Bibliography on the Future of Museums

Note: This bibliography includes many citations from "What is the Science Center of 2020?", a bibliography prepared by Mac West and Andrea Bandelli. This bibliography is far from comprehensive. If you have comments or suggestions about other works to include, e-mail futureofmuseums@aam-us.org.

Anderson, Gail, ed. Reinventing the Museum (Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2004).

Anderson, Maxwell L. “Prescriptions for Art Museums in the Decade Ahead.” Curator 50, no. 3 (January 2007).

Anderson, Maxwell L. “Afterword: The Future of Museums in the Information Age.” In Paul F. Marty and Katherine B. Jones, eds., Museum Informatics: People, Information, and Technology in Museums (New York, Routledge 2007).

Bearman, David. “The Future of Museums.” Archives & Museum Informatics blog (December 12, 2006). 

Boonin, Nicholas. “The Future of Museums” (April 2001). 

Bradburne, James M. “Dinosaurs and white elephants: The science center in the twenty-first century.” Museum Management and Curatorship 17, no. 2 (1998): 119–137.

Bradburne, James M. “The Museum Time Bomb: Overbuilt, Overtraded, Overdrawn.” The Informal Learning Review, no. 65 (2004): 1, 4-13.

Cameron, Fiona. “Transcending fear – engaging emotions and opinion – a case for museums in the 21st century.” Open Museum Journal 6 (2003).

“Contest & Contemporary Society: Re-defining Museums in the 21st Century.” Special issue of Open Museum Journal 8 (2006).

Cossons, Neil. “Museums in the New Millennium.” In Svante Lindqvist, et al., eds., Museums of Modern Science: Nobel Symposium 112 (Canton, Mass.: Science History Publications, 2000), 3-15. 

Davis, Douglas. “The Idea of a 21st Century Museum.” Art Journal 35, No. 3 (Spring 1976): 253-258.

Falk, John H. and Beverly K. Sheppard. Thriving in the Knowledge Age. (Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2006).

Garreau, Joel.  “Is There a Future for Old-Fashioned Museums?” The Washington Post (October 7, 2007).

Goode, G. Brown. “The Museums of the Future” (1889). Report of the National Museum, 1888-’89 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1891): 427-445.

Huopainen, Raili. “Museums: a door to the future.” Museums International 50, no. 3 (1998): 51-54. Report on a Finnish project from the 1990s, exploring “the various possible paths that lay ahead for museums in [their country] … [T]he goal was not to imagine a ‘museum of tomorrow,’ but to use the highly developed methods and techniques of futurology in museum planning.”

“Invitation to an Alternative Future.” Mission Models Money (2007).

Keene, Suzanne. “The Future of the Museum in the Digital Age.” ICOM News 3 (2004): 4.

Koster, Emlyn H. "The relevant Museum: A Reflection on Sustainability." Museum News 85, no. 3 (May/June 2006): 67-70, 85-90.

Lippman, Walter. “The Museum of the Future.” Atlantic Monthly 182, no. 4 (October 1948): 70-72.  Printed version of a talk he gave at the AAM annual meeting in 1948.

Miles, Roger and Laura Zavala, eds. Towards the museum of the future: New European Perspectives (London: Routledge, 1994). 

Museums for the New Millennium. Proceedings: New tools to help museums perform their work (Washington, D.C.: Center for Museum Studies, Smithsonian Institution, 1996). 

“Museums in the United States at the Turn of the Millennium: An Industry Note.” Hauser Center for Nonprofit Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2001). Prepared for the 2001 Assembly of the Museum Trustees Association.

 “The Museum of the Future.” Roundtable at the World Economic Forum in 2001.  Three questions addressed by a high-level panel (Rem Koolhaus, Thomas Krens, et al.): “[W]hy should museums, which are largely 19th century creations that have thrived in the 20th century, survive into the 21st century? Should their role in the new century be part of the entertainment industry? Will the extraordinary architecture that one sees in new museums today overwhelm the content?”

“Prominent Australians Share Their Thoughts on Museums of the Future.” Humanities Research 8, no. 1 (2001). A series of mini-essays.

Quo-Ping Lin, “The Digital Museum of the Future” (2005).  A presentation at the 2005 Pacific Neighborhood Consortium meeting in Honolulu.

Saumarez Smith, Charles. “The Future of the Museum.” In Sharon McDonald, ed., A Companion to Museum Studies (London: Blackwell, 2006): 543-554.

Silverman, Lois H. and Mark O’Neill. “Change and Complexity in the 21st Century Museum – The real relics in our museums may be the ways we think and work.” Museum News 83, no. 6 (November/December 2004): 36-43.

Smithsonian Institution, Office of Policy and Analysis. 2030 Vision: Anticipating the Needs and Expectations of Museum Visitors of the Future (2007).

Steyn, Juliet. “The Museums’ future.” Futures 38, no. 5 (June 2006): 606-618.

Touve, David and Steven Tepper. “Leisure in America: Searching for the forest amongst the trees.” Getty Leadership Institute, 2007.

United Kingdom, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. “Understanding the Future: Museums and 21st Century Life – The Value of Museums” (2005).

Wark, McKenzie. “Museums as Custodians of the Future” (n.d.).

Weil, Stephen E., Making Museums Matter. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002).

Witschey, Walter, et al. Museums in Transition: Emerging Technologies as Tools for Free-Choice Learning (Gyroscope, Inc./Science Museum of Virginia, 2006).

Wittlin, Alma S. Museums: In search of a usable future (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970).