Creating Exhibits That Engage - (American Association for State and Local History) by John Summers (Paperback)

About the Book

This book is a concise, useful guide to developing effective and memorable museum exhibits for small to medium-sized museums. It covers the complete process of exhibit development, from concept through curation, design, fabrication and installation to evaluation with a focus o...

Book Synopsis

This book is a concise, useful guide to developing effective and memorable museum exhibits for small to medium-sized museums. It covers the complete process of exhibit development, from concept through curation, design, fabrication and installation to evaluation with a focus on proven, practical, and cost-effective techniques and ideas.

Review Quotes

Using straightforward language and real world examples, John Summers provides a detailed overview of the techniques and methods to produce memorable exhibits in small to medium-sized museums and heritage centers. This accessible textbook covers all steps of the exhibit process from conceptual design principles through budgeting, in-house construction and installation to post-opening evaluation. It answers the questions: what is a good exhibit and how do I create one? The author includes crucial steps, like evaluating the conceptual design before production begins and describes how to set up an in house production studio and workshop to save money on exhibit production. Available in black and white, as an eBook as well as hard copy, Creating Exhibits that Engage is a great resource for students, staff, and volunteers of museums, cultural centers, and nature centers looking to develop fresh exhibits that visitors will connect with and remember.

As museums struggle to compete for audiences in a rapidly changing and competitive world, creative exhibits allow visitors to think, participate, create, and interact with a space where they are challenged and inspired. John Summers recognizes and calls out immediately the important role that engaging and dynamic exhibits are in the museum 'business' model. Creating Exhibits that Engage is the outcome of a careers worth of practical experience and advice, mixed with current museological theory, that comes together in a single resource that museum and heritage professionals or volunteers would find helpful at any stage of their career.

Creating Exhibits that Engage is a complete do-it-yourself guide for students and seasoned museum professionals. John Summer compiled a career's worth of exhibition experience into an enjoyably readable volume. It's all there: conceptualization, communication, content, contracts, construction, and community engagement.

Creating Exhibits that Engage is a publication to be celebrated because it starts with the idea that exhibitions should be visitor-focused and relevant all the while adhering to best practices in museum standards as well as project management principles. This manual is useful for both beginners and 'experts' because it is complete in its scope, practical in its examples and conversational in its tone. John Summers has accomplished something that very few museum professionals have a chance to do in their careers; he has taken his considerable learning, expertise and experience and captured it for the benefit of the entire field - and for that we are all extremely fortunate.

Creating Exhibits that Engage: A Manual for Museums and Historical Organizations is a 'nuts-and-bolts guide to how to do it step-by-step, ' suited to the resources of small to medium-sized museums. But the book is much more than that. It gives the people who work in small to medium-sized museums the confidence to experiment and innovate.

Summers provides a comprehensive guide to creating exhibits useful to the novice and emerging professional. He explores all aspects of the process, from idea through fabrication, utilizing recent research and drawing on the most current trends in the field, all in a very readable volume.

About the Author

John Summers is manager of Heritage Services and Curator for the Regional Municipality of Halton in Ontario, Canada, where he leads, develops, designs and fabricates exhibit projects. He has taught students about museology, material culture, museums and technology, and exhibition design and planning for the Ontario Museum Association, the Fleming College Museum Management and Curatorship Program, the University of Victoria's Cultural Resource Management Program and the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information, where he is an adjunct lecturerof Museum Studies. He is course director for Exhibit Planning & Design in the Ontario Museum Association's Certificate in Museum Studies program. His experience spans more than three decades of work at cultural institutions in Canada and the United States.