Facing the Future
A House of Many Stories: The Gibson House Museum and Narratives of Inclusion and Exclusion View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Todd Gernes
The Gibson House Museum, located in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, has a significant track record of acknowledging and incorporating LGBTQ history into its programs, presentations, and tours. And yet this history is complex. The museum, a kind of Victorian time capsule, was founded by Boston poet Charles Hammond Gibson, Jr. (1874-1954) in the mid-twentieth century as a literary monument and shrine to himself; however, family members and the early board of directors were never really comfortable with Gibson’s eccentricity and sexual identity and in the early years sought to “eradicate his problematic presence” from museum’s collections, tours, and presentations. Reckoning with the museum’s engagement and disengagement with issues of race and class is still an open question. This paper explores the dialectics of inclusion and exclusion which inform and yet fragment the museum’s self-fashioning and ongoing reimagining.
Anatomy of Contemporary Collecting Policy of Museums: A Comparison between the V&A Museum and the National Museum of Taiwan History View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shang Ching Yeh
Museums around the world have been endeavoring to implement contemporary collecting projects. It is crucial for such projects to align with a museum's collection policy to ensure high-quality collection management and maintain public trust. This study delves into the specific details of museums' collection policies that govern contemporary collecting. Two museums were selected as examples: The V&A Museum and the National Museum of Taiwan History (NMTH) in Taiwan. The author employed document analysis and conducted in-depth interviews to examine the collection policies of both museums. The research findings revealed both similarities and significant differences in the contemporary collecting policies of the V&A and the NMTH. While both museums placed emphasis on contemporary collecting and had regulated accession processes, with gifts being a major acquisition method and a lack of storage being a common challenge, notable distinctions were observed. Firstly, contemporary collecting has been a central aspect of the V&A's mission, whereas the NMTH initiated contemporary collecting projects only after recognizing their importance. Secondly, the V&A Museum outlined collections development within its collection development policy, while the NMTH did not. Lastly, the V&A introduced Rapid Response Collecting to enable immediate display, whereas the NMTH does not have a comparable prompt display mechanism. Based on the examination of the V&A and the NMTH, the author proposes that key elements of a collection policy, including the statement of authority, scope of collections, collections development, among others, should be thoroughly reviewed and incorporated into the collection policy when museums embark on contemporary collecting projects.
Models of Decision Making to Address the Collections/Emissions Bind: Collaborative Approaches to Addressing the Necessary Shifts in Preservation Standards to Meet Emissions Goals View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Liam Sweeney
This summer climate scientists have recorded the highest global temperatures in history. As climate change accelerates, every institution and field must consider how to do their part in order to reduce carbon emissions in an attempt to slow the process of global warming. Museums are among the most energy expensive institutions there are, with strict requirements for temperature regulation of collections that are stored in expansive galleries and storage facilities. While organizations like IPI and ECP have demonstrated expertise in gathering preservation and environmental data and tracking energy usage, there is a lack of research on the organizational decision making behavior that determines how and whether these institutions can solve the problem of maintaining safe conditions for their collections while reducing energy usage. Building on existing research published from the Kress and Mellon funded Art Museum Director Survey, this study shares findings about how museums have been impacted by climate change so far, how they are evaluating their climate impact, and how they are planning to adapt in order to be resilient in an unpredictable future. The paper expands to consider future research which will study decision making among institutional leaders as they try to safely reduce energy usage. This study will impact museums' communities by demonstrating the internal processes necessary to allow these public institutions to demonstrate responsible stewardship while optimizing for environmental sustainability.
