A companion to museum studies /

This comprehensive work edited by Macdonald (Theorizing Museums, with Gordon Fyfe, 1996; The Politics of Display, 1998) is required reading for museum professionals and scholars in museum studies, art and cultural history, sociology of art, and anthropology. It surveys critical changes in museology since the 1980s. Essays by 32 leading scholars from multiple disciplines explore the relationships between museum studies and theory/method in cultural studies, sociology, art history, anthropology, and studies of collecting and collective memory; the role that museums play in constructing notions of nation and community by way of historical narration; use of space (architecture, exhibition design, object display); and models for learning and education. They also explore changes associated with globalization (corporatization, market rationales, economic and legal challenges, ethical considerations, education/training of museum professionals); and recent controversies and calls for change (notions of knowledge, the value of informed debate versus entertainment/spectacle, the significance of objects versus technology, relationships between museums and audiences, culture and commerce). The text is rich in information and diverse in perspectives; it both introduces and complicates in an intriguing and necessary way what we "know" about museums. ^BSumming Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals. C. Paquette California State University, Long Beach