Showing titles in Library & Museum Studies

Ever feel like you don’t even own the hardware and software you paid dearly for? Ever get the impression that you have to ask for permission before installing or changing a program on your device? Ever feel like Facebook and Instagram are listening to your conversations to show you relevant ads? You’re not alone. Half-baked products and services that chip away at your sense of ownership, independence and privacy are a part of a global wave of corporate indifference that micromanages and spies on honest, uniformed customers.

Until Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney opened her studio on Eight Street in Manhattan in 1914 - which evolved into the Whitney Museum almost two decades later - there were few art museums in the United States, let alone galleries for contemporary artists to exhibit their work. When the mansions of the wealthy cried out for art they sought it from Europe, then the art capital of the world. It was in her tiny sculptor’s studio in Greenwich Village that Whitney began holding exhibitions of contemporary American Artists. This remarkable effort by a scion of America’s wealthiest family helped to change the way art was cultivated in America.

What does the transformation to a visitor-centered approach do for a museum? How are museums made relevant to a broad range of visitors of varying ages, identities, and social classes? Does appealing to a larger audience force museums to “dumb down” their work? What internal changes are...

The Louvre is the most famous museum in the world, attracting millions of visitors every year with its masterpieces. In Adventures in the Louvre, Elaine Sciolino immerses herself in this magical space and helps us fall in love with what was once a forbidding fortress. Exploring galleries, basements, rooftops, and gardens, Sciolino demystifies the Louvre, introducing us to her favorite artworks, both legendary and overlooked, and to the people who are the museum's lifeblood.

Enhance your logic, reason, judgment, and wisdom. Increase your ability to create concise and reasoned arguments using data and evidence to get a genuine conclusion. The Systems Thinker: Analytical Skills aims to raise the level of your mental performance by focusing on the fundamentals of how to use your mind effectively.

Where do human societies come from? The drive to answer this question took on a new urgency in the nineteenth century, when a generation of archaeologists began to look beyond the bible for the origins of different cultures and civilizations. Zelia Nuttall threw herself into the study of Aztec customs and cosmology, eager to use the tools of the emerging science of anthropology to prove that modern Mexico was built over the ruins of ancient civilizations.

Bloomsbury presents Frank O'Hara and MoMA by Matthew Holman, read by Jeff Harding This is the first book to closely examine the curatorial work that the celebrated poet Frank O’Hara (1926-1966) undertook for the Museum of Modern Art in New York and abroad. Upon his premature death, the New...

Do you feel trapped in overthinking and relationship anxiety? Do you crave secure love, yet keep repeating the same emotional patterns? You may appear strong and self-aware on the outside… But inside, your nervous system is constantly scanning for danger in love. The problem isn’t your relationship. It’s the pattern your body learned long before it began. Until you understand your system, no amount of insight or communication tips will bring you lasting peace. This book shows you what’s been missing—and how to finally change it.

This audiobook is meant to help people not acquainted with listening to audiobooks. One day, I got really fed up with having little time to read during the day and with making little progress on my ever growing reading list. But, what if books could read themselves to us? I started to use audiobooks more and more, and I can say it deeply changed my life. I also describe a few special audiobooks that helped me along the way.

The story of the making, loss, and recovery of some of the greatest treasures of antiquity, raising questions about ancient mosaic art and its creation, the work of archaeology, and museum practice. In 1932, after years of fundraising and flurries of letters back and forth, an archaeological...

Using information in its everyday, nonspecialized sense, Michael Buckland explores the influence of information on what we know, the role of communication and recorded information in our daily lives, and the difficulty (or ease) of finding information. He shows that all this involves human perception, social behavior, changing technologies, and issues of trust.  

We believe it is possible and transformative of society that people massively increase their use of audiobooks. We believe that people should get acquainted with listening to audiobooks in foreign languages. We believe that many people are unaware of the potential provided by this way of accessing the same content provided in print and electronic books.

Although dinosaur fossils were first found in England, a series of dramatic discoveries during the late 1800s turned North America into a world center for vertebrate paleontology. At the same time, the United States emerged as the world’s largest industrial economy, and creatures like tyrannosaurus, brontosaurus, and triceratops became emblems of American capitalism. Large, fierce, and spectacular, American dinosaurs dominated the popular imagination, making front-page headlines and appearing in feature films.

The Psychic Lives of Statues explores both the toppling of colonial statues and the erection of postcolonial ones, illuminating how statues remain powerful and compelling forms of memorialization. Engaging with artists, scholars, and activists, Rao offers a fresh and exciting perspective on how we understand our past and present through iconography.

Py-Lieberman reflects on the profound connections between even outwardly dissimilar objects and offers insight and stories from Smithsonian experts. The book explores artworks, scientific specimens, historical artifacts, airplanes, spacecraft, plants, and so much more, contemplating how each item represents different facets of humanity and resonates with cultural meaning in surprising ways. Whimsical, affecting, and insightful, The Object at Hand offers an intimate and exclusive tour of the Smithsonian collections.

People who love art, are fascinated by archaeology, or are history buffs may have considered the idea of working in a museum. But experience as a museum visitor reveals only the public-facing side of the museum, and not its complex, dynamic internal structure. So You Want to Work in A Museum? helps to demystify museums as institutions and to prepare prospective museum staff to explore the field further.

Today, hundreds of tribes use the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to help them recover their looted heritage from museums across the country. As senior curator of anthropology, Chip Colwell navigated firsthand the questions of how to weigh the religious freedom of Native Americans against the academic freedom of scientists and whether the emptying of museum shelves elevates human rights or destroys a common heritage. His book reveals a dramatic process that involves negotiating the blurry lines between identity and morality, spirituality and politics.

Esta guía propone al lector una visita al Museo del Prado con el objetivo de que pueda disfrutar de ella y aprovecharla al máximo. Le invita a detenerse en aquellas obras absolutamente imprescindibles y, sobre todo, le muestra cómo "mirarlas" para percibir aún más su belleza, le ayudará a reparar en la excelencia del artista volcada en su obra y a observar los distintos aspectos y detalles que hacen que esos cuadros sean únicos.

An “impassioned and inspiring account of the extraordinary men and women still doing traditional artisanal work” (The Sunday Times) in the face of massive technological industrialization—by renowned Cambridge art historian Dr. James Fox. “Beautifully written and (charmingly illustrated)...

Today, nearly one million books are published each year. But is the era of the book as we know it - a codex of bound pages - coming to an end? And if it is, should we celebrate its demise and the creation of a democratic digital future, or mourn an irreplaceable loss?