MAKING MUSEUMS MATTER
September 13-15, 2001 with Stephen E. Weil
Offered by the Cultural Resource Management Program, University of Victoria
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In his 1917 essay The New Museum, pioneer North American museologist, John
Cotton Dana wrote that the first and obvious purpose of every museum must be
to add to the "happiness, wisdom and comfort" of the community it served.
Although museums have made great strides in their ability to survive in an
increasingly complex and competitive environment, it would be the height of
folly to confuse institutional survival with institutional success. Survival
is only a pre-condition. No less than in Dana's time, success today must
still be measured by what museums can contribute to the "happiness, wisdom
and comfort" of the communities they serve.
This gathering of museum leaders challenges you, first, to identify, perhaps
even to rethink, the range of basic ways in which museums might potentially
contribute to the "happiness, wisdom and comfort" of their communities and,
second, to explore the particular ways in which your own institution might
fit into that range. Stephen E. Weil, one of museum community's preeminent
thinkers, provides the framework for a facilitated three-day discussion in
which you work with other directors, trustees, and colleagues who shape
change in museums, to:
* seek consensus on the attributes of a "good society" and how museums
in general might be uniquely capable of contributing toward
the development of those attributes
* against that background, think through the unique and defining
purposes of your own museum and how those purposes might best be
articulated to your community
* clarify the relationship of museum means (resources and operations)
with ends (desired outcomes) and recognize the danger
that means may sometimes become ends in themselves
* identify the internal/external obstacles that may interfere with
your own museum's ability to achieve desired outcomes
and consider various strategies that might be employed to
overcome such obstacles
* analyze your own museum as a form of "social enterprise"
* develop measures of intermediate and ultimate institutional success
Facilitator: Stephen Weil is the emeritus senior scholar with the Center for
Education and Museum Studies at the Smithsonian Institution. His background
in law, his experience as Deputy Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden, and his extensive involvement as a consultant to a range
of professional agencies and activities provide a foundation for his
reflections on the changing nature of museums in contemporary society. He is
the author of A Cabinet of Curiosities: Inquiries into Museums and Their
Prospects, Rethinking the Museum, and Beauty and the Beasts: On Museums,
Art, the Law, and the Market, as well as numerous journal articles and
conference presentations.
Dates: September 13 - 15
Please register by: August 17
Fee: $340 (Canadian funds, non-credit)
For more information, please contact:
Joy Davis, Program Director
Cultural Resource Management Program
Continuing Studies, University of Victoria
PO Box 3030 STN CSC Victoria BC Canada V8W 3N6
Tel: 250 721-8462 Fax: 250 721-8774
Email: [log in to unmask]
Visit our Web site! http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/crmp
To receive monthly email updates, contact [log in to unmask]
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apologies for cross-postings.
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