Seeing the Edges: How Art Museums Access the Educational Values of Storage Objects

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: This undergraduate honors thesis explores how education officers at American art museums seek to provide visitors with meaningful experiences that access the educational values of their storage collection. How do art museums tap into the educational value of the objects and artifacts kept in storage to provide the meaningful learning experiences for visitors? To whom do museums provide these experiences? Where are these storage interactions taking place and what values do they have, if any, that are different from gallery experiences? Where is there general agreement among museum educators and where do their perceptions differ? These questions are addressed, through interviews, by educators at 8 different art museums that represent a diverse range of size, visitor demographic, collection type, and location on the East and West coasts of the U.S. I present results that discuss the two types of storage experiences museums are providing: Formal Interactions and Informal Interactions; their values, including increased object visibility, new contexts and new questions, and personal connections; their challenges in preserving the objects and preserving the preciousness of the storage experience; and the counter-narratives that present different perspectives on opening access to storage. This research fills a current gap in our understanding of museum learning while opening and encouraging a conversation among museum educators.

Type of resource	text
Date created	September 2015 - May 2016

Advisor	Kelman, Ari
Advisor	Willinsky, John

Subject	arts education
Subject	museum education
Subject	museum storage
Subject	museum educators
Subject	informal learning
Subject	Graduate School of Education Honors Thesis Stanford University
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/nk912fk0788

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).

Preferred Citation: Glenny, Heather. (2016). Seeing the Edges: How Art Museums Access the Educational Values of Storage Objects. Unpublished Honors Thesis. Stanford University, Stanford CA.

Undergraduate Honors Theses, Graduate School of Education

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