Across the United States, museums are considered an integral part of the community fabric and an important factor in the quality of life, "Arts and culture helps foster creativity, bridges class divides, retains college graduates, recruits companies, and raises the quality of life." But across the nation, museums contribute far more than…

In this study, Simon Hayhoe investigates the experiences of blind museum visitors in the context of the relationships between the artworks they learned about in museums, those they experienced when younger, and the social, cultural, and emotional influences of their museum experiences. The three case studies he presents support his hypothesis…

March was a big month in the world of digital badging. The MacArthur Foundation showcased winners of its Badges of Lifelong Learning competition at the Digital Media and Learning Conference in Chicago--one year after awarding those winners $2 million worth of development grants. The city of Chicago itself announced that badging would be a key…

In museum literature, labels have been found to increase visitor learning and contribute to greater cognitive gains. In this study, we seek to understand how various labels support the visitors' learning experience, and specifically in regards to conceptual and cognitive learning. We investigated the increasing use of three types of labels (visual…

Introducing a digital camera in the art gallery space is somewhat confrontational. Most museums have strict protocols on what can and cannot be captured. From the educational perspective it does, however, offer a new and innovative way of working that supports young people's ability to record what they see and how they experience the gallery, the…

This article highlights two separate museum partnerships involving "The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art" in Tennessee, with high school students and undergraduate art education majors from The University of Memphis. An overview of the partnership is offered along with recommendations for museum educators who would like to create…

Family interactions are common phenomenon at visits to science centers and natural history museums. Through interactions the family can support each other as the members individually and collectively learn from their visits. Interaction is particularly important between child(ren) and parent, which may be facilitated by media provided to parents.…

Introduction: The convergence of libraries, archives and museums is an evolving phenomenon that has garnered increased attention in the literature and professional practice over the past decade. To date, little research exists documenting the experiences of these institutions as they engage in different forms of collaboration and convergence.…

This dissertation is an ethnography conducted with the Los Angeles-based community arts organization called Machine Project. Operating both a storefront gallery in Echo Park and as a loose association of contemporary artists, performers, curators, and designers, Machine Project seeks to make "rarefied knowledge accessible" through…

This dissertation is a history of David Eugene Smith's collection of historical books, manuscripts, portraits, and instruments related to mathematics. The study analyzes surviving documents, images, objects, college announcements and catalogs, and secondary sources related to Smith's collection. David Eugene Smith (1860-1944) travelled…

This study is a comparison of the descriptive tagging practices among library, archive, and museum professionals using an inter-indexing consistency approach. The first purpose of this study was to determine the extent of the similarities and differences among professional groups when assigning descriptive tags to a wide variety of objects that…

This report describes collaborations between the disciplines of museum education and art therapy, which inspired the implementation of a pilot art therapy program at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee (USA). Because relatively limited research has been conducted on this trend, the author reviewed museum exhibits and programming, as well…

This research delves into the impact of established intellectual imperialistic representations and codes of culture imposed on Indigenous populations. The author offers new ways of viewing the critiques of Indigenous peoples and discussions of those representation acts by situating them within Indigenous identity and the manifestations of…

This paper describes the journey through France, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Belgium that was undertaken in August and September 1882 by Manuel Bartolome Cossio, the foremost Spanish educationist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in order to examine European education museums and schools with a view to preparing…

The metaphor of "art waitressing" is a valuable tool for educators who seek guidance in enacting many of the new roles in museums, particularly the role of facilitator in an open-ended interactive gallery. Though this metaphor provides a valuable model for engaging visitors, the question quickly arises of how educators can go beyond "serving" an…