Description
Book SynopsisThe Museum Curator’s Guide is a practical reference book for emerging arts and heritage professionals working with a wide range of objects (including fine art, decorative arts, social history, ethnographic and archaeological collections), and explores the core work of the curator within a gallery or museum setting.
Nicola Pickering provides a clear introduction to current material culture and museum studies theories, and shows the practical application of these theories to museum collections. She considers the role of the curator, their duties and interaction with objects, and also examines the care or preservation of objects and the ways they can be catalogued, displayed, moved, arranged, stored, interpreted and explained in museums today.
The Museum Curator’s Guide represents an essential and lasting resource for all those working with the collection, preservation and presentation of objects, including students of collections management and curatorship; current gallery and museum professionals; and private collectors.
Table of ContentsPreface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part One: Museums and Collecting - Chapter 1: What are museums?; Chapter 2: Collecting policies, composition and implementation; Part Two: Managing Collections - Chapter 3: Researching and accessioning objects; Chapter 4: Classifying, recording and cataloguing objects; Chapter 5: Handling, storing and preserving objects; Part Three: Displaying and Interpreting Collections - Chapter 6: Displaying objects; Chapter 7: Interpreting objects; Chapter 8: Museum audiences; Part Four: The Museum Curator - Chapter 9: The curator today and conclusions; Notes; Bibliography; Index
