2009 – Page 8 – American Alliance of Museums

Forecasting the Financial Future of Museums Pt II: What are our Options?

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last week I wrote about “The New Borgias”—the uber-wealthy who may, in the future, be the most promising source of funding for museums. This week I share some thoughts on other funding models and explore how they, in turn, might influence …
Fiero! Museums as Happiness Engineers

By Jane McGonigal

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2009 edition of Museum magazine. The future is elusive—but it’s still a topic of ceaseless speculation. It has been a constant of human nature across time and cultures to want to know …
Law & Ethics Can We Believe In Change?

By Elizabeth Merritt

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2009 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. Q: I am executive director of a small history museum. Our board of directors is drafting a new institutional code of ethics. …
What Teachers Want from Field Trips

By Mary Ellen Flannery

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2009 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. Ten-year-old Alejandra, playing the part of a fortunate daughter of Virginia patriot George Mason, has spilled a slice of onion …
The New Borgias

By Elizabeth Merritt

In Superstruct, the Alternate Reality Game from the Institute for the Future that ran last fall, player Phil Deely wrote a story titled “The New Borgias.” Deely posited that, in the game’s fictional future of 2019, the wealthy few dominate …
The Post-educational Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

The recent kerfluffle about whether museums should be included in the federal stimulus bill was a depressing reminder of the narrow stereotypes into which museums force themselves in order to protect their access to public funding. For …
A Code of Ethics for Curators

By Cecelia Walls

Originally conceived of in the early 1980s and last revised in 2009 by the former Curators Committee of the AAM, this set of fundamental principles describes core beliefs and critical responsibilities that define curatorial work and …