Museum and Gallery Education: A Manual of Good Practice

by Hazel Moffat (editor), Hazal Moffatt (Editor), Vicky Woollard (Editor)

The educational role of museums has become a key professional concern. This book addresses the educational role museums play from an international perspective. The contributed essays provide timely reviews of the key themes and case studies provide practical examples of the research. Ideally suited for all museum staff and students of museum studies.

Genres: Museums

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written in guidebook format for emerging museum professionals. This resource is okay, simply because it seems repetitive and long-winded in certain parts. It does provide “case study” examples of other museums to illustrate practices which was helpful to understand the concept they were presenting. Additionally, the recourses for looking for mentorships in the back of the book are useful. Overall, however, I feel the brevity with which they spoke of museum concepts like “creating an exhibit” was lacking when compared to Dr Falk and Dierking’s “Learning from Museums”. This also could be a difference in how I prefer to obtain knowledge and tactics. I respond well to concise wording and content that attempts to connect to the moral imperative rather than factual resources as was oftentimes presented in “Museum and Gallery Education”.

[Alina Manevskaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

The function of education can be fulfilled by different means. This excellent source brings an awareness of how museums and galleries are valuable to the society, and how they can establish solid foundations for fulfilling the educational aspect of their mission. The manual examines critical issues of museums, such as the increase of attendance, funding and use of museums by socially excluded people. The authors are oriented towards giving constructive feedback on the work of museums, which is expressed in case studies, and supporting this feedback with step-by-step instructions for readers on managing museums, from writing an educational policy with examples of policies along the way to developing international links. The advantage of the case studies is their combination of description and analysis, where each museum is identified as a particular institution with its own priorities and a different structure. This book also gives a clear explanation of each education event that is analysed. The book encourages its readers to action, analysing the mistakes of museum educators and giving advices about how to overcome them.

[Lenka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is still a relevant handbook for planning and carrying out museum and gallery education programmes and activities, and thinking about museum and gallery education in general. Of course, it being an older publication, there are sections that are outdated, but those offer you insights into the history and development of the field.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of museum education tactics and plans. Since the musuems that are profiled are all in Europe or Australia it is difficult to put some of the information into the context of American musuems. Good resource for anybody in museum studies.