Museums, Society, Inequality explores the wide-ranging social roles and responsibilities of the museum. It brings together international perspectives to stimulate critical debate, inform the work of practitioners and policy makers, and to advance recognition of the purpose, responsibilities and value to society of museums. Museums, Society, Inequality examines the issues and: offers different understandings of the social agency of the museum presents ways in which museums have sought to engage with social concerns, and instigate social change imagines how museums might become more useful to society in future. This book is essential for all museum academics, practitioners and students.

Spurred first by the civil rights debates of the 1960s and 1970s, then by the culture wars of the following decades, the Chicago Historical Society (CHS) increasingly sought to give visitors and patrons a voice in retelling the city's history. In response to debates over the authority to interpret the past, CHS engaged in community outreach and sponsored multicultural exhibits and programs. Yet, in this analysis of the society's evolving relationship with its diverse constituencies, Catherine M. Lewis finds that prevailing assumptions about the museum as a commemorative site dedicated to civic pride undermined CHS's bold attempts to create a public forum. Based on more than 250 interviews with staff at CHS and museums around the country, as well as research into formerly inaccessible public and private papers, The Changing Face of Public History offers a behind-the-scenes look at the ways in which one of the most innovative museums in the United States has continually grappled with issues confronting not only museum professionals but all those concerned about the role history plays in the lives of American citizens.

What is the relationship today between museums, galleries and learning? The Responsive Museum interrogates the thinking, policies and practices that underpin the educational role of the museum. It unravels the complex relationship of museums with their publics, and discusses today's challenges and the debates that have resulted. The highly experienced team of writers, including museum educators and directors, share their different experiences and views, and review recent research and examples of best practice. They analyse the implications of audience development and broadening public access, particularly in relation to special groups, minority communities and disabled people, and for individual self-development and different learning styles; they explore issues of public accountability and funding; discuss the merits of different evaluation tools and methodologies for measuring audience impact and needs; and assess the role of architects, designers and artists in shaping the visitor experience. The latter part of this book reviews practical management and staffing issues, and training and skills needs for the future. This book is for students, museum staff, especially those involved in education and interpretation, and senior management and policy-makers. This is a much-needed review of the relationship between museums and galleries and their users. It also offers a wealth of information and expertise to guide future strategy and practice.

When the first British visitors arrived on Australia's shores at the end of the eighteenth century, it was not only the potential of its space that tantalised them, but the extraordinary living things that they found there. Every European collector worth his salt desired a kangaroo, a parakeet, a waratah, and ship after ship sailed north loaded with Australia's remarkable natural history specimens. In 1826, the most serious collector to make his own trip to the antipodes arrived - his name was Alexander Macleay, and over 70 years he and his family accumulated an unbelievably rich and diverse collection of specimens from Australia itself and beyond. Museum throws open the doors of a historically rich and rare collection, stunningly captured in the images of Robyn Stacey. It reclaims the stories of those specimens, and those obsessions, revealing another chapter of Australia's own very particular, passionate and unique history.

A detailed account of the colourful histories of 13 visionary museum innovators, who transformed the 19th-century collections of curios into institutions that inform and instruct.