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The bringing together of theory and practice in order to enrich and understand the latter, requires attention to both analytical models and also to modes of knowledge transmission. In museum studies, there has been a discernible movement toward integrated models for the study of museum processes (Corsane 2005, 3). In one of the most successful readers of museum studies, which reaches across the divide between academics and professionals, and between museums, galleries, and heritage, Gerard Corsane provides a model of museum work as an overall process which I employ in this book (2005, 3). Corsane proposes that museum work can be thought of as a process of communication moving from resources at one end (objects, collections, information) to outputs at the other (exhibitions, programs, publications), with the central flow of decisions and activities performed as processes of meaning making and interpretation. The value of this model is not only its simplicity, but also the way it brings together different areas of the institution into a public-facing continuum. Heritage, museum, and gallery studies, writes Corsane, are not just cross-disciplinary but postdisciplinary (Corsane 2005, xiii). This fruitfully suggests that the study of, and work in, museums needs to be focused on the institutions themselves as a site of analysis, and not simply applied from university to museums in the old theory/practice dualism.

Other scholars have taken up the challenge to return to empirical research on and in the museum. The authors of Post-critical Museology argue that “museum professionals are rightfully wary of academic researchers who often know little of the practical pressures and exigencies of making an art museum ‘work’ successfully” (Dewdney, Dibosa, and Walsh 2013, 16). This leads to an “epistemic fault line between the museum and the academy” where the museum is seen merely as a “concrete operational sphere considered as the object of abstract reflection by the academy” (2013, 221). According to them, museum staff are often anti theory because it seems that academic theory only produces more theory, but professionals are equally locked into a “reproduction of professional operational practices without end” which lacks “criticality and reflexivity.” For Dewdney, Dibosa, and Walsh, the solution to this impasse is a radical one. Museum studies is limited, they argue, because the insights offered by the critique of the museum and the politics of representation are now “exhausted.” Critical museology is “problematic” because it emerged from a “distanced elaboration of theory rather than from an embedded working through of museum practices” (2013, 224). In contrast, their research project at Tate, London was situated in the “space between the production of knowledge about the museum produced by the academy and the reproduction of knowledge in the practices of the museum” (2013, 16), including the “know-how of operational practices and know-why of strategic knowledge” (2013, 221).

Developing a postcritical museum studies for the twenty-first century, one that incorporates practice as an integral element in the study of museums, involves not only (re)fashioning theoretical frameworks, and particularly the social and cultural dimensions of theory, but also taking account of the diversity of current practice. Alongside the theorizing of museum work, in this volume scholars attempt to take current practice seriously as an object of analysis in its own right and produce work that reflects the inside view of practitioners.

Also important for developing a new museum studies is the training of museum practitioners in partnership with academic museum studies. As Lois Silverman and Mark O’Neill (2012, 195) point out, some traditionalists working in museums do not appreciate the value of theory at all, seeing it as the abstract product of ivory-tower academics with little relevance to the demands of their working day. Yet, because museum work often leaves little opportunity for reflection on practice, the challenge is for academia to help provide this in order to produce a “deeper and more complex understanding of the museum experience” (2012, 193–194). Part of the problem is how and where the learning takes place – is it best configured as training located in the museum or scholarship in the university? John E. Simmons (2006) writes that in the United States museum studies has matured as a form of university-based training, but there is still a need for standards in professional training that are endorsed by professional museum organizations – a point demonstrated by his chapter in this volume, which sketches out the history, theory, and practice of collection care and management. Simmons believes this problem can be overcome by implementing Suzanne MacLeod’s conceptual model which combines these elements (Simmons 2006, 124, figure 2). This model has been visualized in a diagram below (see Figure 0.1).

The longstanding tension between theory and practice has therefore been partially resolved by an “integrated understanding of museum studies as training, education, research, and practice … in relation to the profession as a whole” (MacLeod 2001, 53). University-based museum studies (and other disciplines) and museum-based practice should form a single hinge between town and gown. MacLeod points out that theory/practice is a false split; in its place she advocates theory-as-practice and vice versa:

The museum practice dimension of museum studies suggests both the incorporation of research findings and training and education (however formal or informal) into the day-to-day practices of the museum as well as the integration of practice- based research findings into training, education and other types of research projects. (2001, 57)

FIGURE 0.1 Integrated model of museum studies incorporating research, practice, training, and education (after Simmons 2006, 124).

This model allows for flexible relationships between the museum sector and training providers – professionals in the field become researchers, and academics are immersed in practice – so that everyone collaborates in the service of common goals. An appealing synthesis of research-led practice and practical theory, it demonstrates that museum studies is “more than the study of museums” (MacLeod 2001, 58). There is strong potential for synergies that can fill the apparent gap: university courses can be aligned with sub-degree industry training, so that short courses and workshops in museums can link up to and count toward degree pro- grams with their placements and internships. This strategic positioning of sector and tertiary provider is in line with international moves to identify standards, core competencies, and a central body of knowledge in order to provide uniformity of skills across art galleries, museum, and heritage organizations (see n. 1 below), and also museums, libraries, archives, and similar organizations (Salzburg Curriculum 2013). There is the potential here – already being realized in Canada, for example (see Carter, Castle, and Soren 2011; Dubuc 2011; Teather 1991; 2009) – for universities and the museum sector to work together in partnership to provide a continuous and embedded learning stream that goes all the way from introductory skills in museum-based training to postgraduate degrees, much as teacher-training for the education sector is integrated within universities.