Series: American Alliance of Museums

Leadership Succession and Transition for Museums and Arts Organizations helps facilitate successful leadership transition in museums and arts organizations. It is commonly noted that the greatest number of airline accidents happen during takeoff and landing. The same is true for arts organizations; we are at our most vulnerable during times of transition, and it is critical that staff and volunteer...

A Visual Dictionary of Decorative and Domestic Arts provides a common and unambiguous vocabulary for the parts of handcrafted decorative, domestic, and artistic items. Terminology for a broad array of object types is presented alongside original 3D illustrations that facilitate objective referencing. The reference enhances learning, labelling, and discussing various craft items in great physical detail. Sixty-four 3D graphic illustrations...

Leaning into Value: Becoming a User-Focused Museum provides guidance to museum leaders struggling to navigate today’s often tumultuous, ever-changing economic, political, leisure, and educational landscape. It offers a concrete framework for maximizing institutional success: a continuous Value Realization process. This process enables museum leaders to effectively: 1) Calibrate the needs and interests of their current and potential users. 2) Articulate...

Making exhibitions takes creativity, collaboration, and a well-supported process. A Collaborative Approach to Exhibition Making is a practical and succinct guide for everyone managing or working on collaborative teams doing this creative work. It covers new and essential processes for creating exhibitions, moving from idea generation all the way through project opening in an approachable and supportive format. Emily Saich...

Since the first edition was published in 1958, Museum Registration Methods has defined the profession and served as a fundamental reference for all aspects of collections registration, care, and management. The sixth edition of Museum Registration Methods is a comprehensive guide to registration and collections management for museums, from acquisition to use and deaccessioning. The authors and other contributors come...

Museums, as informal learning platforms that reflect the subjects, themes, and contexts representing all aspects of life, have a unique advantage and responsibility to contribute to empathy-building in our world. They offer opportunities for experiential learning of empathy, serving as a portal to a deep understanding of our interconnected and interdependent existence. Within this context, empathy is defined as a...

Today’s multi-modal, participatory exhibitions and attractions are bound by a desire to convey information, excite the viewer, and create social and narrative experiences. Without design at the helm and employed effectively, these experiential moments would not become lasting memories that inform and inspire an increasingly sophisticated audience. The Exhibition and Experience Design Handbook, a full-colour illustrated handbook, is based on...