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 .     

Prescriptions for Art Museums in the Decade Ahead

Abstract The landscape of art museums has been altered since the AAM's 1992 publication Excellence and Equity. Rather than following a path towards community service or an educational mandate, the field has been led astray by a corporate mindset. The author identifies the primary challenges facing art museums in rebalancing their mission, and suggests a series of remedies to the unrealistic economic model that threatens to exclude education as museums' primary mandate.     

Strategic Planning

ABSTRACT

Grounded in a campus-wide strategic planning effort and funded through a campus-wide lottery-based grant, the library at a small state-supported institution began a year long initiative with the primary objective of familiarizing faculty with the concept of information literacy. All librarians facilitated a series of hands-on, discipline-based workshops offered to faculty. The workshops served as the groundwork for the initial steps toward embedding information literacy concepts into the general education curriculum with the majority of classroom faculty participating in one of the workshops by the end of the academic year. This paper outlines the history and steps taken in the process.     

Audience Community as a Strategic Resource in Media Work

This article discusses the role of the online audience community as a strategic resource for media work. It opens up a current perspective on the audience community, which has received scarce attention in research both conceptually and empirically. The article provides an empirical analysis of the various ways in which the audience community can serve as a resource in the work of journalists. The conclusion is that the audience community can have wide-ranging strategic significance and implications for media work and media brands. In particular, observing and connecting with the audience community can help journalists acquire deeper knowledge and understanding of the audience, as well as strengthen commitment and engagement among the audience with the media brand. As a consequence of collaborating with the audience community, new journalistic roles and tasks are emerging.     

Art and National Identity: Some Museums in Prague

In histories of the art museum, Prague has only a minor place. Yet at one crucial early moment, Prague played an important role in what we might call the prehistory of European public museums. There is a close link between art museums and nationalism. One necessary condition for being a country, it might be said, is that its people have a distinctive artistic tradition and therefore reason to build a museum in which to house it. What, then, is the relationship between Prague’s art museums and the identity of the Czech people?     

Collaborative Strategic Planning

Abstract

For the past several years, many have viewed wikis as useful tools for community building and collaboration. A number of free Web services such as PBwiki have claimed convenience and ease of use as part of their overall packages. A review of the literature reveals a great deal of anecdotal support for wiki use in the workplace. However, few studies have been conducted to determine whether wikis are useful collaborative tools for employees within an organization. This case study will examine the use of a wiki by library employees during the strategic planning process at San Jose State University.     

参考咨询战略规划探析

文章阐述了参考咨询战略规划制定的必要性,分析了参考咨询战略规划的主要内容及其模式,最后提出了参考咨询战略规划的实施策略。     

面向学科战略规划的证据描述框架研究

学科战略规划是科技政策的重要组成部分,是科技情报工作的重要内容。在循证决策方法逐渐引起科技决策重视的背景下,将循证决策领域中证据的概念引入到学科战略规划制定流程,从决策的角度探讨学科战略规划所需证据的特征和类型,并进一步抽象出证据特征描述的框架元素,为支持学科战略规划的证据库建设提供元数据描述方案。     

Unanswered Questions in Audience Research

As its title implies, this article explores a number of unanswered questions and outstanding issues in contemporary audience research. These include: models of the “active audience”; questions of cultural power; global media and transnational audiences; methodologies in audience research; problems of essentialism in the conceptualization of categories of audience members; the strengths and limitations of the encoding/decoding model; models of intellectual progress in the field; the new media and technologies of “newness.”

My title is derived from Bertolt Brecht’s “Anecdotes of Mr Keuner” in which he extols the virtue of thinking up questions to which we do not have answers (Brecht, 1966 Brecht, B. 1966. Anecdotes of Mr. Keuner in his Tales from the Calendar, London: Methuen.  [Google Scholar]). Working from this principle, rather than trying to formulate solutions to the problems of our field, my contribution here is based on questions in media audience research to which I, at least, do not have the answers, as a way of taking stock of what exactly it is that we think we now know about the field.     

企业战略规划阶段竞争情报需求与服务研究

文章分析了某咨询公司为目标企业提供战略规划服务的两个实际案例,梳理了企业战略规划阶段竞争情报的需求,构建了企业战略规划阶段产品、竞争环境、竞争对手和竞争优势四个层面的竞争情报分析框架,提出了为满足这些需求可选用的竞争情报方法和路径,为企业自身或寻求外部专家开展竞争情报工作提供了借鉴。     

A Conversation on Object‐Centered Learning in Art Museums

Danielle Rice and Philip Yenawine are veteran art museum educators who have wrestled for decades with the thorny issues involved in teaching about and learning from art objects in the museum setting. While there is general agreement within art museums today that the object should be the focus of educational practice, debate continues as to the most effective processes for facilitating learning. Gallery teaching is one of the most contested arenas, with much of the disagreement centering on the place of information in teaching beginning viewers. In art museums, the issue of what and how to teach is complicated by the fact that many people, including artists, museum professionals, psychologists and educators consider art primarily as something to be enjoyed, and they posit this enjoyment in direct opposition to learning about art. Partly because of this, the function of art museum education and gallery‐based instruction is still evolving.