Synopsis
This broad introduction to museums benefits all educators who teach introductory museum studies, addressing the discipline from a holistic, dynamic, and document-centered perspective.
Museums serve to help us understand the past and navigate our future―as individuals, as societies, and as a global community. A careful and accurate assessment of a museum's purpose is crucial to its ability to serve its users effectively. Foundations of Museum Studies: Evolving Systems of Knowledge offers a holistic introduction to museums and the study of them from the perspective of specialization in museum studies within the context of library and information science (LIS).
The book strikes a balance between theory and practice, examining museums from a systems perspective that considers museums to be document-centered institutions―that objects are documents that generate and convey information, meaning, and inspiration. The authors utilize examples drawn from their experience with institutions in the United States that can be applied to museums across the world. Future museum professionals who read this book will have a broader perspective, an expanded skill set, and the adaptability to span the spectrum of traditional academic disciplines.
About the Authors
Kiersten F. Latham, PhD, is currently the President and CEO of Sauder Village in Archbold, Ohio, USA. She has been a faculty member at Kent State University (developing the museum studies specialization within the MLIS program) and Michigan State University (Director of the Arts, Cultural Management and Museum Studies Program). She has worked in a diverse array of museums over the last 30 years. Her most recent book is Flourishing in Museums, Towards a Positive Museology (2023, with Brenda Cowan).
John E. Simmons (B.S., systematics and ecology; M.A., museum studies) began his professional career as a zoo keeper before becoming a collection manager at the California Academy of Sciences and later at the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas, where he also served as Director of the Museum Studies Program until 2007. Simmons has extensive experience in biological field work in Latin America and SE Asia. He has published more than 150 papers and books on museology and the care of collections, particularly for natural history. Since 2008 Simmons has run Museologica, an international museum consulting service. In addition, he has taught workshops and university classes in the US, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East on the care of collections and legal and policy issues in collection management, and served as thesis advisor for five museology graduate students at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogota). Simmons received the Superior Voluntary Service Award (American Alliance of Museums, 2001); the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Mentoring of Graduate Students at (University of Kansas, 2005); the Carolyn L. Rose Award for Outstanding Commitment to Natural History Collections Care and Management (Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, 2011); the Dudley-Wilkinson Award of Distinction (Registrars Committee of the American Alliance of Museums, 2016); and the Spiritus Award for Excellence in Service and Management of Herpetological and Ichthyological Collections (American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, 2029). Simmons has taught training sessions on care of natural history collections for curators of the Department of the Interior, Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Museum Study LLC, and for museum staff worldwide. Simmons was the keynote speaker for theConservation des colecciones d'Histoire naturelle en fluids: Retours d'expériences et perspetives at the Muséum national d'Historie naturelle, Paris in December 2018.
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