About
We won an award, y’all! The National Council on Public History selected Active Collections as its top book for 2020. Congratulations to all our brilliant authors! Here’s what the award committee had to say about it:
“Active Collections represents the latest stage of an extensive grassroots process initiated by Rainey Tisdale and Trevor Jones in 2012 and soon joined by their fellow editor Elizabeth Wood and seventeen authors and collaborators. This thought-provoking collection includes a manifesto, surveys, programs, and presentations, all with the intent of helping the field to rethink and reconsider practices ranging from acquisition and conservation to interpretation and deaccession. It appears at a critical moment when more and more institutions are working hard to serve their communities, engage new audiences, and embrace new models for their work, while the impact of their efforts is often constrained by continued adherence to traditional collections practices.
This volume shines a spotlight on this contradiction, clearly articulates the costs (financial, environmental, and operational) of maintaining the status quo, and offers practical suggestions for reinventing collections practices in the 21st century museum. The individual pieces are well-researched, eminently readable, and varied in both topic and length, and together maintain a useful balance between provocation and practicality. This makes the book a valuable resource for museum professionals, educators, and students alike.”
Get your own copy of Active Collections, the BOOK
IS THIS YOUR MUSEUM?
Do you walk through collections storage and see row after row of nearly identical artifacts? Do you start out each year with a resolution to finally eliminate your cataloging backlog, only to fall further behind? Do you pass by the Heritage Health Index report on your office bookshelf and get a little queasy thinking about how there are thousands of history museums just like yours? Out of all the objects in your collections, can you only think of a handful that could be used in transformative exhibitions and programming?
Are you slowly being buried alive under an avalanche of objects that only sort of serve your mission?
To some extent, these are age old issues for history museums, but the problems are getting worse because of some important trends:
Americans are being crushed by avalanches of objects. The average American house is 26% larger than it was in 1980, and self storage is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. The idea that more stuff is better is creating a nation with too many things.
The 20th century is impossible for history museums to collect comprehensively: there’s just too much stuff. As we push further into the 21st century it is clear that our museums’ conventional model for acquiring and managing collections is unsustainable.
The bar is now higher for museums. With decreased public funding and more engaged donors, museums can no longer just be institutions that just preserve collections. History museums must demonstrate real public value to their communities or face extinction.
We want to generate discussion and action across the history museum field to develop a new approach to collections, one that is more effective and sustainable. As a first step, we drafted a Manifesto, then we made this website, and then we wrote a book. Now we’re calling on you to help us move from problem to solution.