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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume of the International Handbooks of Museum Studies could not have been compiled without the extensive help of Gill Whitley, project manager for Wiley Blackwell, the copy-editor Jacqueline Harvey, and the Handbooks’ editors Sharon Macdonald and Helen Rees Leahy. I would also like to thank Jen Rhodes who was an invaluable research assistant during the early development of the project, and Niall Hoskins, who translated Beat Hächler’s chapter. Both Jen and Niall were funded by the Digital Cultures Research Centre at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and I would like to thank the then director of the center, Professor Jon Dovey, and especially the research administrator, Nick Triggs, for making this possible. The project was also made possible by the research leave I received from the faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education at the University of the West of England, and by the support of my ex-colleagues in Media and Cultural Studies. For a long time, this was a wonderfully diverse research and teaching environment in which it was possible to teach classes such as “The Politics of Collecting and Display” along side the history and practice of photography and new media, and to follow the most unusual research paths with encouragement. Although many of us have now gone on to other places and roles, and this tolerant and stimulating environment has changed, it strongly informed my view that museum studies and media studies have interesting things to say to each other. My work on this book was facilitated by the support, understanding, and intellectual companionship of Jane Arthurs, Helen Kennedy, Gillian Swanson, Richard Hornsey, and Rehan Hyder. Above all, this book would have been impossible without the many kindnesses of my partner John Parish, and of my daughters Honor and Hopey Parish. Finally, I am immeasurably grateful to all the contributors, many of whom must have wondered at times if this book would ever actually materialize, for their patience with my editorial lapses and nitpicking, and for their generosity in the production of these chapters. They are academics, artists, curators, exhibition designers, and museum directors, and their chapters are very different but all, I believe, offer fascinating insights into media in the museum, museums’ relationship to different media, and how media concepts inform museum practice.