Monthly Archive for April, 2010

Redesigned Newsletter: Launched Today

Published on April 30, 2010 in Headline and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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

Published on April 30, 2010 in Conference, Headline and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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

Published on April 29, 2010 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Congratulations to all of the Award finalists:

Lisa Chandler - Balancing Perspectives in Cross-Cultural Curatorship
Robin Johnston - Small Community Collections Enabling Diversity: Local History Rooms in Tasmania
Sinval Kahn - Military Museums Enhance the Organisational Culture of the South African National Defence Force
Carla Sofka - History and Healing: Museums as Healing Spaces
Deborah Tranter - Valuing the Queensland Museum: A Contingent Valuation Study
Amy Van Allen - Transcending the Traditional Construct of Museums in Contemporary Living Spaces: Examples from the State Library of Queensland and the National Museum of the American Indian
M. Elizabeth Weiser - Who are We? Museums Telling the Nation’s Story
K.L.H. Wells - Curating the Cultural Landscape: Chipstone House as Historical Property
Charlotte Woodhead - Moral Claims Against Museums: The Emerging Concept of Moral Title to Objects of Cultural Heritage

Museums Take Their Lessons to the Schools

Published on April 24, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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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

Published on April 21, 2010 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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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

Published on April 20, 2010 in Conference and Newsletter. 0 Comments

www.Museum-Conference.com

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

Plenary Speakers

Nurhan Atasoy, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey
George Jacob, Project CEO, Khalsa Heritage Centre, Amritsar, India
Omarakhan Massoudi, National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan
Murat Suslu, Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism/ICOM Turkish National Committee, Istanbul, Turkey
Alissandra Cummins, President of ICOM, Barbados
Margaret Anderson, Director of History South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Amareswar Galla, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Deniz Unsal, Art Management, Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey

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.

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…