Libraries and Museums Books

I wasn't aware until recently that this was available as a book. The copy I have is a catalog to a 1968 exhibition of FSA photos at the Newport Harbor Art Museum. It has fifty-six photos by fifteen photographers, impressively printed in 200dpi but the really interesting thing about the publication are the seven pages of Roy Stryker's shooting scripts.

Good as the FSA photographers were I feel it wasn't just their creativity that created thousands of memorable images, Stryker's shooting script made them focus on what was required so that eventually the FSA collection became the most complete photo coverage of any nation at a particularly trying time.

Though there are only seven pages devoted to the scripts what is included is pretty impressive, a section called Highway details sixty-seven visual situations to look for, Small Towns lists twenty-six, Railroads includes over seventy items to photograph, American Habit again has over seventy. The book also includes interviews with Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon and Roy Stryker. The back includes a list of the 256 photos in the original exhibition with detailed captions and Library of Congress catalog numbers.

Despite being only seventy pages long I've always treasured this little catalog, it seems to embody the spirit and integrity of the FSA collection and I think it well worth searching out.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Charming. Informative. And beautifully laid-out, this is a must for lovers of Judaica, and art in general. Highly recommended.

This book provides an excellent summary of current museum learning theory. Concise and engaging, it includes a compendium of virtually all of the relevant research and concepts in the hot topic of audience-centered and informal museum learning. This is pursuasively knit together to suggest a powerful approach - the constructivist museum. A must-read for anyone interested in understanding how visitors actually make meaning from their museum experiences.

This book was required reading for a Museum Studies class at GW, and everyone who works in a Museum should be familliar with it! It is a great reference guide as well.

Da Vinci's anatomical drawing is not simply scientific record. It is a great man's comtemplation on humanity through the very basics of physical form. To back up this kind of inquiry, you need a god to in your soul or you have to be the god youself. Without this spiritual aspect, scientific research would turn into something crudely utilitarian or cruelly inhumane as we all have noticed in so many cases in the modern world.

Da Vince is not some mad scientist who messed up with corpses secretly as in a Frenkenstein movie. But do we ever noticed their difference in this country, the supposed most advance country in technology and science? This book would make you think.

Written by Stephen E. Weil experienced and witty commentator on the museum community who is currently the Scholar Emeritus in the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Education and Museum Studies, Making Museums Matter is an outstanding selection of informed and informative essays about the difference that museums make, their role in preserving and showcasing history and art to the public, cost-related problems plaguing museums today, and a great deal more. Making Museums Matter is enthusiastically recommended as a most thoughtful and authoritative treatise on these notable and noble institutions.

Columbia University is one of the greatest classical urban spaces in this country, and this book is a detailed and well-researched discussion of how it came to be. Fascinating if you're into its topic. Also see Andrew Dolkhart's book on Morningside Heights.

Williams' book is excellent. While it has been hard not to notice the swell of support worldwide for these memorial museums, no one (as far as I know) has approached them to explore what's in them, why they are being built, and what they mean for the preservation of memory.

The book effectively considers how histories of genocide, terrorism and other terrible events are shown through objects, in photos, and in architectural symbolism. Williams has a sharp critical eye and a fluid, likeable writing style. He asks some broad philosophical questions about what we expect to gain from the construction of museums devoted to the most awful aspects of our shared heritage. Very highly recommended.

Mission 85. August 19, 1943. Eighth Air Force, ETO. Few have heard of Mission 85. The previous 8th AF mission, Mission 84, was two days earlier on August 17 - a combined raid to bomb aircraft and ball bearing factories in Regensburg and Schweinfurt: perhaps the most renowned raid by the Eighth Air Force during the war: one with horrendous losses of aircrews. Mission 85 was to be a milk run. The Mighty Eighth had incurred so many losses on August 17, the Combat Wing flew with two of its Groups comprised of Composite Groups. The only intact Group was made up of three Squadrons of the 303rd BG. The targets for the day were Gilze-Rijen and Flushing airfields in Holland. Author de Jong has researched this mission in great detail and presents it in a large format and most readable fashion. The planning of the raid is developed and illustrated. He emphatically demonstrates in his material that there were no milk runs. Danger and losses were always present. Every raid had its unique outcome. In this book, the planning and operational details of the mission are painstakingly researched and presented, allowing the reader to become immersed in the action as it occurs. After laying out the combat history of the Eighth Air Force and the plans for Mission 85, de Jong details the diversionary raids of that days, the fighter sweeps, and the response of the Germans. Personal interviews throughout the book add fascinating stories and depth to the entire volume. The author has produced a most thorough story of one supposedly insignificant raid of the Eighth Air Force, emphasizing within it the fact that each raid affected airmen and civilians of both sides in a most unforgettable manner. Few, if any, volumes allow the reader to become a participant in a mission as this one does. The author has done all the research and the legwork for you, and presents it to the reader so he may feel the effects. The appeal is there for the younger generation as well for every airman who flew into the dangers of air combat. High quality large photos throughout and a large slick-page format make this book most pleasurable to read.

Museum Basics is an amazing resource for anyone studying museology, conservation and preservation! Great perspective on european museology!