Download or read book Science Museums in Transition written by Carin Berkowitz and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2017-07-19 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic shift in the display and dissemination of natural knowledge across Britain and America, from private collections of miscellaneous artifacts and objects to public exhibitions and state-sponsored museums. The science museum as we know it—an institution of expert knowledge built to inform a lay public—was still very much in formation during this dynamic period. Science Museums in Transition provides a nuanced, comparative study of the diverse places and spaces in which science was displayed at a time when science and spectacle were still deeply intertwined; when leading naturalists, curators, and popular showmen were debating both how to display their knowledge and how and whether they should profit from scientific work; and when ideals of nationalism, class politics, and democracy were permeating the museum's walls. Contributors examine a constellation of people, spaces, display practices, experiences, and politics that worked not only to define the museum, but to shape public science and scientific knowledge. Taken together, the chapters in this volume span the Atlantic, exploring private and public museums, short and long-term exhibitions, and museums built for entertainment, education, and research, and in turn raise a host of important questions, about expertise, and about who speaks for nature and for history.
Download or read book Science Museums in Transition written by Hooley Michael Graham McLaughlin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science Museums in Transition is intended to further discussion and debate on how museums address the political and social ramifications of science and, as such, should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students of museum studies, science, anthropology, education and history.
Download or read book America s Science Museums written by Victor J. Danilov and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1990-11-29 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Danilov . . . is a preeminent authority on museums. According to Danilov, visits to science-related museums constitute 38 to 45 percent of all visits to museums in the U.S. . . . At the beginning of each section there is an introduction describing the history of that particular type of museum. Museum entries vary from about one-half page to two pages in length. A typical entry provides a history of the museum and description of the collection. . . . America's Science Museums is a well-designed book that can be recommended to all public and academic libraries. Reference Books Bulletin Science museums, although they comprise less than 20 percent of the nearly 7,000 cultural institutions known as museums in the United States, have become America's most popular type of museum. From New Bedford to Waikiki, America's Science Museums assesses the nations scientific and technological museums and related institutions, examining their histories, operations, and offerings. This reference volume looks at the many different types of such institutions, including some that are not called museums but that are museum-like in their operations such as aquariums, botanical gardens, arboretums, planetariums, and zoos. In addition, some related facilities, such as marinelife and wildlife parks, and research sites with visitor centers, such as observatories and NASA space centers, are included. Most of the museums described in the twelve sections of this unique, comprehensive guide were selected because of their stature in the field, while others were included because of their age, specialty, or novelty. Overall, the museums detailed here represent a cross-section of the rapidly expanding science museum field, and they illustrate why science museums have become so popular and instrumental in furthering science literacy across the U.S. The book's twelve sections focus on aquariums, marine museums, and marine-life parks; aviation and space museums; botanical gardens, conservatories, and arboretums; industrial history museums; maritime and naval museums; medical and health museums; natural history museums; planetariums and observatories; science and technology centers; transport, automobile, and railway museums; zoos and wildlife parks; and other science/technology museums. Thorough descriptions of the 480 museums and related institutions provide comparative information on the nature, development, facilities, collections and offerings of each. An ideal reference for college courses dealing with the history, philosophy, collections, exhibits, operations, and management of museums and for other researchers seeking background information and insight into the special merits of the leading institutions in the fields of science and technology.
Download or read book Life on Display written by Karen A. Rader and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rich with archival detail and compelling characters, Life on Display uses the history of biological exhibitions to analyze museums’ shifting roles in twentieth-century American science and society. Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain chronicle profound changes in these exhibitions—and the institutions that housed them—between 1910 and 1990, ultimately offering new perspectives on the history of museums, science, and science education. Rader and Cain explain why science and natural history museums began to welcome new audiences between the 1900s and the 1920s and chronicle the turmoil that resulted from the introduction of new kinds of biological displays. They describe how these displays of life changed dramatically once again in the 1930s and 1940s, as museums negotiated changing, often conflicting interests of scientists, educators, and visitors. The authors then reveal how museum staffs, facing intense public and scientific scrutiny, experimented with wildly different definitions of life science and life science education from the 1950s through the 1980s. The book concludes with a discussion of the influence that corporate sponsorship and blockbuster economics wielded over science and natural history museums in the century’s last decades. A vivid, entertaining study of the ways science and natural history museums shaped and were shaped by understandings of science and public education in the twentieth-century United States, Life on Display will appeal to historians, sociologists, and ethnographers of American science and culture, as well as museum practitioners and general readers.
Download or read book Museums and American Intellectual Life 1876 1926 written by Steven Conn and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conn's study includes familiar places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Academy of Natural Sciences, but he also draws attention to forgotten ones, like the Philadelphia Commercial Museum, once the repository for objects from many turn-of-the-century world's fairs. What emerges from Conn's analysis is that museums of all kinds shared a belief that knowledge resided in the objects themselves. Using what Conn has termed "object-based epistemology," museums of the late nineteenth century were on the cutting edge of American intellectual life. By the first quarter of the twentieth century, however, museums had largely been replaced by research-oriented universities as places where new knowledge was produced. According to Conn, not only did this mean a change in the way knowledge was conceived, but also, and perhaps more importantly, who would have access to it.
Download or read book Science Museums in Transition written by Carin Berkowitz and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Outstanding Academic Title 2017, Choice Magazine The nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic shift in the display and dissemination of natural knowledge across Britain and America, from private collections of miscellaneous artifacts and objects to public exhibitions and state-sponsored museums. The science museum as we know it—an institution of expert knowledge built to inform a lay public—was still very much in formation during this dynamic period. Science Museums in Transition provides a nuanced, comparative study of the diverse places and spaces in which science was displayed at a time when science and spectacle were still deeply intertwined; when leading naturalists, curators, and popular showmen were debating both how to display their knowledge and how and whether they should profit from scientific work; and when ideals of nationalism, class politics, and democracy were permeating the museum’s walls. Contributors examine a constellation of people, spaces, display practices, experiences, and politics that worked not only to define the museum, but to shape public science and scientific knowledge. Taken together, the chapters in this volume span the Atlantic, exploring private and public museums, short and long-term exhibitions, and museums built for entertainment, education, and research, and in turn raise a host of important questions, about expertise, and about who speaks for nature and for history.
Download or read book Useful Objects written by Reed Gochberg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Useful Objects' examines the cultural history of nineteenth-century American museums through the eyes of writers, visitors, and collectors. Throughout this period, museums gradually transformed from encyclopedic cabinets to more specialized public institutions. These changes prompted wider debates about how museums determine what objects to select, preserve, and display-and who gets to decide. Drawing on a wide range of archival materials and accounts in fiction, guidebooks, and periodicals, this text shows how the challenges facing nineteenth-century museums continue to resonate in debates about their role in American culture today.
Download or read book Museums at the Forefront of the History and Philosophy of Geology written by Gary D. Rosenberg and published by Geological Society of America. This book was released on 2018 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information on museum activities around the world.
Download or read book The Museum Experience written by John H Falk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first book to take a "visitor's eye view" of the museum visit, Falk and Dierking present research findings to demonstrate people's motivations for visiting museums and how museum professionals can enhance their visitors' experiences.
Download or read book America s Scientific Treasures written by Stephen M. Cohen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether you are planning a road trip or looking to engage with history from the comfort of your couch, the second edition of America's Scientific Treasures is sure to satisfy your craving for scientific and technologic history. Stephen M. Cohen and Brenda H. Cohen, a mother-son pair, take readers through countless museums, arboretums, zoos, national parks, planetariums, natural and technological sites, and the homes of a few scientists in this exciting volume. The two combine their expertise in chemistry and history, making this an educational travel guide for science and technology enthusiasts. The book is split into nine geographic regions and organized by state, and it includes how to get to each place, whom to contact, whether it is handicapped-accessible, and even where you can grab a bite to eat nearby. Cohen and Cohen provide the history and significance of each location, plus they offer images for notable locations like the African Savanna at the San Francisco Zoo & Gardens and the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center in the Anchorage Museum. The resulting book is a navigable travel guide perfect for any science or technology enthusiast. So, what are you waiting for? Let's take a journey through the history of American sciences and engineering.
Download or read book The Museum in America written by Laurence Vail Coleman and published by . This book was released on 1939 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Evolution of American Science Museums 1870 1910 written by Richard Radcliffe Edmonds and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Directory of American Museums of Art History and Science written by American Association Of Museums and published by Sagwan Press. This book was released on 2015-08-24 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book A Directory of American Museums of Art History and Science written by and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Displaying The Natural World for Public Curiosity written by Cheryl Ann Holzmeyer and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation analyzes the U.S. science museum field over time in order to examine institutional emergence, institutional transformation, and changing patterns of science boundary-work in displaying "the natural world" to publics. It investigates the constitution of the U.S. science museum field via 19th century natural history museums and world's fairs, and the 20th century transformation of the field by industrial science museums and science center museums. Its theoretical contribution is to underscore the significance of material culture and its spatial dimensions to analyzing institutions, including patterns of boundary-work between publics and science. It argues that industrial science museums and their novel exhibitionary conventions arose as industrial material culture became framed as "applied science," and as distinct from artifacts in the existing field of natural history museums. In addition, it argues that science center museums distinguished themselves from and proliferated more rapidly than industrial science museums due not only to new constituencies mobilized on their behalf, but also due to their de-emphasis on collections, particularly of rare and historical artifacts. These changes again facilitated new exhibitionary conventions. Thus the emergence, transformation and proliferation of institutions hinge on their material cultural dimensions, on multiple levels.
Download or read book Museums and the Public Understanding of Science written by John Durant and published by NMSI Trading Ltd. This book was released on 1992 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume are organised thematically. The first essay sets the scene by reviewing the present position and future potential of science museums as educational and cultural resources. The next section is devoted to the role of museum exhibitions and analyses how exhibitions deal with complex material. The third section is concerned with museum programmes and reports on the strengths and weaknesses of different museum programmes, ranging from gallery drama to the Boston Museum's innovative experiment with Science-by-mail.
Download or read book Science Museums in Transition written by Hooley McLaughlin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-23 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science Museums in Transition: Unheard Voices considers how museums can adapt their exhibits, programs, and organizational structures to the diversity of ideas, people, and cultures that speak to modern science. This collection contains individual expressions by museum insiders addressing a range of particular perspectives – Native American, African American, Latinx, Islamic, Israeli, Danish, white North American. These reflections provide guidance to the museum community as to how their institutions can become more thoughtful, more welcoming to diverse audiences, and more cognizant of the ways that different people incorporate science into their daily lives. As a whole, the book emphasizes the need for museums to engage in dialogue with their visitors – not merely to present them with information – and to offer the opportunities to share experiences, exchange perspectives, and thereby advance science learning through a dynamic and collective process. Science Museums in Transition is intended to further discussion on how museums address the political and social ramifications of science and, as such, should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the fields of museum studies, science, anthropology, education and history. It should also be essential reading for museum professionals around the globe.
