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AMST1510 Museum Collecting and Collections Fall 2015

Steven Lubar Teaching Assistant: Sarah Dylla
Tuesday and Thursday, 1:00-2:30, Nightingale-Brown House 2nd floor
Office hours: Monday 2:00-4:00 by appointment
This course explores museum collecting and collections, focusing on the ways that museums care for their collections, make them
available, and use them for research and education. We will work intensively on three collections at Brown, researching their history,
cataloging them, and creating exhibitions, publications, and proposals to publicize these collections.
Note: Admission to the course requires the permission of the instructor. To request admission, submit a one page essay explaining
your interest, which of the three projects youre particularly interested in, and why.

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What youll learn:

How museum curators, registrars, and conservators use and think about collections
The tools museums use to keep track of their collections
Best practices in collections development, management, preservation and exhibition
The place of collections in museum work
The ways museum artifacts are useful in teaching and research
Best practices for making collections available and searchable digitally
How to conceptualize, manage and create a collections-based exhibition
Youll also learn a lot about stamps, early 20th-century art collecting, and scientific instruments at Brown.
Projects
1. Historic scientific instruments at Brown. We will track down and catalog scientific, medical, and engineering instruments across
campus (not those in the John Hay Library), explore other university and museum collections of similar instruments, and suggest
ways to preserve Browns collections and document the universitys legacy in science, medicine and technology. How can we make a
case that Brown should take good care of these collections? How might these artifacts be used in research and teaching? We will
produce a small exhibition of these instruments in the Rockefeller Library.
2. Paintings in the Annmary Brown Memorial. The Annmary Brown Memorial is Browns little-known and little-used art museum.
How might this collection be made more useful? We will explore the history of Rush Hawkins collecting, update the existing database
of paintings, catalog the other artifacts, and explore ways in which this underutilized collection might be used in teaching. This will

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result in a proposal for conservation, exhibition, or educational uses of the collection and facility, and perhaps a reinterpretation of the
paintings now in the gallery.
3. Brown University Library's stamp collections. Stamp collections at Brown range from comprehensive national and global
catalogues to thematic collections and mail-related items of more focused historical or design interests (e.g. a collection of decorative
envelopes addressed to Abraham Lincoln and sheets of stamps featuring printing errors). Despite the size of the collections, they are
rarely used in research or teaching. Well explore ways to increase knowledge of and interest in the collections by proposing model
uses and experimental projects, suggesting directions for future collecting and management, and producing an exhibition of the
collections for the John Hay Library's main exhibition gallery with supporting digital components.

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Individual Writing Assignments:

Short summary of the collections we visited. What impressed you? What surprised you? What did you not see? 300-500 words, Due
9/23
Write a critique of an online museum system. What works, what doesnt? What is it designed to make easy? What cant it do well?
What would you change? 300-500 words due 10/21
Compare personal and museum collecting. How are they similar, how different? How have museums, and how should museums,
work with collectors? Provide some examples. 300-500 words, due 11/18
Compare NAGPRA and the rules for the international trade in art and antiques. How do they differ, and why? How might they be
improved? 300-500 words, due 12/2
Books for purchase:
Steven Conn, Do Museums Still Need Objects?
James B. Gardner and Elizabeth E. Merritt, The AAM Guide to Collections Planning
John E. Simmons, Things Great and Small: Collections Management Policies
Barry Lord, Manual of Museum Exhibitions
All available on reserve at the library, as are some supplementary readings. OCRA password: collecting
Grading:
Each of the four short papers 5 percent of grade; class participation 10 percent of grade; each of two projects 35 percent of grade.

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Date

In Class
Tuesday

In Class
Thursday

Week 1
9/10

------no class--------

Introduction to the
class

Week 2
9/15, 9/17

Objects in museums what are they good

for?

Tour of philately
collection at John
Hay Library and
AMBM

Tuesday Reading

Thursday Reading

Assignments

Steven Conn, Do Museums

Still Need Objects?
Introduction and Chapter 1

Paintings in oil & water colours

by early & modern painters
...Annmary Brown Memorial.

Sharon Macdonald, Collecting

Practices in A Companion to
Museum Studies

The Annmary Brown

Memorial, Providence
Magazine, 1916

Assignment 1: Short
summary of the collections
we visited. What impressed
you? What surprised you?
What did you not see? 300500 words, Due 9/23

Active collections manifesto

Rush Hawkins Announcement

of AMBM opening

Michael OHare, Museums

can change; will they?

An Act to Incorporate the Ann

Mary Brown Memorial 1903
The Philatelic Collections of
Brown University
Webster Knight will

Week 3
9/22, 9/24

Collections
stewardship and
management

Philately. Introduction
to the exhibition
project.

Museum registration
and cataloging

Skype or visit from

Daniel Piazza,
curator, National
Postal Museum

John Simmons, Things Great

and Small: Collections
Management Policies, AAM
2006 pp. 1-50
AAM, The Accreditation
Commissions Expectations
Regarding Collections
Stewardship

Sheila Brennan, Stamping

American Memory
Read documents relating to
philately collection, especially
Piazza report
Browse:
Steven M. Gelber, Free
Market Metaphor: The

First thoughts on philately

exhibit: shared Google doc
with ideas for project

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Marie C. Malaro, "Collection
Management Policies," in A
Legal Primer on Managing
Museum Collections.
Smithsonian Institution Press
(1985), 43-51.
Other readings of interest:
NPS Museum Handbook, Part
I, 6:1-6:11
Stephen L. Williams, Critical
Concepts concerning nonliving collections, Collections,
1:1, 2004.

Historical Dynamics of Stamp

Collecting, Comparative
Studies in Society and History
34, no. 4 (October 1992): 742
769
Browse Jack Child, Miniature
messages : the semiotics and
politics of Latin American
postage stamps (reserve)
Browse National Postal
Museum exhibition catalogs,
online sites

Rebecca A. Buck and Jean

Gilmore, Museum Registration
Methods 5th Edition
Code of ethics for registrars
Week 4
9/29, 10/1

Workshop: Philately
Exhibition

Workshop: Philately
Exhibition

Chapters 1, 2 and 3,, Polly

McKenna-Cress and Janet A.
Kamien, Creating Exhibitions

Read scripts from other library

exhibitions

Report to class on proposed

content for one case. Due
10/5

Sarah Dylla on JHL

exhibitions
Week 5
10/6, 10/8

Workshop: Philately
Exhibition,

Workshop: Philately
Exhibition

Chapters 7, 8 and 9, Creating

Exhibitions

Week 6
10/13,
10/15

Collections
management and
access systems

Workshop: The TAG

system
--Carlene Niguidula
on TAG

Fiona Cameron and Sarah

Mengler, Complexity,
Transdisciplinarity and
Museum Collections
Documentation: Emergent

Group document: Draft

outline of exhibition,
TAG manual

Begin data entry on TAG

system. Complete by 10/28

Sharon Leon, Beyond Browse

Assignment 2: Write a
critique of an online museum

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Metaphors for a Complex
World, Journal of Material
Culture June 2009 vol. 14 no.
2 189-218

Explore online databases

including UBC, PEM, and
others; explore Omeka
http://omeka.org/

system. What works, what

doesnt? What is it designed
to make easy? What cant it
do well? What would you
change? 300-500 words due
10/21

Quigley, Suzanne, updated

and expanded by Perian Sully,
Computer Documentation in
The New Museum
Registration Methods.
Rebecca A. Buck and Jean A.
Gilmore (eds.). 5th ed.
Brooklyn Museum tech blog
Cooper Hewitt Labs blog

Week 7
10/20,
10/22

Conservation and
storage

Workshop: Project
meetings

Barbara Appelbaum,
Conservation Treatment and
the Custodian/Conservator
Relationship

Visit with Ingrid

Neumann, RISD
Museum. Meet at
Benefit St. entrance
to RISD Museum

Meet with Library

conservator?

Week 8
10/27,
10/29

Exhibit workshop:
design and text

Exhibit workshop,
philately exhibit

Chapters 4, 5 and 6, Creating

Exhibitions

Beverly Serrell, Exhibit labels

an interpretive approach, parts
1 and 3.

11/14 first draft of text

11/20 text final to library

Week 9
11/3, 11/5

Museum Collecting
and collecting

Introduction to
Browns scientific

Stephen E. Weil, Twenty-one

ways to buy art.

Harvard Collection of Scientific

Instruments

Group 1: Organize plan to

inventory Browns scientific

Catherine Sease, Codes of

Ethics for Conservators,
International Journal of
Cultural Property (1998), 7:
98-115

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planning
Why do museums
collect?

instruments. Where
they are, tools to
catalog them.
(OMEKA)

Steven Lubar and Peter

Liebhold, Whats worth
saving?
James Gardner and Elizabeth
Merritt, The AAM Guide to
Collections Planning, 2004
BLOG
Simon Knell, Altered values:
searching for a new
Collecting, in Museums and
the Future of Collecting, ed.
Simon Knell
Concern at the Core:
Managing Smithsonian
Collections esp. Executive
Summary, chapter on
Acquisition and Disposal of
Collections, and appendix on
Acquisition and Disposal

Week 10
11/10,
11/12

Collectors and
working with
collectors
Guest speaker:
Natasha Khandekar,

Yale historical scientific

instruments collection
Greenslade, Instruments for
Natural Philosophy
Thomas Sderqvist, The
Participatory Museum and
Distributed Curatorial
Expertise, NTM International
Journal of History and Ethics of
Natural Sciences, Technology
and Medicine, 18 (2010), 69
78
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s0004
8-009-0010-9
http://www.erittenhouse.org/

Annmary Brown
Memorial collections

G. Thomas Tanselle, A
Rationale of Collecting

Documents on Annmary Brown

Memorial

Guest speaker:
Skype or visit from
Becky Soules

Walter Benjamin, Unpacking

my library

Something Eternal: The donor

memorial, Chapter 4 in Carol
Dunan, Civilizing Memorials

AAMD, Art Museums, Private

Collectors, and the Public
Benefit

instruments. Choose
departments, visit them,
decide on tools for inventory.
Due 11/18

Rosemary Matthews,
Collectors and why they
collect: Isabella Stewart

Assignment 3: Compare
personal and museum
collecting. How are they
similar, how different? How
have museums, and how
should museums, work with
collectors? Provide some
examples. 300-500 words,
due 11/18

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Other readings
Shep Krech, Passionate
Hobby: Rudolf Frederick
Haffenreffer and the King
Philip Museum

Gardner and her museum of

art, Journal of the History of
Collections

Group 2: Strategic plan for

use of the Annmary Brown
Memorial. Draft due 11/18

Philipp Blom, To Have and To

Hold
Week 11
11/17,
11/19

Material Culture:
using artifacts in
research and public
outreach

Review of Scientific
Instruments and
Annmary Brown
proposals

George E. Hein, The

Constructivist Museum, The
Educational Role of the
Museum, London and New
York: Routledge, 1994, 73-79.

Teaching with objects

Rice and Yenawine, "A
conversation on objectcentered learning in art
museums"
Project Zero and Harvard Art
Museums, Study Center
Learning: An Investigation of
the Educational Power and
Potential of the Harvard Art
Museums Study Centers
Steven Conn, Do Museums
Still Need Objects? Chapter 4
John Hennigar Shuh,
Teaching Yourself to Teach
with Objects Journal of
Education, 7:4

Reminder: Script for Stamp

exhibit due 11/20
Group 2: Final proposal for
Annmary Brown Memorial
due 12/17

Week 12
11/24,
11/26

Legal, ethical and

moral issues of
collecting and
collections: NAGPRA,
international laws,
long-term
responsibilities for
preservation, etc.

Thanksgiving Holiday

Steven Conn, Do Museums

Still Need Objects? Chapter 2
Read several articles in
Museum International Volume
61, Issue 1-2 (May 2009),
papers from the Athens
Conference on Return and
Restitution of Cultural Property
2008

Natasha Khendekar
on the art market

Assignment 4: Compare
NAGPRA and the rules for
the international trade in art
and antiques. How do they
differ, and why? How might
they be improved? 300-500
words, due 12/2

Read several articles in

Museum Anthropology Volume
33. Issue 2. September 2010
on NAGPRA at 20.

And/or
Bob Preucel on
Native American
collections

Complying with NAGPRA, in

The New Museum
Registration Methods
Museum News articles on
NAGPRA at 20
AAMD, Report On Acquisition
of Archaeological Materials
And Ancient Art
Report of the AAMD Task Force
on the Acquisition and
Stewardship of Sacred Objects

Week 13
12/1, 12/3

Workshop: Stamps

Workshop: TAG

Collections development
and management plan for

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Brown Stamp Collection due
12/9
Week 14
12/8,
12/10

Workshop: Scientific
Instruments

Workshop: Annmary
Brown

Group 1: Exhibition and

database of Scientific
Instruments due 12/18,
including memo on
collections development.
Group 2: Final report on
Annmary Brown Memorial
due 12/18

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Students seeking accommodations due to a disability or medical condition, should contact Student and Employee Accessibility Services. Students in need
of short term academic advice or support can contact one of the deans in the Dean of the College office. Students seeking psychological support services
should contact Counseling and Psychological Services.
Please be familiar with the Academic Conduct Code.