Museums 101

Looking for an A-Z, one-stop, comprehensive book on museums? Wish you were able to have one of the world’s leading museum consultants spend a couple of days with you, talking you through how to start a museum, how museums work, how to set up an exhibit, and more? If so, Museums 101 is the answer to your wishes.

In one short volume, Mark Walhimer covers:
• Essential Background, such as what is a museum, a quick history of museums, and 10 steps to starting a museum
• Operational Basics, such as branding, marketing, strategic planning, governance, accessibility, and day-to-day operations
• What goes on behind the scenes in a museum, ranging from finances to fundraising to art handling, exhibit management, and research
• The Visitor Experience, planning a museum, designing exhibits for visitors, programming, and exhibit evaluation.

Features that even the most experienced museum professionals will find useful include a community outreach checklist, a fundraising checklist, a questionnaire for people considering starting a new museum, and an exhaustive, well-organized list of online resources for museum operations. The book’s contents were overseen by a six-member international advisory board.

Valuable appendixes you’ll use every day include a museum toolbox full of useful forms, checklists, and worksheets, and a glossary of essential museum-related terms. In addition to the printed book, Museums 101 also features a companion website exclusively for readers of the book. The website― museums101.com―features:

• links to essential online resources in the museum world,
• downloadable sample documents,
• a glossary,
• a bibliography of sources for further reading, and
• photographs of more than 75 museums of all types.


Museums 101 Advisory Board
• Jim DeMersman, Executive Director, Museum on Main, Pleasanton, California,
United States of America
• David L. Godfrey, C.P.A., Allison & Godfrey, Certified Public Accountants,
Norwalk, Connecticut, United States of America
• Van A. Romans, President, Fort Worth Museum of Science and History,
Fort Worth, Texas, and Board of Trustees, American Alliance of Museums,
United States of America
• Sergey Solovyev, Ph.D., Department of Greek & Roman Antiquities, The
State Hermitage Museum, Russia
• Alison Spence, Exhibitions and Loans Registrar, National Museum of Australia,
Canberra ACT, Australia
• Audrey Vermette, Director of Programs and Public Affairs, Canadian Museums
Association, Ontario, Canada

Mark Walhimer’s company, Museum Planning, LLC, specializes in the planning, design, and management of interactive educational experiences. Walhimer started his firm in 1999 to assist startup and expanding museums with exhibition design, art handling, project management, fabrication, and installation. He has completed more than 40 projects worldwide for an international clientele that includes science centers, art museums, history museums, libraries, and corporations. Projects include “Alcatraz: Life on the Rock,” a traveling exhibition that opened on Ellis Island in October 2011 and the Trans Studio Science Center opened summer 2012 in Bandung, Indonesia. Prior to starting his company, Walhimer held positions at Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, California; the Children's Museum ofIndianapolis; and Liberty Science Center.

Walhimer has a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and a master’s degree in industrial design and exhibition design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.