Books by Sharon Macdonald

MUSEUM THEORY EDITED BY ANDREA WITCOMB AND KYLIE MESSAGEMuseum Theory offers critical perspectives drawn from a broad range of disciplinary and intellectual traditions. This volume describes and challenges previous ways of understanding museums and their relationship to society. Essays written by scholars from museology and other disciplines address theoretical reflexivity in the museum, exploring the contextual, theoretical, and pragmatic ways museums work, are understood, and are experienced.Organized around three themes--Thinking about Museums, Disciplines and Politics, and Theory from Practice/Practicing Theory--the text includes discussion and analysis of different kinds of museums from various, primarily contemporary, national and local contexts. Essays consider subjects including the nature of museums as institutions and their role in the public sphere, cutting-edge museum practice and their connections with current global concerns, and the links between museum studies and disciplines such as cultural studies, anthropology, and history.

MUSEUM PR ACTICE Edited by CONAL MCCARTHYMuseum Practice covers the professional work carried out in museums and art galleries of all types, including the core functions of management, collections, exhibitions, and programs. Some forms of museum practice are familiar to visitors, yet within these diverse and complex institutions many practices are hidden from view, such as creating marketing campaigns, curating and designing exhibitions, developing fundraising and sponsorship plans, crafting mission statements, handling repatriation claims, dealing with digital media, and more.Focused on what actually occurs in everyday museum work, this volume offers contributions from experienced professionals and academics that cover a wide range of subjects including policy frameworks, ethical guidelines, approaches to conservation, collection care and management, exhibition development and public programs. From internal processes such as leadership, governance and strategic planning, to public facing roles in interpretation, visitor research and community engagement and learning, each essential component of contemporary museum practice is thoroughly discussed.

An analysis of responses to the "Gaelic renaissance" in a Scottish Hebridean community, this text includes description of everyday conceptions of belonging as well as interpretations of cultural policy such as crofting, local history, religion and community development.

What goes on behind closed doors at museums? How are decisions about exhibitions made and who, or what, really makes them? This book answers these searching questions by giving a privileged look behind the scenes at the Science Museum in London. The author shows in vivid detail how exhibitions are created and how public culture is produced.