Museum planners Gail Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg demonstrate how museums and cities are using their soft power to address some of the most important issues of our time.Soft power is the exercise of influence through attraction, persuasion, and agenda-setting rather than military or economic coercion.Thirteen of the world's leading museum and cultural experts from six continents explore the many facets of soft power in cities and museums to include: how it amplifies civic discourse, accelerates cultural change, and contributes to contextual intelligence among the great diversity of city dwellers, visitors, and policy makers. The authors urge city governments to embrace museums which so often are the signifiers of their cities, increasing real estate values while attracting investment, tourists, and creative workers. Lord and Blankenberg propose 32 practical strategies for museums and cities to activate their soft power and create thriving and sustainable communities. Follow the link below to watch co-author Gail Lord speaking about soft power on The Agenda, a popular public affairs program on TVO, a leading educational television broadcaster http://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/a-cultural-sleeping-giant. To Read More: http://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/shared-values/how-museums-help-cities-realize-their-soft-power

In Cities, Museums and Soft Power, museum planners Gail Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg demonstrate how museums and cities are using their soft power to address some of the most important issues of our time. Soft power is the exercise of influence through attraction, persuasion, and agenda setting rather than military or economic coercion.

This edited volume provides an inclusive explanation of what, why, and how cities interact with global counterparts as well as with nation states, non-governmental organizations, and foreign publics. The chapters present theoretical and analytical approaches to the study of city diplomacy as well as case studies to capture the nuances of the practice. By bringing together a diverse group of authors in terms of their geographic location, academic and practitioner backgrounds, the volume speaks to multiple disciplines, including diplomacy, political science, communication, sociology, marketing and tourism.

The growth of the number and scale of Chinese museums in the 21st century, from about 1,400 at the turn of the century to over 5,000 to date, reflects the government’s Museum Development Plan for 2011-2020 to open one museum per 250,000 inhabitants, with the goal of attracting one billion visitors at the end of the decade. It is not just the numbers but the speed of development of Chinese museums that takes our breath away—with nearly one new museum per day being opened or expanded in this huge country. What are the motivations for the rapid development of museums in China? How is the public responding? Who pays for these museums and how? What has been the impact of china’s urbanization? How do Chinese museums balance education, scientific research, social cohesion, cultural diplomacy and tourism both internal and external? These are issues that continue to be discussed and debated among western museum professionals in the context of our 200-year history of modern museology. How are these debates evolving in China, which has its own history of museology over that same period from colonialism to communism and from isolation to opening up to the world? This book explores these issues while introducing English-language readers to a sample of the new Chinese museums in case studies and photographs. To accomplish this goal, Lord Cultural Associates partnered with the Chinese Museums Association who engaged leading Chinese museologists, museum directors, academics and architects to provide chapters and case studies on the history of museums in China, on evolving national museum policies, museum exhibitions and cultural diplomacy, the role of private museums, and the impact of museums on society. The four sections of this book build our knowledge of the roles of China’s museums through social and political changes, the systems of governance, the complex relationships between private and public sectors and many levels of government. Section One places the current building boom in context. Section Two addresses how China’s rapid urbanization has fueled the museum building boom, framed it, formed it and in some cases financed it. Section Three analyzes how Chinese exhibitions are tools for cultural diplomacy and key elements of soft power The six case studies in Section Four provide perspectives on the diversity of innovative approaches in the sector. Museum Development in China --- a beautiful, full-color book --- is the product of an international collaboration to discover how much East and West can learn from each other about museum roles, our publics, how we preserve, what we conserve, and our future sustainability—even as we marvel at the accomplishments of China’s museum building boom.

Exhibitions for Social Justice assesses the state of curatorial work for social justice in the Americas and Europe today. Analyzing best practices and new curatorial work to support all those working on exhibitions, Gonzales expounds curatorial practices that lie at the nexus of contemporary museology and neurology. From sharing authority, to inspiring action and building solidarity, the book demonstrates how curators can make the most of visitors’ physical and mental experience of exhibitions. Drawing on ethnographic and archival work at over twenty institutions with nearly eighty museum professionals, as well as scholarship in the public humanities, visual culture, cultural studies, memory studies, and brain science, this project steps back from the detailed institutional histories of how exhibitions come to be. Instead, it builds a set of curatorial practices by examining the work behind the finished product in the gallery. Demonstrating that museums have the power to help our society become more hospitable, equitable, and sustainable, Exhibitions for Social Justice will be of interest to scholars and students of museum and heritage studies, gallery studies, arts and heritage management, and politics. It will also be valuable reading for museum professionals and anyone else working with exhibitions who is looking for guidance on how to ensure their work attains maximum impact.

The Manual of Strategic Planning for Cultural Organizations adopts a hollistic approach to the creative world of cultural institutions. By encompassing museums, art galleries, gardens, zoos, science centers, historic sites, cultural centers, festivals, and performing arts, this book responds to the reality that boundaries are being blurred among institutional types—with many gardens incorporating exhibitions, many museums part of multidisciplinary cultural centers and festivals.. As cultural leaders transform the arts in the twenty-first century, this “whole career” manual will prepare readers for every stage. Three key areas covered are: Leadership change. This chapter explains the role of strategic planning when an institution is going through the process of hiring a new director. A question we are frequently asked is “Should the strategic plan precede the search process or should it wait until the new director takes up the position?” Institutional change. Increasingly, cultural organizations are going through major change: from public-sector agencies to nonprofit corporations; from private ownership to non-profit status; from nonprofit status to a foundation, and many other variations. This book addresses the role of strategic planning during these transitions. Staff empowerment. This manual addresses the opportunities for staff at all levelsto grow by participating in strategic planning. This edition focuses on how to engage and empower staff. A Guide for Museums, Performing Arts, Science Centers, Public Gardens, Heritage Sites, Libraries, Archives, and Zoos is a game-changing book with broad reach into the cultural sector, while still serving the museum community.

This Very Short Introduction considers the history of Italy from the Risorgimento (the movement leading to Italian Unification in 1861) to the present. It also discusses Italy's political system and style of government; economic modernisation; emigration, internal migration and immigration; and the modern Italian culture and lifestyle.