Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums by Franklin D. Vagnone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums offers fresh ideas for museum administrators and staff to evaluate and improve the visitor experience to their historic house museums (HHMs). The authors, Franklin D. Vagnone and Deborah E. Ryan, use a variety of HHM case studies to illustrate their points. Each chapter in the book opens with a thought-provoking quote by a museum representative that the authors explore throughout the chapter, offering insights and recommendations for making HHMs relevant to the community and meaningful to the visitor. The authors define a key problem on p. 59: “For many HHMs, it will initially be difficult to find ‘a place of relevance and meaning, to genuinely contribute to building better communities and serving the needs of individuals, and to define the new normal in a world that no longer derives knowledge from objects, looks to institutions for answers, or defines reality through materiality’.” The ideas and suggestions presented in the book apply not only to HHMs, but to many different types of organizations. While I was reading The Anarchist’s Guide, I visited a well-known HHM in Manhattan and experienced many of the elements it described that detract from the visitor experience. I came away thinking the director should really read this book. During the same week, I visited a small, state-funded museum with a limited collection, yet I got the impression that its administrators had definitely read the book and successfully implemented its recommendations to increase visitor engagement. The difference between the two experiences proved to me that The Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums is a useful tool for HHM administrators and staff to improve their institutions and remain relevant.
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