Gaynor Kavanagh – författare

Museums are public places where objects, images and memories are kept and shared. They exist in infinite variety and contradiction. They can be places of great excitement and great boredom, sharply insightful and hopelessly bland. Museums are anything that the political climate and the imagination allows them to be. No two museums are the same.The papers which make up this volume give ample evidence of the variety of views that exist about museums. They also demonstrate that museums and museum professionals are moving forward with energy and conviction. This volume will be invaluable to students and museum professionals and will provoke them to consider museum provision and professionalism in all their forms.

"The dream space," writes Sheldon Annis, "is the reflective experience of encountering yourself within a museum." In Memory and the Museum, Gaynor Kavanaugh argues that "dream spaces" are the point at which our inner and outer experiences meld. During the museum visit, memory and the present cease to be disparate but fuse into one singular experience. Drawing from such fields as behavioral gerontology, applied psychology, and historiography, Kavanaugh employs research from North America, Australia, and Europe to provide a critical and conceptual exploration into museums and the mind.

Bringing together theory from disparate fields, including behavioural gerontology, counselling and therapy, applied psychology and historiography, and drawing on research from the UK, the USA and Europe, this is a multi-faceted study of memory and the museum. It explores what Sheldon Annis referred to as the "dream space", the non-rational, affective and reflective experience of encountering material and ourselves within the museum and, for the purpose of this book, within the processes and procedures of making history in museums. It examines the theory of "dream space" in the context of the practical world of museums where so many of the issues of memory, the life span and their connections are brought into sharp focus.The book has four parts: the relationship of memory to history and the changing place of memory within historiographic and museological theory; the dynamics of memory and its employment in the construction of social knowledge of the past through the medium of exhibitions - in essence, memory as product; the experience of remembering in the museum or through access to museum collections -that is memory as process; and the interplay of product and process experienced in the visit and in educational activities.

The dream space, writes Sheldon Annis, is the reflective experience of encountering yourself within a museum. In Memory and the Museum, Gaynor Kavanaugh argues that dream spaces are the point at which our inner and outer experiences meld. During the museum visit, memory and the present cease to be disparate but fuse into one singular experience. Drawing from such fields as behavioral gerontology, applied psychology, and historiography, Kavanaugh employs research from North America, Australia, and Europe to provide a critical and conceptual exploration into museums and the mind.

Museums are a city phenomenon, one element within a suite of cultural institutions which most major urban centres support. In the 19th century, museums were established as evidence of urban sophistication, a credential of new and enlightened local government. They aimed to provide vistas significantly broader than the local. Today, however, the agenda is very different. Within the majority of cities there are museums dedicated to exploring the city itself. The contributors consider the making of city histories from very different perspectives and within a number of theoretical frameworks. They use case studies and comparisons of practice; in particular, good practice is highlighted and potential ways forward explored.

This exciting new series recognizes the tremendous potential of museum-based histories and the ways in which they can engage people with ideas about the past. People encounter and use museums on many different levels - personal, social and intellectual - and access meanings that best fit their agendas. Histories in museums can stimulate the imagination, provoke discussion and increase our ability to question what we know. From this it can be deduced that history in museums is as much about the present as it is about the past; as much about how we feel as about what we know; as much about who we are as about who we have been.The first volume in the series, Making Histories in Museums, examines museological features, but deals particularly with hte historiographical issues that have presiously been underplayed. Each contributor looks at theoretical frameworks within a specific field of study, using case studies and comparisons of practice. Good practice is highlighted and potential ways forward explored. The book establishes the themes that will be the subject of more detailed study in later volumes.This series will prove an invaluable resource for all those concerned with or interested in museums - museum professionals, museum students, historians and students of history, as well as the general reader.

'What stories will we be told when we take ourselves and our children to museums in the future? Gaynor Kavanagh . has tackled the question by inviting twenty-one contributions from museum professionals - each focusing on a specific kind of collection, and has produced a riveting book as a result.' Engli sh Hi storical Revi ew Making Histories in Museums examines museological features, but deals particularly with the historiographical issues that have previously been underplayed. Each contributor looks at theoretical frameworks within a specific field of study, using case studies and comparisons of practice, highlights good practice and explores potential ways forward. It is an invaluable resource for all those concerned with or interested in museums including museum professionals, museum students, historians and students of history. Gaynor Kavanagh is Lecturer in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester.

Museums are public places where objects, images and memories are kept and shared. They exist in infinite variety and contradiction. They can be places of great excitement and great boredom, sharply insightful and hopelessly bland. Museums are anything that the political climate and the imagination allows them to be. No two museums are the same.The papers which make up this volume give ample evidence of the variety of views that exist about museums. They also demonstrate that museums and museum professionals are moving forward with energy and conviction. This volume will be invaluable to students and museum professionals and will provoke them to consider museum provision and professionalism in all their forms.

Museums are public places where objects, images and memories are kept and shared. They exist in infinite variety and contradiction. They can be places of great excitement and great boredom, sharply insightful and hopelessly bland. Museums are anything that the political climate and the imagination allows them to be. No two museums are the same.The papers which make up this volume give ample evidence of the variety of views that exist about museums. They also demonstrate that museums and museum professionals are moving forward with energy and conviction. This volume will be invaluable to students and museum professionals and will provoke them to consider museum provision and professionalism in all their forms.

The book is concerned with how, during four demanding, dislocating and world-changing years, that most Victorian of institutions, the museum, was forced or prompted to meet the extraordinary test of war on the home front. Museums were no more immune from the pressures of war than any other institution and the changes in museums during this period, some long term, others transitory, do much to explain the nature and character of museums in Britain today. Their history reveals and reflects the broader history of the home front, and the willing, stumbling, confused efforts to do the right thing at the right time. They were far away from the fighting, the despair and degradation of the battlefields. But they were in some measure not only close to, but part of, a society carrying both its fears and expectations for those operating in a war which disassembled all their lives. The discussion covers the progress of museums from just before the advent of war in August 1914 to the immediate post-war period, 1920, although this is set in the context of museum developments before and after this span of time. Museums are considered in relation to the tensions and prevalent conditions of this period. Further, the nature and effect of the experience of them and the public services they provide, in both the long and short term, are examined.