Bibliograph

Inside the lost museum, curating, past and present, Steven Lubar

Type

Label

Inside the lost museum, curating, past and present, Steven Lubar

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Inside the lost museum

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

974912548

Responsibility statement

Steven Lubar

Sub title

curating, past and present

Summary

For more than two centuries museums have preserved art, artifacts, and natural specimens, engaged and educated the public, and provided resources for research in areas from art history to zoology. Inside the Lost Museum explains the work of museums--collecting, preserving, displaying, and using collections--by considering their remarkable history. Museums make choices about what's worth saving. Inside the Lost Museum explores those choices, and the processes--from donation to purchase to expedition--that shape collections. Once collected, museum objects are numbered, cataloged, and conserved, and sometimes deaccessioned--processes that have their own hows and whys. Museums display art and artifact in many ways, from dioramas and period rooms to paintings on white walls and visual storage. Inside the Lost Museums reveals the meanings of those choices, and the ways that they have changed and continue to change, shaped by new technologies and ideologies. It also argues for the the value of museum collections for research, teaching, and community-building. Woven through Inside the Lost Museum is the story of the Jenks Museum of Brown University, a nineteenth-century museum of natural history, anthropology and "curiosities" that disappeared a century ago. The Jenks Museum's history, and a recent effort to re-imagine that museum as art, science and history, serves as a framework for understanding museums' long record of usefulness and service. Inside the Lost Museum considers the lessons museum history holds for museums today and tomorrow.--, Provided by publisher

Table Of Contents

Introduction : Explore -- Part I. Collect -- Why collect? -- Collectable -- Acquisitions -- In the field -- Who collects? -- Part II. Preserve -- Into the storeroom -- Paperwork -- The ethics of objects -- Part III. Display -- Objects, stories and visitors -- Objects on display -- Organizations and juxtapositions -- Explanations and encounters -- Setting the scene -- Turned inside out. -- Part IV. Use -- What use is a museum? -- Museums make communities -- Learning from things -- Teaching with things -- The promise of museums -- Coda: Consider

Classification