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The most influential readers, anthologies, and edited collections that have defined the field of museum studies over the past 20 years have been preoccupied with issues such as the politics of representation in collecting and display, giving some attention too to the history and theory of collections and collecting (Karp and Lavine 1991; Karp, Lavine, and Kreamer 1992; Preziosi and Farrago 2004; Carbonell 2004; Karp et al. 2006). These works, and much of the material published in the major journals in the field, tend, however, to talk generally about cultural practices in museums, rather than professional practice as such. A small amount of work provides insight into the specifics of process and internal conditions of museum work (Gillespie 2001; Macdonald 2002); with some prominent positions, such as that of the director/CEO (Janes and Sandell 2007) or curator (Marincola 2001; Townsend 2003; Graham and Cook 2010), receiving extensive attention. Even this, however, tends to be directed primarily toward the content of collections/exhibitions, or individual experience, than the actual practice of curating/exhibiting/managing itself; though there are some notable exceptions, such as anthropologist Christina Kreps, who describes curatorship as a “social practice” (2003).

More recently, there has been an attempt to bring academic work on a more comprehensive cross-section of museum practice together with research in the form of readers (i.e., volumes of work already published on a topic, with chapters not all necessarily directly concerned with museums): see for example, Caple (2011) on conservation, Parry (2010) on digital media, Watson (2007) on communities, Knell (2007) on material culture and Janes and Sandell (2007) on management and marketing. Texts by Corsane (2005) and Marstine (2005) pay some attention to practice in selected chapters (e.g., Stam 2005) though Marstine focuses more on art galleries and Corsane on heritage management than on museums broadly speaking.

Nevertheless, for many areas of museum practice, we do not yet have a developed body of literature, and significant gaps remain. For example, there is scant attention to collections care and management, despite the fact that these are critical functions in most museums. This volume sets out to build a research base in some of these areas, establishing a foundation for further work. This includes chapters on museum economics (Silberberg and Lord, 7), marketing and sponsorship (Chong, 8), audience development (Black, 6), and museum value (Scott, Chapter 5; Chapman, 12). Some areas of museum work do, of course, have extensive literatures – including interpretation, education, and learning, and of course visitor studies – perhaps because they are linked to well-established traditions of professional practice in the fields of education, teaching, and leisure studies (Hirsch and Silverman 2000; Hooper-Greenhill 2006; Hein 2006; Falk, Dierking, and Foutz 2007). Museum educators have long conceived of their work as a distinctive practice, and have always explored ways to theorize it (Rice 2000; Hein 2012), for example, Kevin Coffee (2007) who analyzes the visitor experience as a “social practice.” In this volume Reeve and Woollard (Chapter 24) provide an authoritative overview of this extensive research in museum education and learning, identifying current and breaking trends in the field.

It should also be acknowledged that outside of “museum studies” narrowly defined, work in art history and curatorial studies, and art criticism, gives attention to “practice,” often referring to the artistic work(s) of an artist/artists (Schjeldahl 2011, 105), or to the activities of curators in relation to the content of exhibitions, rather than to the explicit ways in which they go about collecting, selecting, interpreting, or displaying art. Arnold and Norton-Westbrook (this volume, Chapter 14 and 15, respectively) draw on this literature in their chapters on curatorial theory and practice but interrogate more closely the how and the why as well as what curators do in the museum.

Another recent trend in the existing museological literature is the documentation of radical social practice in museums (Goodnow and Skartveit 2010; Sandell and Nightingale 2013), or what museums should be doing, a trend that Carbonell has referred to, somewhat skeptically, as the “prescriptive turn” in museum studies (2012, 11). We do not yet know how far these interventions have gone beyond the front-of-house areas where they are usually found, though other International Handbook volumes suggest that inroads have been made in transforming museums as a whole.

The best coverage to date of museum practice as such can be found in Gail Anderson’s collection Reinventing the Museum (2004; see also Anderson 2012), which includes shorter pieces from experienced professionals covering a wide range of subjects. Literature with a more practical focus includes a useful survey by Kavanagh (1994), handbooks by Edson and Dean (1994), and by Ambrose and Paine (2012), and the manuals of Barry Lord and Gail Lord and colleagues (2002; 2007; 2009). Then there is the “gray” literature made up of unpublished internal induction materials, and a few published guidelines and manuals, which give a step-by-step account of particular technical tasks such as registration and conservation (Thompson 1984; Buck and Gilmore 2011). This small body of writing on museum practice falls somewhere between the practical material that is produced and used within the sector, and academic museum studies. As I explain below, Museum Practice is positioned alongside this literature, but with a critical edge; it aims for a synthesis of museum studies and practice, what Rice calls the “useful middle-ground” between theory and experience resulting in “more nuanced theory and a more thoughtful practice” (Rice 2003, 77). As examples in this volume the chapters by Barry Lord on governance (Chapter 2), Ted Silberberg and Gail Lord (Chapter 7) on museum economics, and David Dean on exhibition project management draw on this kind of material and bring it into the frame of museum studies.

In this book I set out to bring together the two strands of writing about museums: academic museum studies and writing about museum practice. Museum Practice is therefore an academic project that reaches out to the museum sector. My goal is to avoid a hypertheorized critique of museums from the outside, aiming instead for an informed internal account from professionals, academics, and critics in touch with the realities of everyday work in museums. In her Introduction to the Companion to Museum Studies, the inspiration for this volume and series, Sharon Macdonald describes an expanded museum studies that brings together the academy and the museum and combines the new museology’s emphasis on theory with the old muse- ology’s practical concerns (2006, 8). She calls for both “expansion and specificity,” and a “reconnecting of the critical study of the museum with some of the ‘how to’ concerns that the new museology saw itself as having superseded” (2006, 8). Likewise Rhiannon Mason in the same book argues that we need an integrated “theoretical museology” (Mason 2006, 29). Research located “at the intersection of theory and practice, as opposed to a mode of critique which stands outside looking inward,” she argues, “is best suited to the complexity of museums as cultural phenomena” (Mason 2006, 29). Theory and practice are “anything but separate spheres,” Mason continues, but are “mutually informing and intimately connected.” She adds: “Recognition of the importance of research to practice and vice versa will only enrich both academics’ and practitioners’ understanding of museums” (Mason 2006, 30). It is the aim of Museum Practice to provide such enrichment.