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.

Renowned museum consultant and researcher Beverly Serrell and a group of museum professionals from the Chicago area have developed a generalizable framework by which the quality of museum exhibitions can be judged from a visitor-centered perspective. Using criteria such as comfort, engagement, reinforcement, and meaningfulness, they have produced a useful tool for other museum professionals to better assess the effectiveness of museum exhibitions and thereby to improve their quality. The downloadable resources include a brief video demonstrating the Excellent Judges process and provides additional illustrations and information for the reader. Tested in a dozen institutions by the research team, this step-by-step approach to judging exhibitions will be of great value to museum directors, exhibit developers, and other museum professionals.

In recent years, there have been significant shifts in arts marketing, both as a practice and an academic discipline. The relationship between art and the market is increasingly complex and dynamic, requiring a transformation in the way the arts are marketed. Marketing the Arts argues that arts marketing is not about the simple application of mainstream managerial marketing to the arts. With contributions from international scholars of marketing and consumer studies, this book engages directly with a range of contemporary themes, including: The importance of arts consumption and its social dimensions The importance of the aesthetic experience itself, and how to research it Arts policy development The art versus commerce debate The role of the arts marketer as market-maker The artist as brand or entrepreneur This exciting new book covers topics as diverse as Damien Hirst’s 'For the Love of God', Liverpool’s brand makeover, Manga scanlation, Gob Squad, Surrealism, Bluegrass music, Miles Davis and Andy Warhol, and is sure to enthuse students and enlighten practitioners.