Two books that I have used are edited volumes: America's Museums and
Theorizing Museums (I've listed them below with their tables of contents).
Either, or--better--both together, would be suitable for advanced
undergraduates. America's Museums draws on some of the "old guard" of the
American museum field, but is fairly comprehensive. Theorizing Museums is
more topical and represents a younger generation. Neither book is a
textbook, but I find that lessons pertaining to the structure and operations
of museums are less dependant on outside readings than are the kinds of
topics represented in these volumes. 

I have used Ambrose and Paine, and found it to be difficult to apply as a
text. Its organization and sequence did not correspond to what I felt was an
effective presentation for undergraduates. Burcaw is now in its 3rd edition
(from an original 1975 publication date) and it is showing its age. 

Daedalus (edited by Maxwell Lincoln Anderson)
1999    America's Museums. Vol. 128, No. 3: American Academy of Arts and
Sciences.
        Contents
        Muses, Museums, and Memories/B. Pitman
        The Divided House of the American Art Museum/N. Harris
        On Museum Row: Aesthetics and the Politics of Exhibition/C. Noriega
        Museum Exhibitions and the Dynamics of Dialogue/K. McLean
        An Agenda for American Museums in the Twenty-First Century/H.
Skramstad
        Museums of the Future: The Impact of Technology in Museum
Practices/M. Anderson
        What is the Object of the Exercise? A Meandering Exploration of the
Many Meanings of Objects in                             Museums/E.H. Gurian
        Museums as Centers of Controversy/W. Boyd
        From Being About Something to Being For Somebody: The Ongoing
Transformation of the American                          Museum/S. Weil
        Museums as Institutions for Personal Learning/J. Falk
        In Search of Relevance: Science Centers as Innovators in the
Evolution of Museums/E. Koster
        Formed and Forming: Contemporary Museum Architecture/S. Sirefman
        Is "The Idea of a Museum" Possible Today?/V. Newhouse
        Museums: An Alternate Typology/C. Correa
        On the Museum of the Twenty-First Century: An Homage to Italo
Calvino's Invisible Cities/B. Tschumi

Macdonald, Sharon, and Gordon Fyfe, eds.
1996    Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a
Changing World, Sociological review monograph; 43. Cambridge, Mass.:
Blackwell.
        Contents 
        Theorizing Museums: An Introduction / Sharon Macdonald
        Museums and Globalization / Martin Prösler
        How Societies Remember the past / John Urry
        Museums as Contested Sites of Remembrance: The Enola Gay Affair /
Vera Zolberg
        Into the Heart of Irony: Ethnographic Exhibitions and the Politics
of Difference / Henrietta Riegel
        Seeing Through Solidity: A Feminist Perspective on Museums / Gaby
Porter
        Decoding the Visitor's Gaze: Rethinking Museum Visiting / Gordon
Fyfe and Max Ross
        The Utopics of Social Ordering: Stonehenge as a Museum Without Walls
/ Kevin Hetherington
        Maintaining Boundaries, or 'Mainstreaming' Black History in a White
Museum / Eric Gable
        A Trojan Horse at the Tate: Theorizing the Museum as Agency and
Structure / Gordon Fyfe.
	

Peter H. Welsh       [log in to unmask]
Associate Professor of Anthropology and
Director, Deer Valley Rock Art Center
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Voice: (ASU) 480-965-0102  (DVRAC) 623-582-8007
Fax: (ASU) 480-965-7671  (DVRAC) 623-582-8831


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