Bookshelf
NYCMER has asked selected presenters and leading members of our field to share the names of important and interesting books relevant to museum education. Click on a name to find their bibliography of recommended books.
Randi Korn's Bookshelf
January 2006
"The books on my reading list are not all 'museum education' books, but I think museum educators need to also read works outside their specific field so they gain insight to other ways of knowing and thinking."
Randi Korn is founding director of Randi Korn and Associates, Inc., a firm dedicated to helping museums provide visitors with meaningful experiences through studying visitors and conducting exhibition and program evaluations.
Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't. NY: HarperCollins, 2001.
Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Patton, Michael Quinn. Utilization-Focused Evaluation: The New Century Text. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 1996.
Payne, Stanley. The Art of Asking Questions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Roberts, Lisa C. From Knowledge to Narrative: Educators & the Changing Museum. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
Vygotsky, Lev. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Weil, Stephen E. Making Museums Matter. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002.
Elaine Heumann Gurian’s Bookshelf
January 2006
"This is a good time for me because my own book has just come out. It is called Civilizing the Museum, the Collected Writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian, and is published by Routledge, 2006.
I am also reading a number of books at the moment. I am especially enjoying a huge compilation of new and old articles called Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts, edited by Bettina Messias Carbonell, and published by Blackwell Publishing, 2004"
Elaine Heumann Gurian is a consultant/advisor to a number of museum and visitor centers that are beginning, building, or reinventing themselves. Her current clients include the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution; the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution; National Children's Museum, Washington DC; and the Pew Foundation, Philadelphia, PA. In 2004, The American Association of Museums awarded Elaine Heumann Gurian the American museum community's highest award, "The Distinguished Service to Museums Award." In 1985, Gurian was presented with the "Museum Educator's Award for Excellence," America's most prestigious award for museum educators.
The basic bookshelf:
Any book by Stephen E. Weil
Alexander, Edward Porter. Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums. AltaMira Press, 1979.
Hein, George E. Learning in the Museum. Taylor & Francis, Inc., 1998.
Lord, Barry and Gail Dexter Lord. The Manual of Museum Management. AltaMira Press, 2002.
Lord, Barry and Gail Dexter Lord. The Manual of Museum Exhibitions. AltaMira Press, 2002.
Sullivan, Lawrence E. and Alison Edwards, ed. Stewards of the Sacred. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums, 2004.