“Think With Me:” David Carr's Enduring Invitation

David Wildon Carr (1945–2016) was recognized in the international cultural community as a scholar and instigator whose critical thinking challenged museum practitioners to reflect on the purpose and responsibility of their work. In his recent papers and lectures, he argued that those discussing museum experiences are late to enter into a dialogue already in progress—a dialogue which carefully considers the whole person in a community, and wherein thinking with a museum is an enterprise embedded in the learner's experience. This forum, written by three museum professionals in response to his recent untimely death, is intended to capture personal impressions of Carr's contribution to the continuing work of museums. Each author quotes from Carr's writings, since his words have such enduring strength—a strength that will continue to resonate long into the future. Each also offers readers some personal background on his work as a teacher.     

Pauahi Bishop Museum: A Hawaiian Museum—Challenging the Past to Face the Future

Bishop Museum has been the focus of attention in Hawaiì and the mainland for its changes in direction from a traditional natural history museum to an entrepreneurial science learning center. Attention has focused on how well the museum, in changing its direction, serves its communities, especially its the Native Hawaiian community, and whether it should be undertaking contract research projects and contract public programs in partnership with hotels and other commercial businesses. The author, involved in a key role in several projects representing this change in direction, discusses controversial projects associated with repatriation, contract archaeology, and exhibits. The projects are described within the context of the museum's history as a Hawaiian institution. The controversies are then examined in terms of how the museum managed them and in so doing, how it met its mission of education and service. As we enter the twenty-first century, our ability to work with the community, especially the Native Hawaiian community, and remain financially viable will determine how we fare.     

“Ferry Me O’er”: Musing on the Future of Museum Culture

Abstract Museum professionals face unprecedented challenges in the digital world of the twenty‐first century. How will we meet those challenges and who will lead us to the new shore of our future? We need museum professionals who act as ferrymen, guiding the museum community and its constituents through the troubled waters of our age to cultural reform that leads us to the essential purpose of art: love.     

The Power of Expectation

Abstract In 1999, the first author and his colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution published an article in Curator: The Museum Journal introducing research on the experiences visitors find satisfying in museums. Subsequent data collection has expanded on these findings, as this Research Note will elucidate. In general, the team found that experiences that visitors were looking forward to on entrance tended to have a distribution similar to that of the experiences they found satisfying on exit. The aim of this note is to present data that demonstrates this consistency, and to observe that visitors’ expectations that they would have certain types of experiences upon entering a museum or exhibition were a much larger factor in determining their responses than were minor differences in museum or exhibition content or presentation. In other words, on the whole they came in knowing what experiences they expected, and they left having found them, regardless of what museum personnel presented to them inside.     

Measuring Infinity: José de Rivera's Smithsonian Sculpture on the National Mall

Abstract Large works of public sculpture outside our museum doors reveal aspects of a museum's self‐image. They beckon, reassure, or confront visitors with new ideas about what might lurk inside. Whether off‐the‐shelf or commissions by well‐known sculptors, these pieces matter. They are the noses on our museum faces. In this essay, one museum curator reflects on the layered meanings of his museum's entry art — meanings that, he argues, have the potential to evolve over time.     

“Cyberpals!/Les Cybercopains!”: A Look at Online Museum Visitor Experiences

This article examines approaches to creating museum Web sites that offer quality experiences to online users. In six case studies, museum Web developers in the U.S. and Canada describe how they have made the most of available human and financial resources. The development history of each site offers insights into the origins of a design and its subsequent versions, and describes the influence of institutional missions, philosophies, success indicators—and financial and human resources, the most crucial factors. The study found considerable variety in the backgrounds, expertise, titles and training of people developing Web sites within institutions. Web teams developed “exchange” experiences through online discussion, and by creating links among users, or between museum staff and users. In three case studies, Web sites encouraged visitors to cycle between online and on‐site museum visits. Web developers describe using quantitative and qualitative online audience research strategies. WebTrends^TM software has enabled Web teams to report complex log analyses. Creating online experiences in partnership with users is the intention of Web developers.     

A Research Vision for Museums

Abstract The museum family in America is in danger, and perhaps other museum families across the globe are, as well. Management has failed our mission by focusing on outputs like attendance numbers, and audience researchers have failed management by not shedding light on the connections between the pleasure of learning and attendance—or, if you will, between individual gains and a museum’s public value. This research vision for museums looks at how you can make that connection and save museums in their hour of need.     

Benefits Visitors Derive from Sustained Engagement with a Single Museum

Abstract Museums are currently faced with new challenges and issues of sustainability. Consequently, they are under increasing pressure to provide funding bodies with evidence of their value and worth. This paper reports findings from a narrative study that explored the nature of returning visitors’ engagement with a single museum over time. The study’s findings document a broad range of benefits visitors derive from a sustained relationship with a museum and reveal the significant contributions that sustained engagement with a museum make towards enriching visitors’ lives.     

图书、博物、档案数字信息资源共建思考

论述图书、博物、档案数字信息资源的共同特征、相同的数字多媒体信息集成、多媒体信息处理与管理 技术需要以及现有数字信息资源建设的情况,并针对图书、博物、档案数字信息资源共建的特点与存在的问题,重点 探讨图书、博物、档案数字信息资源共建工作的发展对策,旨在进一步拓宽数字信息资源的共建领域,更好地为社会 大众尤其是农村及边远少数民族地区提供信息服务。     

Curating Queer Heritage: Queer Knowledge and Museum Practice

Abstract Important work in the last decades within the museum studies field has laid bare the implicit nationalist, evolutionist, and patriarchal narratives of the traditional museum. So far, though, only a few writers have discussed the museum’s role in supporting “heteronormative” narratives that consolidate heterosexuality as a norm within social and cultural life. This article is a critical discussion of methodological aspects of a queer perspective in interpreting, exhibiting, and organizing museum collections. Two shows with LGBT / queer perspective that were exhibited in Stockholm, Sweden during EuroPride 2008 are the focus of this article’s analysis. They consist of the photo exhibition Show Yourself! at the Nordic Museum, and Queer: Desire, Power, and Identity at the National Museum of Fine Arts. The author himself was the curator of the latter exhibition. This article offers personal reflections on the methodological challenges of translating an abstract queer perspective into museum practice in order to envision online and on‐site museum encounters that can mobilize various kinds of pluralistic passions.     

Communicative Functions of the Museum Lobby

In a time with a heightened focus on how museum architecture and exhibition design shapes the museum visit, the entrance space of museums, the museum lobby, is remarkably absent from the museum literature and research. Still, the museum lobby is the first encounter visitors have with the museum and the last impression that they take home and share with others. This article analyzes museum lobbies as communication spaces in order to identify the different functions afforded by such spaces. In an explorative study of five Danish museum lobbies, we offer a preliminary categorization of these functions that can be compared at a general level. Concrete examples will be used to discuss general issues such as the adaptive borders of lobby spaces and the counteracting effects of design. We suggest that the preliminary categorization provided here can form a foundation for further studies resulting in practical suggestions for design improvements.     

Redefining Successful Interpretation in Art Museums

Abstract This article aims to capture the spirit and content of a lively exchange among museum staff members at the Denver Art Museum. It began as a conference call and continued as an online dialogue about how definitions of success have evolved with advances in technology and changing expectations of visitors. Together we explored how DAM staff encourage more active participation in the museum and the creative tension that ensues between visitor co‐creation and institutional control. Woven throughout this conversation are examples that demonstrate the need to move fluidly between high tech and low tech interpretives, onsite and online experiences, and the impact of environments that break down museum stereotypes. It is our hope that this discussion will spark similar dialogues among colleagues in individual institutions and in the profession at large. Readers are encouraged to respond through the blog at Curator’s new website: http://www.curatorjournal.org .     

Designing an “Architecture of Information”— The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

For the permanent exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum the design approach was minimal and transparent, and the designers were in dialogue only with the story — not with the history of design or the conventions governing most museum presentations. We reached for a sense of immersion by trying to erase the seams between exhibits and architecture. Display strategies included the removal of conventional barriers of certain glass-encased vitrines: some objects can be touched, and reactions sought are as visceral as they are intellectual. We tried above all to see that people leave the museum not profoundly dejected but with some other feeling evoking the resilience of life and hope. The design intended to make the environment so united with its subject that memory of the museum experience and the sharing of memory through discussion will carry on in the lives of the visitors.     

The law of museum safety

Operators of non-profit and government museums may be surprised to find that their liability for injuries to visitors is determined by the same rules that apply to private amusement parks, youth camps, and adult recreation programs. A museum may be liable for injuries that result from such everyday conditions as deceptive differences in floor levels, unlocked storage areas, and crowds of schoolchildren pushing and shoving. The case of an elderly woman's fall over a step while taking her two small grandchildren to the toilet is instructive in this regard.¹ In that case the court, finding that the location of the step was not obvious and was therefore dangerous, noted that a person entering a public toilet is apt to be engrossed in their objective, especially when accompanying small children with pressing needs. This case demonstrates that the liability of a museum will not always be apparent to those responsible for its operation, and routine safety inspections may overlook important areas of risk.What follows describes the laws of liability for injury on the premises of museums, and demonstrates why a hazard survey, based on legal precedents, is the single most important safeguard against liability for museums. It concludes with a hazard checklist prepared from a legal perspective for the use of museum management and their legal counsel.     

Sociological Research and the Kremlin Museum Library

Until very recently, Russian libraries attached to museums have not envisioned the general public as potential users, but rather have focused on the information needs of museum staff and special researchers. In this article, the author analyzes some of the results of a research project that examined information expectations and needs of actual and potential visitors to the Moscow Kremlin Museums, the visitors' sources for obtaining museum information, their perceived gaps in such information, and the implications of these issues for the services, operations, and “image” of the museums' library. The project was facilitated by a public-opinion organization.     

An Advocate for Everything: Exploring Exhibit Development Models

Abstract This article presents six models, from within and outside the museum profession, useful to consider when creating exhibition teams. The focus is on five roles—client, content specialist, designer, content interpreter, and project manager—and the authority and responsibility assigned to these roles in the different models. The author examines the pros and cons of the models and provides examples from museums in which they were instituted. The developer model was created at The Field Museum of Natural History to replace the team approach model. Both of these models replaced the curatorial model. The broker model was developed at The Children's Museum in Boston. From outside the museum field, the author presents the architectural model and the theatrical model. Each of the models, in differing ways, defines a process, a point of view about the expected outcomes, and assigns specific authorities and responsibilities to staff members in each of the five roles. The author argues that it is not so important which of the models is chosen for any given exhibition project, but emphasizes that the importance lies in being certain that a model be chosen and rigorously implemented. The appendix also includes a sample exhibit process document from one museum.     

Function Follows Form: How Mixed‐Used Spaces in Museums Build Community

Abstract This article examines three elements largely overlooked by the museum profession when thinking about community building—space, space mix, and unexpected use of space. It suggests that if museum planners were to pay overt attention to these, they could greatly enhance the community‐building role museums increasingly play. When considering museums and communities, writers in the museum field have focused on broadening audiences, public programs, collections and exhibitions. Physical spaces have been regarded as necessary armature but not as catalysts themselves. There are many subtle, interrelated and essentially unexamined ingredients that allow museums to play an enhanced role in the building of community and our collective civic life. The article describes the characteristics of the Livable Cities Movement and New Urbanism and suggests ways in which museums could encourage these characteristics—and thereby consciously use their interior and exterior spaces to build community.     

“Loving,Knowing Ignorance”: A Problem for the Educational Mission of Museums

In this essay, I suggest that Mariana Ortega's concept of “loving, knowing ignorance” (2006) provides a useful conceptual tool for museum practitioners who seek to advance a progressive mission. This form of ignorance assumes authority in describing and acting on behalf of a subject, even as it fails to take seriously the subject's self‐knowledge and agency. While Ortega initially coined this term to describe the stance of white feminists toward women of color, here I extend the concept to describe a wider range of knowers—in this case, the institutional museum. Using a case study at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to illustrate this problem, I will suggest that becoming aware of instances of loving, knowing ignorance and learning to avoid it is a key skill for museum professionals who hope for their institutions to fulfill their educational mission in a diverse and democratic society.