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!

Futurist Friday: Lend Me an Extra…Limb?

By Elizabeth Merritt

One subset of robotics pertains to cyborgs: “cybernetic organisms” that have both organic and biomechanical parts. The artificial limbs that enabled Oscar Pistorius to leap from the Paralympics to able-bodied international …
Unaccompanied Children at our Borders: Can Museums Help?

By Elizabeth Merritt

The theme of the Alliance 2015 conference is Museums and Social Value. Leading up to that meeting in Atlanta, CFM will be hosting a number of guest bloggers addressing various aspects of museums and social justice. Last month, Robert …
Exploring the Future of Museums with Learning Revolution

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last Thursday I previewed the upcoming online New Media Consortium conference on July 23, giving you a peek the keynotes by Jasper Visser, Nik Honeysett and Nancy Procter. As promised, here is a look the other half of this twinset: a free …
Building the future of education: what comes next?

By Elizabeth Merritt

Many thanks to all of you who have sent feedback and expressed support for CFM’s recent report “Building the Future of Education: Museums and the Learning Ecosystem.” Please accept my apologies if I am not able to respond in depth to all …
Exploring the Future of Museums with NMC

By Elizabeth Merritt

Q: how can you take a quick trip to the future, hear from thought leaders in museum technology and hobnob with colleagues all from the comfort of your own desk? (Bonus: also without the carbon-guilt, time and expense of travel.) A: …
Letting Agents Loose in the Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

Any experiment that overturns business as usual can give us a glimpse of alternate futures. Some of the most entrenched “usuals” in museums are related to authority and process: Who sets the agenda for what we do, and how? This week Divya …
Monday Musing: Mirror Mirror

By Elizabeth Merritt

Of course, the answer to that classic question (“who’s the fairest of them all?”) is supposed to be “you—of course. You look fabulous.” But whom can we trust to tell the truth, rather than just saying what we want to hear? When it comes to …
Futurist (Thursday?): No Phones at the Pop-up Dinner Table

By Elizabeth Merritt

[Due to the July 4 holiday in the US, Futurist Friday falls on a Thursday this week. Churchy LaFemme would approve.] A study by Android last year showed the average user checks their phone about once every seven seconds. When you are …
Tangible Things Online: A MOOC about the Study of Stuff

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m keeping my eye on MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) because they provide a platform through which museums might increase their reach by orders of magnitude. Last year Lisa Mazzola blogged for CFM about MoMA’s dive into the realm of …
Turning the Museum into a Personal Oracle

By Laurie Phillips

I’m always on the hunt for examples of people “hacking” museum content in interesting ways. Museum fans come up with amazing ways to use museums—things museum staff may not have thought of in a million years. This week, artist / educator / …