Creating Exhibits That Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations

by John Summers

Overview

Winner of the 2018 Ontario Museum Association Award of Excellence

Winner of the 2019 Canadian Museum Association Award of Outstanding Achievement in the Research - Cultural Heritage Category


Creating Exhibits that Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations is a concise, useful guide to developing effective and memorable museum exhibits. The book is full of information, guidelines, tips, and concrete examples drawn from the author’s years of experience as a curator and exhibit developer in the United States and Canada. Is this your first exhibit project? You will find step-by-step instructions, useful advice and plenty of examples. Are you a small museum or local historical society looking to improve your exhibits?

This book will take you through how to define your audience, develop a big idea, write the text, manage the budget, design the graphics, arrange the gallery, select artifacts, and fabricate, install and evaluate the exhibit. Are you a museum studies student wanting to learn about the theory and practice of exhibit development? This book combines both and includes references to works by noted authors in the field. Written in a clear and accessible style, Creating Exhibits that Engage offers checklists of key points at the end of each chapter, a glossary of specialized terms, and photographs, drawings and charts illustrating key concepts and techniques.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442279353
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/08/2018
Series:	American Association for State and Local History
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	7.21(w) x 10.39(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

John Summers is manager of Heritage Services and Curator for the Regional Municipality of Halton in Ontario, Canada, where he leads, develops, designs and fabricates exhibit projects. He has taught students about museology, material culture, museums and technology, and exhibition design and planning for the Ontario Museum Association, the Fleming College Museum Management and Curatorship Program, the University of Victoria’s Cultural Resource Management Program and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, where he is an adjunct lecturerof Museum Studies. He is course director for Exhibit Planning & Design in the Ontario Museum Association’s Certificate in Museum Studies program. His experience spans more than three decades of work at cultural institutions in Canada and the United States.

Table of Contents

Part I: Context, Audience and Process
Chapter 1: The Nature of Exhibits
Chapter 2: Audience
Chapter 3: Workflow

Part II: Concept Development
Chapter 4: The Big Idea
Chapter 5: Brief and Request for Proposals
Chapter 6: Evaluation
Chapter 7: Interpretive Planning
Chapter 8: Text
Chapter 9: Budget

Part III: Design Development
Chapter 10: Design
Chapter 11: Curatorship

Part IV: Fabrication
Chapter 12: Studio
Chapter 13: Workshop
Chapter 14: Exhibit Furniture
Chapter 15: Installation and Beyond

Appendix 1: Developing an Institutional Exhibit Plan
Appendix 2: Creating Travelling Exhibits
Appendix 3: Sample Request for Proposals
Appendix 4: Four Design Strategies

Editorial Reviews

Creating Exhibits that Engage is a publication to be celebrated because it starts with the idea that exhibitions should be visitor-focused and relevant all the while adhering to best practices in museum standards as well as project management principles. This manual is useful for both beginners and ‘experts’ because it is complete in its scope, practical in its examples and conversational in its tone. John Summers has accomplished something that very few museum professionals have a chance to do in their careers; he has taken his considerable learning, expertise and experience and captured it for the benefit of the entire field – and for that we are all extremely fortunate.

Sarah Beam-Borg

Using straightforward language and real world examples, John Summers provides a detailed overview of the techniques and methods to produce memorable exhibits in small to medium-sized museums and heritage centers. This accessible textbook covers all steps of the exhibit process from conceptual design principles through budgeting, in-house construction and installation to post-opening evaluation. It answers the questions: what is a good exhibit and how do I create one? The author includes crucial steps, like evaluating the conceptual design before production begins and describes how to set up an in house production studio and workshop to save money on exhibit production. Available in black and white, as an eBook as well as hard copy, Creating Exhibits that Engage is a great resource for students, staff, and volunteers of museums, cultural centers, and nature centers looking to develop fresh exhibits that visitors will connect with and remember.

Green Teacher

Creating Exhibits that Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations is a ‘nuts-and-bolts guide to how to do it step-by-step,’ suited to the resources of small to medium-sized museums. But the book is much more than that. It gives the people who work in small to medium-sized museums the confidence to experiment and innovate.

Graham Black

Creating Exhibits that Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations provides an excellent and needed manual that puts together all the disparate parts in a cohesive and intelligent way. .. I most definitely recommend this useful manual as an excellent addition to the how-to shelf of any exhibition marker's library.

Exhibition

Summers provides a comprehensive guide to creating exhibits useful to the novice and emerging professional. He explores all aspects of the process, from idea through fabrication, utilizing recent research and drawing on the most current trends in the field, all in a very readable volume.

Ann McCleary

As museums struggle to compete for audiences in a rapidly changing and competitive world, creative exhibits allow visitors to think, participate, create, and interact with a space where they are challenged and inspired. John Summers recognizes and calls out immediately the important role that engaging and dynamic exhibits are in the museum 'business' model. Creating Exhibits that Engage is the outcome of a careers worth of practical experience and advice, mixed with current museological theory, that comes together in a single resource that museum and heritage professionals or volunteers would find helpful at any stage of their career.

Ontario History

Creating Exhibits that Engage is a complete do-it-yourself guide for students and seasoned museum professionals. John Summer compiled a career’s worth of exhibition experience into an enjoyably readable volume. It’s all there: conceptualization, communication, content, contracts, construction, and community engagement.

Joel Stone

Creating Exhibits that Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations is a 'nuts-and-bolts guide to how to do it step-by-step, ' suited to the resources of small to medium-sized museums. But the book is much more than that. It gives the people who work in small to medium-sized museums the confidence to experiment and innovate.

As museums struggle to compete for audiences in a rapidly changing and competitive world, creative exhibits allow visitors to think, participate, create, and interact with a space where they are challenged and inspired. John Summers recognizes and calls out immediately the important role that engaging and dynamic exhibits are in the museum 'business' model. Creating Exhibits that Engage is the outcome of a careers worth of practical experience and advice, mixed with current museological theory, that comes together in a single resource that museum and heritage professionals or volunteers would find helpful at any stage of their career.

Creating Exhibits that Engage is a complete do-it-yourself guide for students and seasoned museum professionals. John Summer compiled a career's worth of exhibition experience into an enjoyably readable volume. It's all there: conceptualization, communication, content, contracts, construction, and community engagement.

Creating Exhibits that Engage is a publication to be celebrated because it starts with the idea that exhibitions should be visitor-focused and relevant all the while adhering to best practices in museum standards as well as project management principles. This manual is useful for both beginners and 'experts' because it is complete in its scope, practical in its examples and conversational in its tone. John Summers has accomplished something that very few museum professionals have a chance to do in their careers; he has taken his considerable learning, expertise and experience and captured it for the benefit of the entire field - and for that we are all extremely fortunate.

Summers provides a comprehensive guide to creating exhibits useful to the novice and emerging professional. He explores all aspects of the process, from idea through fabrication, utilizing recent research and drawing on the most current trends in the field, all in a very readable volume.

From the Publisher