With chapters written by a diverse set of practitioners from across the museum field and around the world, Storytelling in Museums explores the efficacy and ethics of storytelling in museums. The book shows how museums use personal, local, and specific stories to make visitors feel welcome while inspiring them to engage with new ideas and unfamiliar situations. At the same time, the book explores the responsibilities of museum practitioners toward the storytellers included in their narratives and how those responsibilities shift over time and manifest in different contexts. The book’s eighteen chapters represent a conversation among a diverse set of professionals for whom storytelling connotes their daily museum practice. As educators, collectors, curators, designers, marketers, researchers, planners, and collaborators, the authors of this book consider the “real work” of storytelling from every angle. From the inclusion of personal stories in educational programs to the meta-narratives on display in exhibitions, this book balances practical examples with ethical considerations, placing the praxis of storytelling within the larger context of the 21st century museum. The book moves beyond advocacy for storytelling as an essential part of the museum’s toolkit to explore the many ways in which museums use personal stories, and multiple storytelling techniques, to support the larger public narratives embedded in their missions. The contributors demonstrate how museums that emphasize storytelling from multiple angles can serve as a kind of counterpoint to our tendency to fixate on singular images of things we know little about. They encourage museums to both acknowledge that they cannot control the narrative and to embrace their power to contribute to it through the multivalent, multivocal stories they choose to share.

In response to systemic racism and institutions’ implications in histories of colonialism, nationalism, and exclusion, museum curators have embraced new ways of storytelling to face entangled memories and histories. Critical museum practices have consciously sought to unsettle established forms of representation, break with linear narratives of progress, and experiment with new modes of multivocal, multimedia, and subjective storytelling. The volume features analyses of narratives and narration in museums and heritage institutions today, as well as visions for future museum practices on a local, regional, national, transnational, and global scale. It is divided into three sections: Narrative Theory and Temporality, Ruptures and Repair, and Difficult Memories and Histories. Essays from a variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences examine museum practices in history, memorial, anthropological, and art museums across six continents. They develop narratological categories, reflect on immersive and virtual narratives, challenge colonial violence and hegemonic forms of representation, query the performance of heritage, parse exhibition design, and unearth techniques to express narratives of social justice.

Storytelling Exhibitions describes the role and practice of modern 'spatial storytellers' and looks at the potential of exhibitions to shape our understanding of the world. It explains how curators, designers, artists and scientists combine to tell powerful stories through exhibition design. Exhibition designer and educator Philip Hughes shows how contemporary tools and technologies - digital reconstruction, 3D scanning and digital archives – interweave with traditional forms of informing, displaying and promoting to create powerful narrative spaces. Whether telling stories of politics, trends, society, war, science or history, Storytelling Exhibitions provides inspiration and guidance on designing installations which change the way we think. Examples included from: Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, USA Weltmuseum Wien, Austria Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, US Lascaux: Centre International de l'Art Pariétal in Montignac, France Stapferhaus, Lenzburg, Switizerland Micropia, Amsterdam, Netherlands ...and many more

Paul Thomas chronicles a multi-level reception study of the Bible at both the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, USA. Thomas explores the commercial presentation of biblical narratives and the reception of those narratives by the patrons of each attraction, focusing upon three topics; what do young Creationists believe, how they interpret their beliefs from the Bible, and what is the user experience at the museums? The volume begins by explaining how Answers in Genesis (AiG) use Bible passages to support young-Earth creationist arguments, allowing for the chance to consider the Bible via physical means. Thomas then examines how the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter visitors receive the Bible (as presented by AiG) and how this presentation informs visitors' understanding of the text, exploring concepts such as the most prominent displays of the two attractions, the larger context of museums and theme parks and the case studies of the Methuselah display and The Noah Interview. He concludes with the summary of the user experience generated by the attractions, analyzing the degree to which patrons accept, negotiate, or resist the interpretation of the Bible offered by AiG.

Museum learning is a vital component of the lifelong-learning process. In this new edition of The Manual of Museum Learning, leading museum education professionals offer practical advice for creating successful learning experiences in museums and related institutions (such as galleries, zoos, and botanic gardens) that can attract and intrigue diverse audiences. The original Manual of Museum Learning was published in 2007. The editors have totally rethought this new edition. This second edition focuses on the ways museum staffs (and the departments for which they work) can facilitate the experience in a way that capitalizes on their individual institutional strengths. The goal of this new edition is to provide museums with guidance in developing a strategic approach to their learning programs. There is a close connection between institution-wide strategic planning – where an institution decides what course and direction it will take for a five to seven-year period – and its approach to museum learning. One size does not fit all, and what each museum is (or aspires to be) will affect its individual approach. Thus there are many routes for museums to take, many alternative ways for them to play this role. No one museum can be all things to all prospective learners; they will be better suited to some approaches than to others. This new edition identifies these approaches and enables museums to find the paths for which they are individually best suited, to help them identify their own unique approaches to facilitating museum learning. Each one’s mission and vision, its relationships with institutional and public stakeholders, local cultural and market factors, its individual collection and programmatic strengths, its financial position – all of these things matter. This second edition aims to help each museum find the right approach to learning for its unique situation by showing them the range of museum “personalities” in terms of their being learning institutions, what constitutes each type, and what the implications are of choosing one or another approach for a particular museum. A major theme of the 2nd edition of The Manual of Museum Learning is museum as connector; the ways in which museums are facilitating self-directed learning by connecting people with resources. Not all will connect audiences with learning vehicles in the same way. If museum learning is affective learning, then it is the role of the museum to connect its visitors, program participants and others who benefit from its knowledge to the learning resources that best suit the institution’s strengths and matches them to the learning needs of the museum’s audiences. By connecting users to the resources they are most interested in, or which best suit each individual’s particular learning styles, museums are at their best when they empower individuals to design their own learning experience in ways that resonate best with each individual.

The histories of South Africa and Ireland have been tumultuous and traumatic. Both countries have experienced political repression, sectarian violence and oppression that still impact the spiritual well-being of people today. Their parallel histories are of colonialism, displacement and division, and a fight for land and sovereignty. Both countries have embarked on a process of healing and reconciliation, yet there is an ongoing struggle for reparation and/or reversal of previous injustices. Recognising that museums of the 21st century have the potential to contribute to catharsis and mutual understanding, this book reflects on selected museums in South Africa and Ireland that commemorate the pain of the past and the hope for the future. The primary focus of the book is the way in which museum guides, curators and managers share their stories and the stories of their ancestors, and the stories of other people’s ancestors who were caught up in the conflict while interweaving the stories of the authors as well. Print edition not for sale in Sub Saharan Africa.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on E-learning and Games, Edutainment 2007, held in Hong Kong, China, in June 2007. It covers virtual and augmented reality in game and education, virtual characters in games and education, e-learning platforms and tools, geometry in games and virtual reality, vision, imaging and video technology, as well as collaborative and distributed environments.