Monthly Archive for April, 2010

Redesigned Newsletter: Launched Today

Today the Museum Newsletter will be re-launched – marking the start of a new approach to connecting with and reaching out to our Museum Community. The newsletter will be sent out on a monthly basis and will contain important community news, conference updates, and publication information.

It is the hope of Common Ground Publishing that this newsletter will provide you with a more positive experience connecting with the Museum Community.

If you are not currently a subscriber but would like to receive future newsletter emails, please go to onmuseums.com and click on “Sign Up: Our Newsletter” in the upper right-hand corner.

If you have inquiries, concerns, or general comments, please feel free to contact the newsletter team at support@onmuseums.com.

Istanbul Museum Conference Announces 3 New Plenaries

Joining an already impressive line-up of plenary speakers at the Third International Conference on the Inclusive Museum are Alissandra Cummins (President of ICOM), Margaret Anderson (Director of History South Australia) and Amareswar Galla (ICOM/Queensland University)…

  • Alissandra Cummins: Alissandra Cummins is Director of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honours in the History of Art from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, and a Masters of Arts in Museum Studies from Leicester University,UK. A recognized authority on Caribbean heritage, museum development and art, she was elected a Fellow of the Museums Association (U.K), a first for the Caribbean. More…
  • Margaret Anderson: Margaret Anderson is the Director of History South Australia, a position she has held since December 2000. She has worked in museums in Western Australia and South Australia, where she was inaugural director of the Migration Museum. She also lectured in history and Australian studies at Monash University, where she introduced a course in material culture studies. More…
  • Amareswar Galla: Born and educated in both south and north India, including Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, Professor Galla provides strategic cultural leadership in Australia and the Asia Pacific Region as the Professor of Museum Studies at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. (http://www.emsah.uq.edu.au) More…

Museum Journal Award Finalists

Congratulations to all of the Award finalists:

Museums Take Their Lessons to the Schools

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From Tamar Lewin at The New York Times

Sitting in the dark, knees crossed, looking up at the stars projected on the planetarium dome, the fourth-grade class might have been on a field trip to the Museum of Science in Boston.

But instead, they were having what Katie Slivensky, an educator from the museum, calls a “backwards field trip” in a portable, inflatable planetarium set up for the morning in the old gym at Sutton High School — a 50-minute lesson on the stars, moon and planets, tied to state learning standards for physical science, earth and space.

Over the last few years, many schools have eliminated or cut back on museum trips, partly because of tight budgets that make it hard to pay for a bus and museum admission, and partly because of the growing emphasis on “seat time” to cover all the material on state tests. More…

Museum Journal Award Winner

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Congratulations to Ingrid Templer the winner of the International Award for Excellence in the inclusive museum field with the paper New Media Interactivity in the Museum: Democratisation or Dumbing Down?

Paper abstract: New media discourse brings to the table discussions about interactivity, about how humans interact with media and technology in terms of engagement and meaning making. New media, is the result of old media becoming computerised, that is, produced, stored and distributed in a numerical form. It includes media such as the web, computer games and DVDs. Virtual reality environments also employ new media.

This paper questions whether new media interactivity fundamentally differs from interactivity in general. More specifically it explores whether new media enhances the museum experience or trivialises it. Does it democratise knowledge, or is it a form of ‘dumbing down’ in order to appeal to the greatest possible number of people?

Two museums are analysed, both in the Johannesburg area, namely, the Origins Centre and the Maropeng Visitors Centre. Both have themes of mankind’s origin and early development in Africa. Their approach to interactivity however, differs considerably, thereby providing fertile contexts for comparison.

If you have read this paper and would like to make comments please add a review.

Third International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

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www.Museum-Conference.com

Inclusive Museum Conference
29 June-2 July 2010
Yildiz Technical University, Turkey, Istanbul

Plenary Speakers

Call for Papers

If you intend to present a paper at the conference, your participation begins by submitting a paper proposal. More information on proposals, presentation types, and other options available here. If your proposal is accepted, you will then need to register for the conference.

Registration

Those who submit paper proposals should register following the acceptance of the proposal. Conference delegates who do not intend to present may register at any time. 2010 Museum Conference registration options.

Conference Dinner and Tours

Themes

Accommodation

Nights at the Museum, When Fun Trumps Art

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From Chloe Veltman at The New York Times

It’s hard to talk about museums’ after-hours programs without getting confused. Differentiating among Nightlife (at the California Academy of Sciences), After Dark (the Exploratorium) and L@TE (Berkeley Art Museum) — in name, and in concept — is not easy.

As in New York and Los Angeles, these events have become de rigueur in the Bay Area. Some institutions, like the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, with its Big Idea Night parties, offer free programs. Its latest Big Idea Night — which included D.J.’s, dancers and various artists, as well as the opportunity to explore exhibitions — attracted about 2,500 visitors, the highest tally since the program began in January 2009. More…