New Solutions for House Museums

Rezensionen / Stimmen

Taking care of an old house isn't easy, and being a responsible steward of a historic house museum is particularly challenging. In this thoughtful book, Donna Harris offers advice that can help boards and staff ask tough questions-and, if necessary, make tough decisions-to ensure a viable future for the historic resources they manage. -- Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation Donna Ann Harris brings unique insights to a critical problem facing advocates of historic preservation: the proliferation of house museums, too often under-funded and under-staffed. Through penetrating analysis of actual as well as hypothetical cases, she outlines how transitions to new uses and new owners can best achieve the desired result of saving the building itself. This book should be required reading for anyone even remotely connected with running a house museum. -- David G. DeLong, professor emeritus of architecture and former chair, graduate program in historic preservation, University of Pennsylvania Harris' message is prudent and pragmatic and the operating circumstances surrounding her case studies of house museums that have successfully made the transition to a new owner or a new use will be very familiar to many small museum operators... * Journal Of Museums Aotearoa * This publication brings together a number of workable solutions for a contemporary issue of concern....Timely, concise, practical, well researched....and written in everyday language, this is a handy management tool. * Museums Australia Magazine, November 2008 * Harris's book is organized in a very clear fashion....At every step, the author displays an emphatic objectivity....Harris comes well positioned to write such a book....Donna Harris has done a great service for historic house museums and the people who are passionate about them. * The Public Historian, September 5, 2008 * In this book, Donna Ann Harris, a preservation consultant with more than 20 years of experience, provides a critical resource for boards, staff, and volunteers at historic house museums, who need to consider whether creative alternatives to the house museum model may allow them to better realize their fundamental obligation-the preservation of the house. -- Michelle McClellan * The Journal Of Heritage Stewardship, University of Michigan, Winter 2009 * I would certainly recommend this book to my colleagues in the historic house museum community who may be facing house museum sustainability challenges, and who may be able to use the contents and insights offered in this book as a source of inspiration, and/or as a catalyst for moving their institution forward in pursuit of a successful alternative. -- Terry Dickinson, Newport Mansions