试论博物馆与公众关系的四种研究路径

近年来,公众之于博物馆的重要性持续攀升,甚至开始居于一种主导性的优先地位.博物馆学界相应地出现了 一系列暗含"公众转向"的话语.基于此,博物馆与公众关系成为一个重要的研究议题.博物馆与公众关系有四种路径:公众研究路径聚焦存在于博物馆内外的公众群体,以此分别发现公众之于博物馆和博物馆之于公众的价值;沟通关系路径侧重博物馆...     

Managing performance in publicly funded museums in England: effects,resistances and revisions

Based on accounts gathered from nine museums and four professional/policy-making bodies, as well as policy analysis, this article maps out and assesses the effects of and ways of experiencing the new managerialist mode of governance within the publicly funded museums in England, focusing specifically on performance management in museums. It will be argued that the performance management regime has impacted local authority museums and national museums in distinct ways, creating different professional/organisational cultures as a result. These impacts pertain specifically to the professional and organisational autonomy of museums, with significant differences between small local authority museums and large national museums. This has serious implications for the way different types of museum relate to new managerialism and their mode of functioning. Some of the negative and unintended impacts of the performance management regime have induced a reappraisal – initially championed by the art world – and a move towards lightening up the new managerialist overload and pressure by introducing some elements of a peer-review model and accommodating in some form the qualitative singularity of museum experience. I will conclude by reflecting on the underpinning assumptions of new managerialism in museums against the backdrop of the project of museum professionalism and the singularity of its creative work.     

Evaluating the efficiency of museums using multiple outputs: evidence from a regional system of museums in Spain

Data Envelopment Analysis is used to evaluate museum efficiency. This approach enables us to create a relative efficiency measure for each museum, taking into account resources used by museums and the performance of their activities based on four well-defined tasks: conservation, research, communication and exhibition. Empirical analysis of data from a regional museum system in Spain is performed, considering a complex production function with several inputs and outputs. The main findings indicate that at least half the museums chosen operate efficiently, with the major cause for inefficiency being inadequate resource management. Only few museums evidenced significant inadequate scaling problems. Major progress, mainly due to improvements in internal efficiency, is evident in the museum system ratios when analysing productivity evolution using the Malmquist Index. By contrast, technological change has less impact, proving that cultural heritage is less receptive to new technologies as compared to other cultural industries.     

博物馆教育性格的养成——从《美国博物馆:创新者和先驱》一书谈起

与欧洲博物馆强调皇家收藏与民众教化的传统不同,美国的博物馆性格立足于社会教育与公众服务。自初创之日起,"教育至上"的性格一直贯穿美国博物馆发展的始终,由此养成的有关博物馆教育议题的思考成为国际博物学界的典范。爱德华·亚历山大在《美国博物馆:创新者和先驱》一书中系统考察了13位美国博物馆领军人物的超前理念和伟大事迹,他们无一例外地都在强调博物馆教育和公众娱乐的重要性,并在"教育至上"的博物馆性格上达成共识。这些先驱们在博物馆平台上发挥才智、创造典范的经验材料对于理解美国博物馆教育性格生成与演变的具体过程与整体图式具有举足轻重的作用。     

Heritage,Tourism and Museums: the case of the North Atlantic islands of Skye,Scotland and Prince Edward Island,Canada

Heritage tourism, and the products and experiences related to it, represent a growing attraction in international tourism and the museum is a potential partner in the development of heritage activities for tourists. This paper explores the relationship between tourism and museums and analyses their roles in relation to heritage. It recognises that the shared characteristics of tourism and museums provide a basis for the two to work together in the development of heritage tourism. This exploration is illustrated by the comparison of case studies of legislated museum provision and their relation to tourism on two North Atlantic islands. In conclusion, the paper argues that while in some cases museums may be seen as somewhat reluctant partners in the process of heritage tourism they are in fact constrained by traditional roles and responsibilities and influenced by both differing jurisdictional contexts and views as to their functions.     

Studying museum material and collections

In modern post‐Renaissance western society, museums are the political and cultural institutions entrusted with holding the material evidence, real things, which constitute much modern knowledge. The paper considers some aspects of museums as institutions holding this material evidence – the institutional relationship to accepted knowledge and value, the implication in the social and economic system and the visible architectural display, – which make up the messages which museums communicate to their visitors through exhibitions and interpretive projects. Three related aspects of interpretation which belong with each museum object and specimen are examined, professional care, interpretive approaches and the nature of collections. Finally, these threads are drawn together to suggest a framework of research and investigation which underpins the approach to our understanding of this aspect of the heritage, and points the way to future work.     

Strategic management for visitor-oriented museums

Abstract: Strategic management is a familiar concept in for-profit organisations but is relatively new to museums. This paper presents and discusses a model of strategic management for visitor-oriented museums that aims to be more comprehensive than current approaches. It shows how museums can overcome the tension between the strategic demand to develop visitor-oriented museum services and the duties and social mandate of museums as public institutions that are defined by cultural policy—enabling access to cultural heritage, promoting broad cultural participation and providing informal education. Visitor-oriented strategic museum management is concerned with attracting a variety of visitors as well as the development of museum services that are appropriate to diverse museum audiences. The model presented here emphasises the comprehensive strategic management concept. Audience research and evaluation are shown to be valuable analytic and revision tools for strategic management in visitor-oriented museums.     

The muse with a wandering eye: the influence of public value on coproduction in museums

ABSTRACT

Across management, marketing, public administration and museology literature, coproduction has been presented as an innovative approach to service improvement. This case study of the Australian museum sector contributes to the instrumentalisation debate, by revealing the potential inhibitors to such improvements when coproduction distracts rather than enhances the work of cultural institutions. While public value requires the strategic cultural manager to negotiate between ‘upstream audiences’ (government and funding bodies) and ‘downstream audiences’ (users and the body politic), these two groups appear to exert different levels of influence. This research suggests that upstream audiences currently absorb the attention of museums. As a result, the manner in which museums coproduce, and the motivations for this work, appear to be geared towards advocating the public value of museums to government and funding bodies. This case study suggests that museums sacrifice the service innovations and exhibition enhancements offered by coproduction (intrinsic outcomes) to pursue government funding and support (instrumental outcomes).     

Benefits of visiting heritage museums: Chinese parents’ perspectives

Abstract

The family, as a leisure unit, is an important museum consumer group. The literature on family leisure in museums concentrates on the cognitive and the learning aspects in science museums and art galleries in western contexts. It provides limited explanation of the leisure outcomes acquired from visiting museums. This work addresses this lacuna by exploring the benefits perceived by Chinese parents who take their children to a cluster of museums along China’s Grand Canal, a world heritage site in Hangzhou. A review of museum and heritage research, combined with 17 on-site, in-depth interviews, generated information on a range of benefits which was used to design a questionnaire that was completed by 450 respondents. Five perceived benefits were identified using factor analysis. In order of significance, they are family bonding, community attachment, cultural awareness, restoration and personal growth. These perceived benefits have implications for museums and other public facilities catering to the family leisure market, as well as for governments, community organisations, the heritage sector and other stakeholders that are charged with managing cultural heritage.     

Speaking for the past in the present: Text,authority and learning in archaeology museums

Abstract

This paper examines the development of debates surrounding the nature of curatorial authority and of public education in archaeology museums, with particular reference to texts accompanying exhibitions of prehistoric material in England and Scotland. Traditionally, such texts have been conceived of as authoritative aids to museum education and communication. However, since the late 1980s, they have been criticised, particularly on the grounds of curatorial bias and inaccessibility. As a consequence, a new ‘cultural approach’ to museum texts was developed in the 1990s, based upon curatorial principles of critical awareness and public responsibility. The resultant texts have received mixed responses from museum archaeologists and visitors, whose perspectives reflect contemporary political tensions in Britain. They also highlight the fundamental question of the future status and role of text in museums. The answer proposed here is that texts, although not entirely popular with visitors, will remain key elements of archaeology museum displays, and that differences of curatorial approach and opinion, as expressed through texts, are beneficial to learning in archaeology museums.     

Pioneer Living 1963 Style: Imaginations of Heritage in a Post‐war Canadian Suburb

This article connects the origins of a Canadian living history museum to the cultural and social developments of 1960s suburban Canada. Although there exists a strong literature on heritage and commemoration in Canada (and around the world), few scholars have looked explicitly at museums in that country. The literature on history museums elsewhere in the world is stronger. However, despite the strengths of this international literature, its focus has been on the use of museums in the present. An important aspect of the use of heritage, the historical contexts in which past museum visitors interpreted museum themes and displays, has not received much attention. This article argues that museum patrons of the 1960s, the decade in which many living history museums were founded, saw pioneer villages in the context of their own modernising lifestyles. However much Black Creek Pioneer Village might reflect anxiety about the direction of modernity, it also framed the past in ways that legitimated modern, suburban living.     

Museums and cultural sustainability: stakeholders,forces, and cultural policies

This paper explores the relationship between museums, cultural sustainability, and cultural policies. Specifically, it offers a theoretical model for the sustainable development of museums and a process for designing appropriate cultural policies for museums with cultural sustainability in mind. The case of Cyprus is used to demonstrate how strengths and gaps in cultural sustainability can be identified within a broader museum environment. The study examines the main stakeholders (the state, municipalities/ communities, and individuals), types of museums (archaeological, art, ethnographic, etc.) they establish and the forces influencing their decisions (such as politics, a sense of national identity, cultural tourism, economic revitalization, and personal agendas) in order to map the Cypriot museum environment and identify the emphasis placed on different parameters of cultural sustainability. By identifying cultural sustainability strengths and gaps on a national level, it becomes easier for cultural policy-makers to design appropriate cultural policies for museums.     

A Very Remote Storage Box Indeed: The Importance of Doing Archaeology with Old Museum Collections

Although our practice has come to be defined by a focus on excavation as the trademark of archaeological research, research on archaeological collections lies at the scientific heart of the discipline. We demonstrate through two very different case studies how a return to primary sources (in this case, boxes of artifacts) can upend our understanding of the objects themselves and create new narratives of social and technological change. At the same time, access to museum collections is becoming increasingly difficult as institutions struggle with the growing pressure to enhance public outreach and modernize data management, while simultaneously contending with persistent budget cuts. As archaeologists who work closely with museum curators and museum collections, we offer suggestions for how researchers can work with museums to ensure that future generations of researchers and the general public can learn from the ancient materials preserved within their collections.     

欧美博物馆藏品注销制度与规则

注销是指将藏品从博物馆藏品清单及库房中移除的行为。欧美博物馆在注销方面已有比较成熟的经验,为保证注销过程的规范化,博物馆专业组织及诸多博物馆都订立注销标准,以"符合博物馆宗旨""不能因营利目的注销"为基本原则,并辅以藏品保存状况、独特性、可用性等方面的考量。在处置已注销物品时,博物馆会优先采用非出售的方式,并且尽量将藏品保留在"公共领域",以保护公众利益。虽然藏品注销极易引起争议,但也有正面意义。藏品"只入不出"的做法在某种程度上并不利于博物馆可持续发展,注销有助于优化馆藏、节约资源,对于藏品管理颇具正面意义。     

义工与博物馆工作社会化——由美国宝尔博物馆的义工管理机制所感

如果我们把义工队伍及其多层次化作为衡量一个博物馆的公众吸引力、社会影响力的可视指数的话,那么,中国博物馆应该意识到完善我们的义_T-制度已是迫在眉捷的当务之急。     

蔡元培的博物馆美育思想研究

著名的教育家、思想家蔡元培先生非常重视美育对培养健全人格以及促使人的全面发展的重要作用。他认为,在实施美育教育中,博物馆丰富的艺术藏品为美育教育提供了重要的物质基础;藏品的直观性成为美感的最佳培养形式;具有强烈融入感的博物馆陈列语言以及博物馆教育的公众性特征与美育教育的特点相得益彰。由此进一步认为博物馆是美育教育的重要媒介和载体之一。关注博物馆建设,既是关注社会美育教育的具体表现,同时也符合美育发展之公例。     

社交媒体时代的博物馆信息传播——以徐州博物馆为例

社交媒体时代下互联网与手机应用等新媒体技术的兴起,构建出覆盖全球的信息网络,以博物馆为锚点的连接,辐射向更广阔的文化景观与观众群体。社交媒体为一些鲜少涉足博物馆的潜在观众群提供了多种渠道互动沟通的可能。从社交媒体与受众群体的内容和特点入手,可将博物馆社交媒体的运营模式分为平台型、社群型和泛在型三类。从徐州博物馆与国内外博物馆在这一领域的实践探索来看,社交媒体在博物馆信息传播中已有一定的创新应用,收到较好效果,但也面临新的挑战。     

参与性收藏的理论探析与思考

参与性收藏是近些年来西方一些博物馆基于"记录今天"理念而新兴的收藏。从收藏的角度,参与性收藏是博物馆通过主题策划与活动设计,组织社会公众携相关物件加入博物馆收藏,并成为馆藏的一部分,以参与的方式将公众与博物馆物品、内容、语境联系起来,其主题多与当下社会发展、生产生活方式变迁等相关,方式上突破传统收藏相对单一、封闭的模式,具有流动、共享、多元、充满活力的特点。从藏品内涵上,具有"记录今天""关注日常""突出藏品与人的关联"等特点,丰富了博物馆藏品的内涵与外延,这是对传统收藏的丰富与推进。在参与性收藏的视野下,航海类博物馆收藏具有更深广的创新空间。     

博物馆理论研究与博物馆发展方向——苏东海先生专访

21世纪以来,我国的博物馆事业进入新的发展高潮,博物馆理论与发展研究面临许多新的重大课题。博物馆学家苏东海先生认为:博物馆理论研究需要从博物馆发展实践着手,博物馆发展研究要重视发展战略和时代主题的研究;生态博物馆作为一种文化遗产保护理论与行动的新思维,呈现出与传统博物馆两极分化、对立统一的关系,其成功应建基于让文化的主人真正成为自己文化的主人;文化遗产的保护与发扬体现了当前国际博协的战略思想,是博物馆的时代主题;博物馆应充分认识并强化自身独特的知识、审美和道德特征及其价值,提升专业功能与社会职能,增强文化竞争力;博物馆理论工作者应直面博物馆领域的复杂形势,加强对国内外博物馆以及博物馆学基础理论的研究,探索适合中国博物馆发展的理论体系和发展道路,建设有中国特色的博物馆学。     

The China Museum Boom: soft power and cultural nationalism

ABSTRACT

We document major changes in museum supply in China between 1996 and 2015. These years have seen the opening of many small, low budget and locally managed museums; an increase in the average size and expenditure of all museums; and significant investments in a few large and centrally managed superstar museums. Chinese people have access to larger and better museums and pay lower admission fees. Regional inequalities in museum growth are smaller than inequalities in GDP growth. We relate these findings with the small literature on Chinese museums and specifically the notions of soft power and cultural nationalism.