Center for the Future of Museums Blog

The Center for the Future of Museums Blog shares musings on the future of museums and society.

Read Dispatches from the Future of Museums online!

Get more resources from the Center for the Future of Museums.

Explore all Publications from the Alliance.

Explore the AAM Resource Library by topic, and further filter by subtopic or resource types to find what matters most to you!

Helix: Scaffolding #21211

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today’s guest post comes to you from Tracy Hicks. Here he shares with you some of his thoughts over the evolution of his piece that will be on display in Houston at the AAM Annual Meeting. Be sure to also visit Hicks’ website …
CSI-Museum Edition

By Elizabeth Merritt

This week’s guest blogger, Dr. Joseph R. Mendelson, is Curator of Herpetology at Zoo Atlanta and President of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. Joseph’s essay helps set the stage for Tracy Hick’s installation on the …
Closing the Loop

By Elizabeth Merritt

Over the past month we’ve hosted a conversation about the spectrum of control museums exert over audience input and participation. Barbara Stauffer from the National Museum of Natural History wrote of the challenges of inviting over 800 …
Preview of Houston: Exploring the Future of Natural History Museums

By Elizabeth Merritt

At the AAM meeting in Houston this May, artist Tracy Hicks will create an installation on the future of natural history museums and the influence of natural history museums on the future of the earth. One of the things I love about Tracy’s …
SWF ISO Museum Position

By Elizabeth Merritt

This week’s guest post is an interview with future museum professional Paige LaCour, student in museum management at Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies and volunteer at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. …
Museums & Community: Steampunk Love

By Elizabeth Merritt

This weekend, the city of Waltham, Mass. will host International Steampunk City. Presented by the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation, this “con” (convention) mashes together industrial history, Victorian culture and fashion, …
Campaign for the Abolition of Nouns

By Elizabeth Merritt

“I seem to be a verb”—Buckminster FullerMy beef with nouns:a) they are, at best, approximations—attempts to create clear boundaries for identities that are inherently fuzzy b) As they mutate over time, they accumulate archaic baggage, …
What’s the Point of a Museum Website?

By Elizabeth Merritt

Ignite Smithsonian. Many of you have probably already heard that on April 11 the auditorium of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian was packed from 10 a.m.– 12:30 p.m. with people talking about museums, technology …
Museums & Wikipedia: The Future of Collaboration and Accessibility

By Elizabeth Merritt

Lori Byrd Phillips is a museum studies graduate student at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and the current Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. She recently received a full scholarship …
Trends and Futures in the Economic Condition of Museums

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today AAM released its second annual report on the economic state of America’s museums, U.S. Museums Continue to Serve Despite Stress. The report is based on a survey of AAM institutional members. Some of the news is bad: More than half …