corresponding questions situated around the centerpiece--impact. In no particular order: -The Plan quadrant asks "What impact do you want to achieve?"; -The Evaluate quadrant asks "In what ways have you achieved impact?"; -The Reflect quadrant asks "What have you learned? What can you do better?"; and, -The Align quadrant asks "How do we align our actions to achieve impact?" The Cycle is symbolic, too, as impact-driven work is ongoing, and museums that choose to pursue impact through intentional practice will benefit--as will their audiences; both will continually learn, albeit through very different means. Intended for intentionally-minded museum professionals, the book also describes the seven principles of intentional practice and provides basic intentional-practice strategies, exercises, and facilitation questions so they can begin facilitating impact-driven workshops at their museums.

Intentional Practice for Museums: A Guide for Maximizing Impact [Paperback - Used]

9. Reflections of a Culture Broker : A View from the Smithsonian, Used [Paperback]

Drawing on his diverse experiences in producing exhibitions and public programs, the Smithsonian's Richard Kurin challenges culture brokers--museum professionals, filmmakers, journalists, festival producers, scholars, etc.--to reveal more clearly the nature of their interpretations. Kurin discusses the ethical and technical problems faced by anyone charged with representing culture in a public forum. 33 photos.

Reflections of a Culture Broker : A View from the Smithsonian, Used [Paperback]

10. Things Great and Small: Collections Management Policies, Used [Paperback]

Collections care is a core responsibility for all museums that own, care for, or use collections. The foundation stone for good collections care is a good collections management policy. Things Great and Small is the first to comprehensively address how to write such a policy for any type of museum. Drawing on his extensive experience - as director of the University of Kansas museum studies program, collections manager at the university's museum of natural history, and surveyor for AAM's Museum Assessment Program - John Simmons reviews the issues that a collections management policy should address and the pros and cons of choosing one policy option over another.

Things Great and Small: Collections Management Policies, Used [Paperback]