During the past decade a number of individual museums have found imaginative ways of using their collections and of making them accessible. However, museum collections as a whole are enormous in size and quantity and the question of how can they can be put to best use is ever present. When conventional exhibitions can only ever utilise a tiny proportion of them, what other uses of the collections are possible? Will their exploitation and use now destroy their value for future generations? Should they simply be kept safely and as economically as possible as a resource for the future?Fragments of the World examines these questions, first reviewing the history of collecting and of collections, then discussing the ways in which the collections themselves are being used today. Case studies of leading examples from around the world illustrate the discussion. Bringing together the thinking about museum collections with case studies of the ways in which different types of collection are used, the book provides a roadmap for museums to make better use of this wonderful resource.

Product Description: This book examines contemporary approaches to restitution from the perspective of museums. It focuses on the ways in which these institutions have been addressing the subject at a regional, national and international level. In particular, it explores contemporary practices and recent claims, and investigates to what extent the question of restitution as an issue of ownership is still at large, or whether museums have found additional ways to conceptualise and practice restitution, by thinking beyond the issue of ownership...read more

Product Description: By exploring the processes of collecting, which challenge the bounds of normally acceptable practice, this book debates the practice of collecting 'difficult' objects, from a historical and contemporary perspective; and discusses the acquisition of objects related to war and genocide, and those purchased from the internet, as well as considering human remains, mass produced objects and illicitly traded antiquities...read more

Product Description: Newly available in paperback, this book takes the University of Manchester's Museum as its subject. By setting the museum in its cultural and intellectual contexts, Nature and Culture explores twentieth-century collecting and display, and the status of the object in the modern world...read more

Few beyond the insider realize that museums own millions of objects the public never sees. In Lost in the Museum, Nancy Moses takes the reader behind the “employees only” doors to uncover the stories buried―along with the objects―in the crypts of museums, historical societies, and archives. Moses discovers the actual birds shot, stuffed, and painted by John James Audubon, America's most beloved bird artist; a spear that abolitionist John Brown carried in his quixotic quest to free the slaves; and the skull of a prehistoric Peruvian child who died with scurvy. She takes the reader to Ker-Feal, the secret farmhouse that Albert Barnes of the Barnes Foundation filled with fabulous American antiques and that was then left untouched for more than fifty years.Weaving the stories of the object, its original owner, and the often idiosyncratic institution where the object resides, the book reveals the darkest secret of the cultural world: the precarious balance of art, culture, and politics that keep items, for decades, lost in the museum.

Product Description: Museums in the Material World seeks to both introduce classic and thought-provoking pieces and contrast them with articles which reveal grounded practice. The articles are selected from across the full breadth of museum disciplines and are linked by a logical narrative, as detailed in the section introductions...read more

Product Description: Museums in the Material World seeks to both introduce classic and thought-provoking pieces and contrast them with articles which reveal grounded practice. The articles are selected from across the full breadth of museum disciplines and are linked by a logical narrative, as detailed in the section introductions...read more

Product Description: Collections Management brings together leading papers exploring some of the major issues affecting collections management. Providing information about initiatives and issues for anyone involved in collections management, Fahy identifies the main issues relating to collecting and disposal of collections and discusses why museums should develop appropriate documentation systems...read more

Product Description: Get practical tools to successfully develop collaborative online learning projects!Virtual museums provide an opportunity to spark learning through online access to multi-sensory information, and collaboration between sources is needed to efficiently and effectively catalog and present material...read more

Product Description: A working guide to help people recognise insect, rodent and bird pests and take practical steps to prevent and control damage to collections.

Product Description: Reunited-down under. Natasha Beale was horrified when her tour guide turned out to be Tom Scanlon-the man who'd jilted her. She would be spending the next two weeks alone with him, in the wilds of the Australian Outback...read more

Product Description: From the introduction, "Although deaccessioning may be broadly accepted today within the museum community as an all-but routine (which is not to say simple) aspect of collections management, to much of the public it remains at odds with what people conceive the museum to be: a permanent repository, a great barrel of amber in which things--once dropped--will be forever preserved...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Confronting contemporary issues in museum practice, this collection provides a practical guide to all aspects of collections care. Contributors cover a wide range of issues including:  conservation practice the monitoring and control of light  relative humidity and atmospheric pollution  packing, handling and transportation of collections  storage and access to collections  biological infestation  disaster planning...read more