Museums and the Future of Collecting
Published on 28. March 1999
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-0-7546-0000-8 (ISBN)
Description
Collecting is a key function of museums. Its apparent simpliciety belies a complexity of questions and issues which make all collecting imprecise and unrepresentative. This book exposes the many meanings of collections, the different perspectives taken by different cultures, and the institutional response to the collecting problem. One major concern is omission, whether this be determined by politics, professional ethics, the law or social agenda. It is easy for museums to be blind to such things or afraid to confront them. How did curators collect during the war in Croatia? What were the problems of trying to collect the "old" South Africa when the new one was born? Can museums collect from groups which seem to "deviate" from society's norms? How has the function of museums affected the practices of international trade? Can museums collect successfully if collecting agenda are being set externally? This book encourages museums to move away from the collecting of isolated tokens; to move beyond the collecting policy and to understand more clearly the intellectual function of what they do.
Here, examples are given from Australia, Sweden, Canada, Spain, Britain and Croatia which provide this intellectual understanding and many practical tools for evaluating a future collecting strategy.
Here, examples are given from Australia, Sweden, Canada, Spain, Britain and Croatia which provide this intellectual understanding and many practical tools for evaluating a future collecting strategy.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
index
Dimensions
Height: 162 mm
Width: 241 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-7546-0000-8 (9780754600008)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
Introduction - what future collecting?. Part 1 Collecting in context: collections and collecting, Susan Pearce; museums without collections - museum philosophy in West Africa, Malcolm Mcled; the future of collectin - lessons from the past, Richard Dunn; the Ashmolean Museum - a case study of 18th-century collecting, Patricia Kell; the cartographies of collecting, Rebecca Duclos; from curio to cultural document, Barbara Lawson; contemporary popular collecting, Paul Martin. Part 2 Omissions and dilemmas: collecting from the era of memory, myth and delusion, Gaynor Kavanagh; collecting in time of war, Zarka Vujic; the politics of museum collecting in the "old" and the "new" South Africa, Graham Dominy; folk devils in our midst? - collecting from "deviant" groups, Nicola Clayton; all legal and ethical? - museums and the international market in fossils, John Martin; what is in a "national" museum? - the challenges of collecting policies at the National Museums of Scotland, Michael Taylor; who is steering the ship? - museums and the archaeological fieldwork, Janet Owen. Part 3 Collectin futures: collecting - reclaiming the art, systematizing the technique, Linda Young; Samdok - tools to make the world visible, Anna Steen; professionalizing collecting, Barbra Bursell; developing a collecting strategy for smaller museums, Maria Garcia, Carmen Chinea, Jose Farina; towards a national colllection strategy - reviewing existing holdings, Jean-Marc Gagnon and Gerald Fitzgerald; deaccessioning as a collections management tool, Patricia Ainslie; collecting live performance, James Fowler; redefining collecting, Tomislav Sola.a