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Public Value speaks to our time - to the role that museums can play in creating civil societies, to the challenges involved in using limited assets strategically, to the demand for results that make a difference and to the imperative that we build the kind of engagement that sustains our futures. This book assists museum leaders to implement a Public Value approach in their management, planning, programming and relationship building. The benefits are long term public engagement and support, which can be used to demonstrate that valuable returns result from public investment in museums. A range of authors from around the world unpack the concept of Public Value and examine its implications for museums. They situate Public Value within current management theory and practice, offer tools for implementation, highlight examples of successful practice and examine the evidence of Public Value that governments seek to inform policy and funding decisions. The book will be required reading for senior professionals in museums, as well as museum and heritage studies students.

Re-Imagining the Museum presents new interpretations of museum history and contemporary museum practices. Through a range of case studies from the UK, North America and Australia, Andrea Witcomb moves away from the idea that museums are always 'conservative' to suggest they have a long history of engaging with popular culture and addressing a variety of audiences. She argues that museums are key mediators between high and popular culture and between government, media practitioners, cultural policy-makers and museums professionals. Analyzing links between museums and the media, looking at the role of museums in cities, and discussing the effects on museums of cultural policies, Re-Imagining the Museum presents a vital tool in the study of museum practice.

Industrial tourism presents opportunities, both in terms of income and as a tool of management, for individual firms who open their doors - and consequently their local regions - to the public. But how can these opportunities be organised in a way that enables both the city and the enterprise to take advantage? This book analyzes the conditions for successful industrial tourism development using case studies of Wolfsburg, Cologne, Pays de la Loire, Turin, Shanghai and Rotterdam, and makes astute recommendations for cities and companies with ambitions in this field.

The article explores the public diplomacy (PD) and nation branding (NB) implications of the Swiss Embassy in Warsaw opening its premises to visitors during the Night of Museum celebrations in 2021. The research aims to answer three research questions: what messages did the Swiss Embassy in Poland attempt to communicate to the public through its participation in the Night of Museums event; what was the motivation of the Embassy to engage in such action, and how the participation in the event related to the Swiss PD strategic goals. The study employs data collection through field visit and semi-structured interview. Obtained data was analyzed in connection to Swiss PD and NB strategies. The article argues that participation in the Night of Museums offers a convenient way of attracting and engaging the public of the host country. It may serve as a tool for communicating the main narratives included within states’ PD and NB strategies. Thus, the Night of Museums can serve as a platform for PD and NB at a relatively low cost.

Archaeological museums play a vital role in regions with ancient roots, holding a millennial image as the cradle of civilization. In the South of Italy (former “Magna Graecia”) and particularly in Puglia—a melting pot of cultures where ancient Messapian, Byzantine, Roman, and Greek civilizations followed one another in ages, bequeathing a wealth of testimonies—institutions are disseminated across the region, and almost every small municipality has its own archaeological museum hosting a wealth of valuable objects and remains. The gradual structural changes in the role of museums over the last decades and the recent COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, with the sudden closing and subsequent re-opening of facilities, forced institutions to re-think and re-develop their communication practices everywhere. Museums across the world have since been conceiving original and effective strategies based on social media and ICTs. After framing the problem background, the article introduces an overview of good practice and virtuous examples in the museum field and a questionnaire-based focus survey on a sample of archaeological museums in Puglia in order to assess the status of local communication strategies’ implementation against the potential of modern technologies. The survey results allowed identifying a peculiar mix of “emergency” and evolutional approaches in the sample analyzed, main concerns and barriers to the adoption of digital strategies, but also specific strategic drivers for innovation in the very nature of local small institutions. The study’s outcomes offer a potential contribution to the alignment of institutions to current standards through informed policies that can be usefully shared in other similar contexts across Europe.

This article explores how museum practices have evolved in producing knowledge, focusing on a new museum for life sciences and the environment. It proposes a curatorial practice that creates active zones of exchange, bringing together disciplines and breaking down traditional boundaries. This approach aims to produce new forms of knowledge and rethink human-environmental relations. Central to this is the reactivation of natural history collections. By weaving together a plurality of perspectives, material archives become portals into past, present and future ways of knowing. By highlighting human influence, often missing in depictions of nature, it aims to blur the lines between nature and culture. The article outlines these approaches with case studies and situates the future museum within a historical context.

‪Cette étude du cas du « temple imp‪ ‪é‪ ‪rial‪ ‪ »‪ ‪ de l‪ ‪’‪ ‪ancien ch‪ ‪â‪ ‪teau des tsars ‪ ‪à‪ ‪ Gatchina, un mus‪ ‪é‪ ‪e public situ‪ ‪é‪ ‪ pr‪ ‪è‪ ‪s de Saint-P‪ ‪é‪ ‪tersbourg, illustre la mani‪ ‪è‪ ‪re dont des politiques men‪ ‪é‪ ‪es au plus haut niveau de l‪ ‪’‪ ‪Etat ont permis de lier le soin professionnel pour la mat‪ ‪é‪ ‪rialit‪ ‪é‪ ‪ religieuse du pass‪ ‪é‪ ‪ imp‪ ‪é‪ ‪rial ‪ ‪à‪ ‪ l‪ ‪’‪ ‪introduction d‪ ‪’‪ ‪une pratique chr‪ ‪é‪ ‪tienne orthodoxe. Cette combinaison a aussi r‪ ‪é‪ ‪sult‪ ‪é‪ ‪ des trajectoires de vie sp‪ ‪é‪ ‪cifiques et des positions ‪ ‪é‪ ‪thiques des acteurs, de relations sociales et d‪ ‪’‪ ‪identit‪ ‪é‪ ‪s collectives issues de la période soviétique tardive et de l’ère postsoviétique, ainsi que de longues luttes intra-orthodoxes locales mettant en jeu pouvoir et piété. L’étude éclaire l’émergence d’un complexe religieux-patrimonial post-séculier en Russie. Ce complexe est modelé simultanément par un éthos séculier, précédemment athéiste, de conservation du patrimoine et par un engagement religieux.‪ ‪This article presents a case study of the ‘imperial temple’ of the former tsars’ palace in Gatchina, a state museum located nearby Saint Petersburg. It illustrates how top-level state policies have allowed professional focus on the religious materiality of the imperial past to become linked to the introduction of Orthodox Christian practice. This combination has also resulted from the actors’ specific life trajectories and ethical positions, from social relationships and group identities originated in the late- and post-Soviet periods, and from long-term local intra-Orthodox struggles over power and piety. The case study shines a spotlight on the emergence of a post-secular religious heritage complex in Russia. This complex is shaped simultaneously by a secular, formerly atheist, preservationist ethos and by a religious commitment.‪

‪Lors du centenaire de la Première Guerre mondiale en Russie, les musées de Moscou et de Saint-Pétersbourg ont organisé de nombreuses expositions. Cet article étudie l’impact sur les musées du « r‪ ‪é‪ ‪gime m‪ ‪é‪ ‪moriel sacr‪ ‪é »‪ ‪ caract‪ ‪é‪ ‪ristique de ce centenaire. L‪ ‪’‪ ‪effort de l‪ ‪’‪ ‪Etat russe pour sensibiliser le public et la participation active de l‪ ‪’‪ ‪Eglise orthodoxe, devenue un acteur incontournable dans le domaine de la m‪ ‪é‪ ‪moire, expliquent l‪ ‪’‪ ‪utilisation massive des c‪ ‪é‪ ‪r‪ ‪é‪ ‪monies religieuses et des discours marqu‪ ‪é‪ ‪s par l‪ ‪’‪ ‪influence de l’Eglise. Dans ce contexte, les musées publics ont réagi de différentes manières. Certains musées, fidèles à la tradition muséologique soviétique, ont adopté une approche laïque et scientifique de l’exposition des objets de culte. D’autres, combinant la tradition soviétique et la nouvelle muséologie, ont présenté leurs expositions d’une manière à la fois sacrée et laïque, en créant une ambiance commémorative et patriotique et en utilisant certains éléments visuels, textuels et sonores pour rappeler le devoir de mémoire. D’autres enfin, en particulier les musées de guerre, se sont présentés comme des « espaces sacr‪ ‪é‪ ‪s‪ ‪ ‪ ‪»‪ ‪ en exposant des ic‪ ‪ô‪ ‪nes, des images du Christ, en organisant des pri‪ ‪è‪ ‪res et en mettant en valeur la mentalit‪ ‪é‪ ‪ religieuse des personnes qui avaient v‪ ‪é‪ ‪cu la guerre. Le nouveau mus‪ ‪é‪ ‪e ‪ ‪« ‪ ‪La Russie dans la Grande Guerre‪ ‪ ‪ ‪»‪ ‪, situ‪ ‪é‪ ‪ dans la Chambre Martiale ‪ ‪à‪ ‪ Tsarskoe Selo, est ‪ ‪é‪ ‪tudi‪ ‪é‪ ‪ de mani‪ ‪è‪ ‪re d‪ ‪é‪ ‪taill‪ ‪é‪ ‪e pour analyser cette nouvelle approche dans la pr‪ ‪é‪ ‪sentation du fait militaire.‪ ‪During the centenary of the First World War in Russia, museums in Moscow and Saint Petersburg organised numerous exhibitions. This article investigates the impact on museums of the “sacred memory regime” typical of that centenary. The efforts of the Russian state to emotionalise the event and the efforts of the Orthodox Church to become an essential partner of the state in the field of war memory explain the massive use of religious ceremonies, symbols, and expressions. In this context, public museums have responded in different ways. Some museums, in continuity with the Soviet museological tradition, have adopted a secular, scientific approach to the display of cult objects. Others, combining the Soviet tradition and the new museology, presented their exhibits in a “sacred-secular” way, using some visual elements that recalled the debt of memory and in a way that was likely to evoke an emotional response. The third group, especially the war museums, presented their institutions as “sacred spaces” by displaying icons, using images of Christ to decorate the space, organising prayers and staging the religious mentality of the people who lived through the war. As a case study, the new museum ‘Russia in the Great War’ in the Martial Chamber in Tsarskoe Selo, is described in detail to analyse this trend.‪

This paper makes a contribution towards deciphering the relationship between museums, politics and impact. I suggest that this is akin to that between three languages in the early 19th century: Greek, Demotic and Hieroglyphs. I argue that museums should be taken much more seriously by the discipline of politics and international relations. This paper begins with an analysis of the REF 2014 Impact Case Studies submitted under the Politics and International Studies Unit of Assessment. Thereafter, it looks at how museums have been examined in the field of politics and international relations. Finally, it outlines some of the benefits and opportunities of scholars in the field engaging with museums in terms of their research, as potential collaborators, and as partners for knowledge transfer and impactful activities—within and outwith the strictures of the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF).