Volume 59 Number 3

July 2016

BOOKS

Foundations of Museum Studies: Evolving Systems of Knowledge

by Kiersten F. Latham and John E. Simmons. Santa Barbara: Libraries Unlimited, 2014.
155 Pages. Softcover: $55.00.

Museums 101
by Mark Walhimer. Lanham: Rowman and Littleeld, 2015. 237 Pages. Paperback: $32.00.
REVIEWED BY STEVEN LUBAR

The International Handbooks of Museum

Studies, published by Wiley-Blackwell in
2015, offers the closest thing to a comprehensive overview of the work of museums thats
ever been published. Over 2500 pages, four
volumes, more than one hundred essays; its a
remarkable summary of the state of the lively
and expanding field of museum studies
(Macdonald et al. 2015, 1:xix). Its as ambitious in its goals as its coverage, offering not
only coverage of key topics and debates in

the museum field, but also suggestions for

how museums and museum studies might
develop in the future (Macdonald et al. 2015,
1:xix). Its cutting-edge: global in its scope,
proudly diverse and democratic, theoretically
sophisticated, interdisciplinary, and politically
aware. In short, its a reflection of academic
museum studies, especially as practiced in the
United Kingdom and Australia. It builds on
and summarizes a tsunami of journals, books,
websites, and conferences that have moved

Steven Lubar (lubar@brown.edu), Brown University.

2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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CURATOR THE MUSEUM JOURNAL

the museum from a quiet scholarly cul-de-sac

to the subject of intense academic interest.
I offer this brief description of the International Handbooks as a comparison for the
two books under review. Both are explicitly
introductions, at the opposite end of the scale
from the International Handbooks. Foundations
of Museum Studies is a textbook, written by
faculty at the Museum Studies program at
Kent State University and marketed for graduate programs in museum studies. Museums
101 offers itself as a textbook for a similar
market, but thats a secondary audience. Its
written by a museum consultant, and its primary audience is museum founders, board
members, volunteers, and those with services
to sell to museums.
How well do these two books represent the
grand overview and cutting edge of museums
studies described in the International Handbooks? Thats one way to evaluate a book purporting to introduce a field for students and
interested outsiders: does it reflect the work of
experts and specialists in a way that captures
museums essence but simplifies it for an audience of beginners?
But its also possible to consider the
question from the other side, to use this as
an opportunity to consider the connections
between academic work on museums, on the
one hand, and the practicalities that are the
core of these two books, on the other. How
useful is the scholarly superstructure thats
been built upon the museum to people working in museums or interested in working in
museums?
The International Handbooks are theoryheavy: volume one, Museum Theory, offers Foucault and Bennett, colonialism and postcolonial
reflexivity, distributed memory and affect.
Theres not a whisper of that in Museums 101.
I dont think thats a bad thing, for the books

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audience. But while its fine to leave out the theory, it would be good to use it as a hidden foundation, to build on ideas about politics,
community and power in a way that suggests
that museums have a larger purpose. For Walhimer, museums are mostly businesses, and
what matters is pleasing their visitorsa category that, for him, is pretty much the same as
customers. There are other stakeholders, but
theyre a rather traditional bunch: donors,
elected officials, and the like. Museum theory
considers the museum as problem; Walhimer
sees museums as opportunitiesfor the public,
and for those who work for them.
The place of theory deserves more attention in a textbook, and Foundations does offer
a basic overview of museum theory to its readers. The postcolonial is mentioned in passing,
and theres enough description of the complexities of cultural artifacts to launch a class
discussion. There are two main theoretical
engagements. The first, taken from the work
of Ivo Maroevic, is that museums are
museal. That is, they have meaningful
physical resources that connect cultures
across time and place (143). Museum objects
represent some time, place, context, or person,
and they have been moved to the museum;
thats the challenge of the museum. The second discussion of theory is that museums are
document-centered institutionsobjects as
documents, and as subjects of documentation.
Foundations offers the library as a model for
the museum, and places museum work as a
subset of library and information systems
work. Neither of these theoretical foundations
are common in the field, and it makes for
some odd vocabularydocumentalists? musealia? person-document transactions?but
Latham and Simmons find them valuable as a
way of providing a framework for museum
work. I fear that many faculty in museum

Books: Foundations of Museum Studies: Evolving Systems of Knowledge and Museums 101

Volume 59 Number 3

studies will find the language and theory confusing, and I doubt that many students will
find it useful in their work.
Volume 2 of the International Handbooks
addresses Museum Practice, and its here that we
might expect to see more overlap with the two
books for beginners. Museum practice, according to the Handbooks editors, has four parts: priorities, resources, processes, and publics. These
are good categories, and the essays include a mix
of history, the extremely practical, and thoughtful reflection. Practice, for the experts, focuses
on the challenging edges, not the basics. Thats
not at all the case for the beginners books.
Museums 101 offers a view of the field that suggests that the problems are mostly overcome by
following a set of rules, and Walhimer offers a
museum toolbox that provides the rules. (The
Toolbox reproduces many useful documents
from a wide range of museums and other
authors. It makes up about one-fourth of the
book, and theres a website with more.) Its a
how-to book, not a why book, but some topics
collections, sayrequire that a museum consider why first. A museum director following
this book for advice would have a hard time
making the case for her museum.
The chapter titled How in Foundations
has the opposite problem. It makes simple
things complicated. In that, it gestures toward
the intricacies that the International Handbooks
explores, but without the sophistication that
those essays offer. The chapter is illustrated by
diagrams whose circles and arrows point out
connections between every aspect of museum
work. The diagrams are not only ugly; they offer
complexity without resolution. There is some
good practical advice here, but the attempt to
embed it in theory backfires.
Museum Media and Museum Transformations, the final volumes of the International
Handbooks, comprise a mix of history, case

Steven Lubar

July 2016

studies, and theory. The case studies here consider the cutting edge of museum work. They
focus on the topics that fascinate the academic
museum community today: working with
indigenous communities, digital technology in
museums, memorial museumsthe fringes of
the museum world that offer the greatest difficulties, the most challenging work, and perhaps
the most important opportunities for museums
to prove their value.
Theres almost no mention of this work is
in Museums 101. Thats mostly appropriate,
though a suggestion that these issues exist, why
theyre important, and where to go for more
information, would be very useful to the board
members and volunteers likely to read the book.
More and more, every museum will need to deal
with the transformations in meaning and media
that are changing the field. And so its disappointing to see that these challenges are oversimplified in Foundations, too. A few pages
toward the end offer an upbeat take on virtuality, sustainability, and changing audiences, but
theres not enough here to get students to consider those challenges in a sophisticated way.
More theory, more background, and more targeted history would be useful.
But how much? Thats the big question that
came to mind as I read these books for beginners
and outsiders against the International Handbooks at the same time as Im writing a book that,
like all of these, tries to cover the whole field.
How to balance the practicalities with the big
picture? So much of the work in museums is
purely practical, but at the same time esoteric.
The great value of Museums 101 is that it outlines the basics of exhibition development, collections care, evaluation, and more, in a way that
acknowledges that museum work requires specialized expertise. Dont try to re-invent the
museum, it tells the collector deciding to build a
museum from scratch, or the businessman

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CURATOR THE MUSEUM JOURNAL

suddenly appointed to the board. There are

things you need to know. Museums have figured out a lot. Read this book to get up to speed.
A textbook in museum studies has a more
difficult job. It needs to outline the basics, but
do so in a way that fits them into a larger theoretical structure. Students should learn why, not
just how. Museums are more than the practicalities of Museums 101. Theyre cultural institutions with politics and theory that raise bigger
questions. Foundations acknowledges those big
questions, and offers a theoretical foundation
that will help thoughtful students step back
from the day-to-day details, but it doesnt connect the practicalities with the theory. In the
process it occasionally obfuscates both.
Im sympathetic to the authors of both
books: so much must be left out. An introduction to museums needs to suggest the bigger
picture through case studies, an historical overview of change, and an infrastructure of theory
at the same time as providing the practical
information that is required for the everyday
work of museums. The challenge, one that neither of these books fully meets, is to connect
these two needs, to articulate the reasons why
END
museums do what they do.
REFERENCE

Macdonald, S. and Rees Leahy, H. 2015. The

International Handbooks of Museum Studies, Vol.
1-4. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

318

Books: Foundations of Museum Studies: Evolving Systems of Knowledge and Museums 101