Kiersten F. Latham – författare

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.

Flourishing in Museums presents the Flourishing Museum Framework, an interdisciplinary model for reflection and practice. Illustrated via a diversity of international examples, the framework demonstrates how museums can meaningfully address the many challenges facing the profession.Including contributions from a wide range of scholar-practitioners working across the arts, humanities, sciences, education, business, and mental health disciplines, the volume uses abundance-thinking and takes a strengths-based appreciative approach to museum purpose, function, and being. The book demonstrates that, even within the most difficult climates, abundance-oriented methods and perspectives can inspire and elicit flourishing in visitors, staff, and communities, thus positioning museums as places where people find meaningful and purposeful work and where visitors find satisfaction, meaning, inspiration, and motivation. Drawing from the disciplines of positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship, contemplative studies, and museum studies, the book is unified and organized into six thematic areas that comprise the Flourishing Museum Framework: courage, transformation, care, optimism, gratitude, and delight.Flourishing in Museums will be essential reading for academics and students working in the museum and heritage fields, as well as the cognate disciplines of arts management and creative industries. It will also be useful to practitioners working in museums and heritage sites around the world.

Flourishing in Museums presents the Flourishing Museum Framework, an interdisciplinary model for reflection and practice. Illustrated via a diversity of international examples, the framework demonstrates how museums can meaningfully address the many challenges facing the profession.Including contributions from a wide range of scholar-practitioners working across the arts, humanities, sciences, education, business, and mental health disciplines, the volume uses abundance-thinking and takes a strengths-based appreciative approach to museum purpose, function, and being. The book demonstrates that, even within the most difficult climates, abundance-oriented methods and perspectives can inspire and elicit flourishing in visitors, staff, and communities, thus positioning museums as places where people find meaningful and purposeful work and where visitors find satisfaction, meaning, inspiration, and motivation. Drawing from the disciplines of positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship, contemplative studies, and museum studies, the book is unified and organized into six thematic areas that comprise the Flourishing Museum Framework: courage, transformation, care, optimism, gratitude, and delight.Flourishing in Museums will be essential reading for academics and students working in the museum and heritage fields, as well as the cognate disciplines of arts management and creative industries. It will also be useful to practitioners working in museums and heritage sites around the world.

What if museums could harness the emotional and intellectual connections people have to personal and everyday objects to create richer visitor experiences? In this book, Elizabeth Wood and Kiersten Latham present the Object Knowledge Framework, a tool for using objects to connect museum visitors to themselves, to others, and to their world. They discuss the key concepts underpinning our lived experience of objects and how museums can learn from them. Then they walk readers through concrete methods for transforming visitor-object experiences, including exercises and strategies for teams developing exhibit themes, messages, and content, and participatory experiences.

What if museums could harness the emotional and intellectual connections people have to personal and everyday objects to create richer visitor experiences? In this book, Elizabeth Wood and Kiersten Latham present the Object Knowledge Framework, a tool for using objects to connect museum visitors to themselves, to others, and to their world. They discuss the key concepts underpinning our lived experience of objects and how museums can learn from them. Then they walk readers through concrete methods for transforming visitor-object experiences, including exercises and strategies for teams developing exhibit themes, messages, and content, and participatory experiences.

A holistic introduction to museum theory and practice, this second edition is designed to be the core introductory text for any foundational museum studies course being taught in any discipline.You’ll examine the evolution, divergence, definition, and legal organization of museums in the context of collections of objects and how museums perform the basic functions of preservation, communication, and research. Through the lens of museological theory and a systems approach, you’ll learn how museum objects are managed by professionals and used by the public and scholars. You’ll get an overview of contemporary museums worldwide and think through the future of museums. Useful as an introductory text for any foundational museum studies course – whether in library and information science, museum studies, or a related area – this text’s unique perspective approaches museums as communicative knowledge systems that deal with people, objects, and ideas. The second edition includes new material on museum careers, legal issues, globalization, climate change, positive museology, and museums and sustainability.This foundational text is adaptable to a broad range of courses and disciplines when paired with supplementary readings.