Description
Book SynopsisThe Role of Today's Museum provides a thorough investigation of what museums do and why. Arguing that museums are multifunctional institutions, the book examines the consequences of this for the services that museums provide, the publics to whom they are provided and the providers themselves.
Adopting a wide perspective on understandings of the roles of museums and considering the different environments within which museums operate, Gray and McCall provide a new perspective on how transformations, as well as the gaps between intended policies and the actual work that is undertaken within museums, can be both identified and understood. By differentiating between social, economic and political visions and expectations of museums, the analysis in this book allows for a fuller understanding of what these organisations do and provide for their societies and the struggles and negotiations that surround their existence.
The Role of Today's Museum takes a critical,
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: What do Museums do? What are Museums for?; Chapter 3: The Multifunctional Museum; Chapter 4: Museums, Policy, Practice and the ‘Struggle over Space’; Chapter 5: Museums and Societies; Chapter 6: Museums and Economies; Chapter 7: Museums and Politics; Chapter 8: Conclusion
