Museum reference literature

For a while now i've been keeping a sort of 'to read' list of museum books on Library Thing that I think are/would be interesting or essential with regard to museum theory and practice. Of course, i'm in no position to be spending money on these sorts of things right now so it'll just stay a list - but I thought it might be more useful to keep a list here, and that way if anyone out there reading has any suggestions they can comment to let me know!

• The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (Culture : Policy and Politics) - Tony Bennett
• Cultures of Collecting (Reaktion Books - Critical Views) - Roger Cardinal
• Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach: An Interpretive Approach - Beverly Serrell
• Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display - Steven D. Lavine
• EXHIBITIONS MUSEUMS PB (Leicester Museum Studies Series) - M Belcher
• Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia (Studies in Australian History) - Tom Griffiths
• The Manual of Museum Exhibitions - Gail Dexter Lord
• The Manual of Museum Planning - Gail Dexter Lord
• Modern Material Culture: The Archaeology of Us (Studies in Archaeology) - Richard A Gould
• Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles (Media and Society, Vol 6) - Daniel J Sherman
• Museum Exhibition (Heritage: Care-Preseravtion-Management) - David Dean
• MUSEUM TRANSITION PB - Hein Hs
• Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture (Museum Meanings) - Eilean Hooper-Greenhill
• Museum Basics - Ambrose and Paine
• New Museology (Reaktion Books - Critical Views) - Peter Vergo
• Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (Culture, Media and Identities Series) - Stuart Hall
• Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture (History of Anthropology) - George W Stocking

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To Do, revisited; London's 'secret museums'

This past week's issue of Time Out has a feature on 'London's Secret Museums', so I grabbed a copy to see what they recommend. There's only 30 listed in the feature article in the museum, but there's 70 in the online version of the list - well worth a look. I'd heard of a number on the print list, even visited one or two and worked at one (the Garden Museum). There was another on the list which i'd planned to go to before picking up the mag, and it was even on my to-do list: the Hunterian Museum. Terrific little university medical museum - I loved the layout and the way they display specimens there. Fascinating and disgusting and informative, all wrapped up in a pleasing museum environment. Definitely worth a visit!



Having browsed Time Out a bit more (there had to be a point to spending a few quid on it!) I realised that in addition to visiting the museums on my to-do list plus adding a few more, i've got a few exhibitions i'd like to go and see, even if they're at museums i've already visited. So I have updated my list to reflect those as well, and we'll see how it all goes. Hopefully by the start of next month (after getting back from Berlin) I can tick off the Science Museum and Grant Museum of Zoology too!

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Lange Nacht Der Museen

Later this month i'm heading back to Berlin for the Lange Nacht Der Museen (long night of museums), as I had so much fun in August I couldn't resist heading back. I'm flying over with my flatmate Liz and a friend of ours from up north, Amy - going to be staying in Potsdam with friends and heading in en masse to flit between all the museums that take our fancy. (I'm going to warm up a couple of days before we leave by going along to the Science Museum Lates event here in London!)

The last trip I managed to see (including the long night and using our SchauLust card all the other days we stayed):

The Ethnographic Museum
The Altes Museum
Pergamon Museum
Museum of Film and TV
Museum of Musical Instruments
Deutsches Teknik Museum
Checkpoint Charlie/Wall Museum
Schloss Charlottenburg
Museum of Natural History
Museum of Medical History

(My Flickr set of the whole trip includes loads of pics from museums visited.)

This time i'm sure i'll go back to a few of those i've visited because (a) they're terrific museums worth revisiting and (b) there are some special events at certain museums for the long night so we might catch some of those. I'm also hoping to get to:

Berliner Dom
Deutsches Historisches Museum
DDR Museum
Zoo Aquarium Berlin
Zeiss Grossplanetarium

But we won't really know til we hit the streets and spend 6pm - 2am wandering them! Oh boy it's gonna be COLD. I think that's why the program is a bit shorter this time 'round, being winter rather than the milder weather of autumn of last year. More excuse to stop in for a warming round of coffee before shuttling to the next museum if you ask me!

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