Museum and Gallery Publishing ― From Theory to Case Study

Museums, art galleries, historic sites, libraries and temporary exhibitions publish physical books and electronic resources in various formats for their visitors and for a wider non-visiting audience. These printed materials represent their institutions locally, regionally and globally while also contributing to the complex media landscape navigated by museum audiences for entertainment and education. This book presents the theory and practice of general and scholarly publishing associated with museum and gallery collections. Sally Hughes examines the production and reception of these texts, extending our understanding of this important but hitherto overlooked topic which includes issues of curators’ and artists’ agency, funding and sponsorship, marketing, visitor studies, informal education and retail. Using both theory and case studies from around the world, this book will be essential reading for researchers in the fields of museum, heritage, art and publishing studies, as well as practitioners working in museums, heritage and science centres and art galleries.

Sally Hughes is Principle Lecturer in Publishing, Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, Oxford Brookes University, UK