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: Summer Reading

    Here’s what I have stacked on my nightstand. With a month or two lull from work travel, I might actually make it through these before the museum conference schedule revs up in the fall.“Who Owns the Future?” by Jaron …
  • Balancing the Equation

    I had the pleasure, last month, of addressing attendees at the League of American Orchestra’s conference in St. Louis. They invited me to share some insights from the museum world about the forces shaping our shared future. As is often …
  • The Class System of the Future

    In creating their scanning frameworks, many of the “test pilots” in the first flight of CFM’s Digital Badging Projects identified “wealth inequality,” “wealth gap” and other variations on these terms as being issues worth monitoring as …
  • Who is the Development Staff of the Future? Look in the Mirror

    /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:””;mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt …
  • Ethics Smackdown: For the Resolution

    This is the fourth and (for now) final installment of our report on the debate held at the Alliance in May regarding the future of museum ethics. In today’s post, James Bradburne, director of the Palazzo Strozzi in Firenze, Italy, makes …
  • Do You Want to Live Forever?

    Phil and I read far more broadly than we can travel, so when Rohit Talwar of Fast Future was kind enough to arrange a complimentary registration to the Global Futures 2045 conference in New York City earlier this month, we tapped Paul …
  • Ethics Smackdown: Against the Resolution

    This is the third installment in our report from the Ethics Smackdown at the Alliance annual meeting, debating whether museums should loosen the ethics restrictions governing the use of funds resulting from the sale of deaccessioned …
  • A Case Study in Survival from the Sacred Realm

    Museums can learn a lot by looking at how other sectors—for-profit and nonprofit—are responding to the same trends and events that shape our operating environment. Religious communities, for example, are challenged by changing …
  • Futurist Friday: The Great Inversion

    Here’s a good medium-length read on the rise of the city (one of our feature topics in TrendsWatch 2013): an article by Edward Luce in the Chicago Tribune on The Future of the American City, documenting the revitalization of the urban core …
  • Ethics Smackdown: Preamble

    Last week I wrote about the Ethics Smackdown that took place at the Alliance annual meeting last month. This week, Sally Yerkovich, director of the Institute of Museum Ethics at Seton Hall University and moderator of the debate, sets the …

Latest Stories from AAM

I’m In Charge of A Museum Store Now What

Category: On-Demand Programs
Many museum professionals unexpectedly find themselves managing a retail operation with …

AAM Welcomes New Board Officers and Five New Board Members

Category: Press Release
For immediate release Arlington, VA – The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the …

“Growing Your Elders”: “Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi”: An Exhibition Curated by the Children of the Colville Confederated Tribes

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
Museum standards emerge over time as the museum sector challenges norms, reexamines …

AAM Member-Only Content

AAM Members get exclusive access to premium digital content including:

  • Featured articles from Museum magazine
  • Access to more than 1,500 resource listings from the Resource Center
  • Tools, reports, and templates for equipping your work in museums
Log In

We're Sorry

Your current membership level does not allow you to access this content.

Upgrade Your Membership

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

Our weekly newsletter is packed with stories, resources, and information for museum people. Once you've completed the form below, confirm your subscription in the email sent to you.

If you are a current AAM member, please sign-up using the email address associated with your account.

Are you a museum professional?

Are you a current AAM member?

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription, and please add communications@aam-us.org to your safe sender list.