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The chapter focuses on two interrelated research questions: why are museums so popular? and what can commercial enterprises learn from them? The chapter explains the popularity of museums by elaborating on the special characteristics of the cultural and economic roles of these institutions in society based on evidence in academic research and in policy documents. The chapter then provides data from a survey of 6,419 visitors and 5,065 non-visitors of the 18 most well-known (art) museums spread among 10 countries around the world. It provides evidence regarding what factors differentiate the reputations of the most reputed museums from those that are less appreciated based on museum-related factors, along with factors related to the country and city where the museum resides. The chapter concludes by examining reputation management lessons, the business can draw from the way museums operate and how they are perceived.

This paper examines the Art Institute of Chicago – a nationally recognized museum – as a white sanctuary, i.e., a white institutional space within a racialized social system that serves to reassure whites of their dominant position in society. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how museums create and maintain white spaces within the greater context of being an institution for the general public.

The empirical analysis of this study is based on collaborative ethnographic data collected over a three-year period of time conducted by the first two authors, and consists of hundreds of photos and hundreds of hours of participant observations and field notes. The data are analyzed using descriptive methods and content analyses.

The findings highlight three specific racial mechanisms that speak to how white spaces are created, recreated and maintained within nationally and internationally elite museums: spatiality, the policing of space, and the management of access.

Sociological research on how white spaces are maintained in racialized organizations is limited. This paper extends to museums’ institutional role in maintaining white supremacy, as white sanctuaries.

This paper adds to the existing literature on race, place and space by highlighting three specific racial mechanisms in museum institutions that help to maintain white supremacy, white normality(ies), and serve to facilitate a reassurance to whites’ anxieties, fears and fragilities about their group position in society – that which helps to preserve their psychological wages of whiteness in safe white spaces.

“OF making many books there is no end,” said the Preacher, and since his day this fact has been reiterated successively by men all down the ages. Consequent upon the ever increasing number of books was the necessity of providing adequate storage for their preservation and use, and to meet this need libraries were founded. To facilitate reference to the books, catalogues were compiled and provided, but these were generally made by private individuals, who, though they would doubtless make a few rules for their guidance, had not the advantage of working upon any codified rules that had stood the test of experience.

The ability to imagine our world being arranged along different lines is the first step to achieving sustainability. This skill comes particularly easily to artists and designers, who have been trained to appreciate the unexpected connections among facts, ideas, and images. It also comes more naturally to young people. As designers and teachers, how can we help others take that first step? I argue that museums offer the right settings and tools for opening eyes to seeing new possibilities. Students' personal accounts of their experiences in an art museum demonstrate that private, focused encounters with artifacts from other periods and cultures can trigger the process of seeing the world from new angles. Providing opportunities for business leaders to replicate such experiences of wonder may offer a path to stimulating the innovative thinking so critical for a sustainable future. This chapter argues that cultivating both the imagination and moral artistry are vital to moving from sustainability to achieving sustainable value.

This paper focuses on the donation in 1888 of a Sèvres Vase to the Education Department of Victoria after the International Exhibition in Melbourne. Using the vase as its focus the paper reflects on what this donation may be able to tell us about the impact, primarily on education, of a series of International Exhibitions held both in Australia and internationally between 1851 and 1900. The life of the Sèvres vase highlights the potential of the Exhibitions for the exchange of ideas internationally, the influence of the International Exhibition movement on education and the links between a 19th-century gift and the teaching of Art in 1930s Melbourne.

The paper examines one object in relation to education in its wider historical context through a reading of the archival records relating to the Melbourne Teacher’s Training College and Melbourne High School.

The influence of the educational exhibits of the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition held in Melbourne are shown to have had an impact on the design of the Melbourne Teachers Training College.

This paper provides a new and original perspective on the Melbourne Teachers Training College and its foundation through its library and museum collections.

Autonomy, unity, identity: these three themes and ideals have been pursued by nationalist thinkers everywhere since Rousseau and Herder (Hutchinson & Smith, 1994). Zionism, founded in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century,¹ is a particular case of a national movement, putting into practice the idea of a political community located within the boundaries of a single nation-state. Yet, at the same time, the Jewish nation-building process, which began in Palestine in 1881 and achieved its aim of independence in the spring of 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel under the political leadership of the Labor movement, was unusual in its complexity and marked, from its inception, by dramatic struggles over the distribution of power.

THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.

This study describes and explains the ways in which three urban cultural institutions/museums provide opportunities to students for learning in the social studies. Through interviews, observations, and a content analysis of museum-produced materials, I examine the opportunities for various audiences (elementary, middle, and high school students) to engage with, and utilize, museum resources to facilitate meaningful social studies learning. This article includes a discussion of state standards, field trips, and use of technology to engage social studies learners. This study has implications for both classroom and museum-based educators.

This chapter outlines and explains the development of the Abandoibarra megaproject, focusing in particular on the key role of the Bilbao Ría 2000 – an innovative cross institution, public–private partnership, responsible for coordinating the transfer of land between public and private agents. The chapter critically assesses the impact of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the centerpiece in the Abandoibarra scheme. The narrative is based on fieldwork conducted by the author in the city of Bilbao. The chapter utilizes scholarly research, official sources, and reports in the news media to support the arguments. The chapter questions the viability of revitalization schemes based on urban megaprojects. Applying some of the elements in the revitalization mix to most cities may be unavoidable due to rapid and acritical adoption of policy discourses from center to periphery, but expecting to replicate one city's success in another context may prove extremely hard. The motivations of the Basque political elite to attract a Guggenheim museum go beyond the potential (and we might add, limited) urban regeneration benefits of a building, and can only be understood within the political context of the Basque Country and its relations with Spain. The case of Bilbao's revitalization has attracted significant attention as of late. This chapter uncovers the key issues surrounding Bilbao's transformation and puts the process in the context of capitalist globalization and the formation of globalizing cities.