Based on extensive research and decades of experience, museum analyst and planner John W. Jacobsen provides both the theoretical underpinnings and the operational pragmatics of measuring any museum's intentional impact and performance by using 1,025 indicators drawn from 51 expert sources. Measuring Museum Impact and Performance: Theory and Practice provides museum professionals internationally with a clear, very open process that will improve their museum's value and performance by selecting indicators that monitor whether they are realizing their desired public, private, personal and institutional values. The book is not prescriptive, but liberating, as the framework recognizes that each museum needs to decide on its own purposes and priorities. The book is organized in two parts: "Part 1: Theory" is scholarly and builds on the museum field’s rich literature; and "Part 2: Practice" provides step-by-step methods for any museum to set up its own dashboard of prioritized impact and performance indicators. Substantive attachments include: the list of the 51 source documents for the MIIP indicators; definitions of terms and data fields; a long list of precedented museum impacts; measurement formulas and worksheet templates, filled in for a sample museum; and the MIIP 1.0 database available online. Readers will get the following benefits: A literature review of prior work on measuring museum value An analysis of eleven well-established evaluation frameworks that synthesize into a revolutionary, yet practical, Museum Theory of Action A robust and searchable menu of 1,025 existing and aspirational indicators (the MIIP 1.0 database) that you can use to start your own selection An analysis of the MIIP database using the Theory of Action that reveals 14 areas of potential museum impacts and benefits A process to select and prioritize your museum’s intentional purposes and desired impacts A process to determine, measure and compare your museum’s key performance indicators (KPIs) A process to set-up and conduct peer museum comparisons Procedures and examples of how to capture and report data used in your selected indicators Principles for using indicator data to inform museum management decisions

The Museum Manager’s Compendium: 101 Essential Tools and Resources helps you make and implement your decisions as a museum manager and strategic planner. This book’s 101 sections present a treasure trove of definitions, diagrams, processes, choices, and worksheets, in major areas of museum management. Collectively, they reflect the literature and contributions of some of the field’s best thinkers. The resources distill half a century of museum experience over hundreds of projects done by scores of talents and experts internationally for all types of museums. The Museum Manager’s Compendium can be used as: A frequent reference book to consult when facing decisions or planning for the future A source of examples and templates of common museum reports A source of answers and options for strategic planning questions A crib book to extract text when drafting internal proposals and plans A primer when welcoming new partners and Board members A quick study and refresher of key aspects of museum practice An orientation to new staff A glossary for building shared definition among team members The Museum Manager’s Compendium is for museum professionals—leaders, managers, coordinators, professional counsel, contractors, evaluators, supporters, and policy makers— to use often. It is a must-own reference book for every museum professional responsible for decisions and implementation.

Focused on multiple-scenario planning method, Museum Resilience gets to the “how” for expanding inclusivity and decolonization efforts, as well as adapting in a time of visitation and financial challenges. Unique features of the book include explaining worldview differences, value-based planning techniques (adaptive and multiple-scenario), the specifics of expanding museum income through collaborations, and ways of developing learning programs that support cultural continuance. The author has field-tested these methods for 30 years (over 50 plans completed), blending her graduate degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Urban and Regional Planning to design methods for cross-cultural planning. Integral to the book are planning processes for museums to use with communities in addressing these issues. Each chapter contains an annotated “Further Readings” feature, useful for textbook readers. Another feature of the book is the integration of examples concerning potential roles museums can take in opening environmental awareness. The author is an experienced leader in culturally diverse issues, focusing on value-based planning and designing techniques that work across cultures.

Written by one of the world’s leading authorities on the public use of museums, The Value of Museums: Enhancing Societal Well-Being provides a timely and compelling way for museum professionals to better understand and explain the benefits created by museum experiences. The key insight this book advances is that museum experiences successfully support a major driver of human behavior – the desire for enhanced well-being. Knowingly or not, the business of museums has always been to support and enhance the public’s personal, intellectual, social and physical well-being. Over the years, museums have excelled at this task, as evidenced by the almost indelible memories museum experiences engender. People report that museum experiences make them feel better about themselves, more informed, happier, healthier and more enriched; all outcomes directly related to enhanced well-being. Historically, benefits such as enhanced well-being were seen as vague and intangible, but Falk shows that enhanced well-being, when properly conceptualized, can not only be defined and measured, but also can be monetized. However, as many in the museum world are painfully aware, what worked yesterday for museums may not work in the future as recessions and pandemics rapidly alter the landscape. Although insights about past experiences are interesting, what is needed now is a roadmap for the future. Fortunately for museums, the public’s need for enhanced well-being will not be disappearing any time soon; enhanced well-being is now, and will always be, a fundamental and on-going human need. What has and will change, though, is how people choose to satisfy their well-being-related needs. The Value of Museums provides tangible suggestions for how museum professionals can build on their legacy of success at supporting the public’s well-being, adapting to changing times, and remaining relevant and sustainable in the future.

The Sustainable Museum is the first book to outline a coherent strategy for the direction of museums, as it relates to sustainability in the museum and heritage sector. Arguing that museums must place sustainability at the centre of all their activities, if they are to become key actors with a clear societal role, Garthe considers the issues that museums will likely face as they take on their new roles. Presenting case studies from a wide range of museums around the world, the book considers different ways of implementing sustainability in different types and sizes of institutions. Whilst the book clearly outlines the need for change, it also provides guidance about how to change. Garthe does this by considering specific concepts and approaches to sustainability in relation to the different aspects of museum operations. The book includes a hands-on manual for implementing sustainability management in a museum, whilst also considering the challenges practitioners will encounter and considering what the future of the sustainable museum might look like. The Sustainable Museum will be essential reading for museum and heritage professionals around the globe. The book will also be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of museums, arts and cultural management, business administration, change management or sustainable development.

The Effective Museum: Rethinking Museum Practices to Increase Impact features practical suggestions for how to be more successful at achieving a museum’s intentional purposes. These practical suggestions can help you: revise your museum’s conceptual framework revitalize your audiences and supporters reorganize your museum reinvest in your resources (staff, collections, facilities, etc.) reposition your programming and restore management basics. This book seeks to help you rethink these key museum practice through a diversity of suggestions, not a single system. However, the suggestions share definitions and frameworks and a unifying voice and structure. While any museum can adopt whichever suggestions are appropriate, the last chapter helps you explore how the suggestions might be mutually reinforcing. Each chapter includes a) generalized statement of a problem and the need for new ideas; b) new suggestions implementable in many museums; c) the likely resistance; e) a summation of the idea’s potential impacts and benefits, and e) the start of an implementation process. The suggestions vary in form—some are suggested strategies, others lists of options or research questions or implementation steps. In attitude, The Effective Museum is not thou shall, but much more think about trying this suggestion Underlying all suggestions is a new way of thinking about museum practices as a basis for readers to build their own learning and legacy.

Natural history museums are changing, both because of their own internal development and in response to changes in context. Historically, the aim of collecting from nature was to develop encyclopedic assemblages to satisfy human curiosity and build a basis for taxonomic information. Today, with global biodiversity in rapid decline, there are new reasons to build and maintain collections, while audiences are more diverse, numerous, and technically savvy. Institutions must learn to embrace new technology while retaining the authenticity of their stories and the value placed on their objects. The Future of Natural History Museums begins to develop a cohesive discourse that balances the disparate issues that our institutions will face over the next decades. It disassembles the topic into various key elements and, through commentary and synthesis, explores a cohesive picture of the trajectory of the natural history museum sector. This book contributes to the study of collections, teaching and learning, ethics, and running non-profit businesses and will be of interest to museum and heritage professionals and academics and senior students in Biological Sciences and Museum Studies.