Showing titles in Library & Museum Studies

A manifesto on the state of the non-profit arts sector and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity leaders have to redefine the business as an investment in our shared humanity.

The Western museum is a battleground—a terrain of ideological, political, and economic contestation. Almost everyone today wants to rethink the museum, but how many have the audacity to question the idea of the universal museum itself? In A Programme of Absolute Disorder, Françoise Vergès puts the museum in its place. Exploring the Louvre's history, she uncovers the context in which the universal museum emerged: as a product of colonialism, and of Europe's self-appointed claim to be the guardian of global heritage.

Churches are many things to us - they are places of worship, vibrant community hubs and oases of calm reflection. To know a church is to hold a key to the past that unlocks an understanding of our shared history. Andrew Ziminski has spent decades as a stonemason and church conservator, acting as...

Vicki Myron follows up her #1 New York Times bestseller Dewey with stories of cats who inspire their owners and includes two brand-new Dewey stories! Dewey's Nine Lives offers nine funny, inspiring, and heartwarming stories about cats—all told from the perspective of "Dewey's Mom," librarian...

Py-Lieberman reflects on the profound connections between even outwardly dissimilar objects and offers insight and stories from Smithsonian experts. The book explores artworks, scientific specimens, historical artifacts, airplanes, spacecraft, plants, and so much more, contemplating how each item represents different facets of humanity and resonates with cultural meaning in surprising ways. Whimsical, affecting, and insightful, The Object at Hand offers an intimate and exclusive tour of the Smithsonian collections.

Renowned art conservator Rosa Lowinger spent a difficult childhood in Miami among people whose losses in the Cuban revolution, and earlier by the decimation of family in the Holocaust, clouded all family life. After moving away to escape the “cloying exile’s nostalgia,” Lowinger discovered the unique field of art conservation, which led her to work in Tel Aviv, Philadelphia, Rome, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Charleston, Marfa, South Dakota, and Port-Au-Prince.

In December 2008, twentysomething Jill Grunenwald graduated with her master’s degree in library science, ready to start living her dream of becoming a librarian. But the economy had a different idea. As the Great Recession reared its ugly head, jobs were scarce. After some searching, however, Jill was lucky enough to snag one of the few librarian gigs left in her home state of Ohio. The catch? The job was behind bars as the prison librarian at a men’s minimum-security prison. Talk about baptism by fire.

When Cathy and Noah first got together neither saw children in their future. Eight years later, they're happily married - and Cathy isn't so sure. With Noah's tolerance for his wife's ambivalence waning, her widowed mother in a world of her own and her best friend yearning for a second baby, Cathy feels increasingly adrift. Escaping into her work in the conservation studios of the National Gallery, she chips away at the layers of overpaint on a canvas from the collection. Will the discovery of an unexpected truth help her find the clarity she craves?

The past, present, and future of human culture can be found inside glass, on walls, or tucked away in a climate-controlled environment. But what attracts society to collect fine art, pottery, and other ancient artifacts? In Beyond the Halls: An Insider’s Guide to Loving Museums, you’ll find a brief history of museums while exploring the present nature of these institutions and the thought-provoking ways to interact with them. Beyond the Halls is a book that speaks to museum lovers (and haters) who are looking to discover, for the first time, the history of museums.

Today, hundreds of tribes use the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to help them recover their looted heritage from museums across the country. As senior curator of anthropology, Chip Colwell navigated firsthand the questions of how to weigh the religious freedom of Native Americans against the academic freedom of scientists and whether the emptying of museum shelves elevates human rights or destroys a common heritage. His book reveals a dramatic process that involves negotiating the blurry lines between identity and morality, spirituality and politics.

Charles Parsons is one of St. Louis' and the nation's most influential yet little-known figures. He was instrumental to the Union cause as a Civil War quartermaster and advisor to generals, politicians, and presidents alike. As a world-traveling art connoisseur, he helped found the first art museum west of the Mississippi, to which he donated his remarkable collection of American, European, and Asian art. To this day, his philanthropic work and dedication to education live on in some of the country's grandest institutions.

This is the March 2022 magazine issue, which contains artists interviews to inspire artists, and so much more to help the artist in their art career. It contains artist interviews, art-related topics articles, and a question of the month, step of the month, and social media updates.

Do you love working with books? Of course you do! Do you also love working with people? Do you want to better your community? Interested in planning big events for people in your community? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this book is for you. 50 Things to Know About Being a Librarian by author Tekedra Lofton offers fresh advice for librarians and would-be librarians. Most books on librarianship tell you only the nuts and bolts of the career.

On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum's castle. Rare objects and valuable paintings were destroyed. The flames at the Smithsonian were not the first—and certainly would not be the last—disaster to upend a museum in the United States. The Museum explores the concepts of "crisis" as it relates to museums, and how these historic institutions have dealt with challenges ranging from depression and war to pandemic and philosophical uncertainty. 

Esta guía propone al lector una visita al Museo del Prado con el objetivo de que pueda disfrutar de ella y aprovecharla al máximo. Le invita a detenerse en aquellas obras absolutamente imprescindibles y, sobre todo, le muestra cómo "mirarlas" para percibir aún más su belleza, le ayudará a reparar en la excelencia del artista volcada en su obra y a observar los distintos aspectos y detalles que hacen que esos cuadros sean únicos.

Scandal, shock, and rivalry all have negative connotations, don't they? They can be catastrophic to businesses and individual careers. A whiff of scandal can turn a politician into a smoking ruin. But these potentially disastrous "negatives" can and have spurred the world of fine art to new heights. A look at the history of art tells us that rivalries have, in fact, not only benefited the course of art, from ancient times to the present, but have also helped shape our narrative of art, lending it a sense of drama that it might otherwise lack.

At the heart of Oxford University life, the Bodleian Library is one of the oldest working libraries in Europe with some of its reading rooms - the medieval Duke Humfrey’s Library and the circular Radcliffe Camera - immortalised in films, including The Golden Compass the Harry Potter franchise. With access to priceless archives including Jane Austen’s unfinished novel The Watsons, this documentary reveals how the Elizabethan diplomat Sir Thomas Bodley created this extraordinary library and how it flourishes as a modern institution.

The Maryhill Museum of Art is located on 5,300 acres in the Columbia River Gorge. Miles from any sizeable town and surrounded by the gorge's spectacular scenery, Maryhill is an internationally recognized - and undeniably eclectic - repository of art that ranges from one of the nation's best Rodin collections to one of the world's largest assemblage of chess sets. Dancer, Dreamers, and the Queen of Romania is the story of the four widely disparate people whose lives intertwined in such a way as to lay the foundation for the museum.

This audiobook is meant to help people not acquainted with listening to audiobooks. One day, I got really fed up with having little time to read during the day and with making little progress on my ever growing reading list. But, what if books could read themselves to us? I started to use audiobooks more and more, and I can say it deeply changed my life. I also describe a few special audiobooks that helped me along the way.

Here can be no doubt that the Chinese exhibition at the Royal Academy in London is more than a merely artistic event. It represents a new stage in the burgeoning relationship between contemporary China and the West. The opening, originally scheduled for January, was brought forward to coincide with a State Visit to Britain by the Chinese president, Hu Jintao. The "Three Emperors" of the title were the second, third, and fourth rulers of the Qing Dynasty, and their period in power spanned nearly a century-and-a-half, from the mid-17th century until the end of the 18th.