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Peer-reviewed article

The community service museum: owning up to our multiple missions

February 11, 2013 | Public Programs, Professional Development, Conferences, and Networks, Exhibitions
In response to a long-expressed focus on a museum's mission and its evaluation, this article explores an alternate model of multiple, intentional missions and purposes. While literature and theory assume that a single mission should guide a museum's decisions and actions, in practice, many US nonprofit museums are operating as community service museums, intentionally fulfilling a number of different purposes useful and desired by the community beyond the purpose stated in their mission. This article builds on Stephen E. Weil's theories to develop the rationale for measuring the value and performance of community service museums that serve multiple missions rather than a single mission, with each such museum unique in its balance of purposes. This article proposes one way to evaluate the alignment between a community service museum's intentional purposes and its received values.

TEAM MEMBERS

  • The White Oak Institute
    Contributor
  • 2014 01 06 Copy of JWJ in England 2011 for Adjust
    Author
    The White Oak Institute
  • Citation

    DOI : 10.1080/09647775.2013.869851
    Publication Name: Museum Management and Curatorship
    Volume: 29
    Number: 1
    Page Number: 1

    Funders

    Resource Type: Research Products
    Discipline: Education and learning science | General STEM
    Audience: Museum/ISE Professionals | Evaluators
    Environment Type: Public Programs | Museum and Science Center Programs | Professional Development, Conferences, and Networks | Resource Centers and Networks | Exhibitions | Museum and Science Center Exhibits

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