Museum Studies Commons^™

Ua1c2/47 Kentucky Building Photos, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Images of Kentucky Building.

Proceedings Of The 2019 Undergraduate Research Conference, Ryan C. Winters, Courtney A. Suire, Dillard University, Grambling State University, Louisiana State University, Loyola University New Orleans, Mcneese State University, Nicholls State University, Northwestern State University Of Louisiana, Southeastern Louisiana University, Southern University And A&M College, University Of Louisiana At Lafayette

Advance: Student Research Experience

Proceedings of the 2019 Undergraduate Research Conference, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, November 22-23, 2019

Mimbres Painted Pottery: Art, Artifact, Or Ancestor? Conversations Concerning Repatriation, Treatment, And Considerations For Contested Collections In Museums, Rachel Vang

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This research explores current perspectives on the placement and treatment of Native American funerary materials in museum collections, as well as how museum professionals navigate the associated legal, ethical, and cultural considerations of these collections. Of primary concern for the present study is the Mimbres painted pottery vessels from the American Southwest and their associated burial context. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with various professionals working within and with museums that either have Mimbres collections or those that have relevant experience with Native American materials in museum collections. Patterns of meaning within discussions concerning Mimbres pottery were captured and …

Children During The American Steamboat Era - A Museum Exhibit, Emily Ruoff

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

“Children During the American Steamboat Era” is a portion of the submitted Alternative Paper Plan (A.P.P.) in partial fulfillment Emily Ruoff’s Master of Science in Applied Anthropology at Minnesota State University, Mankato in Mankato, MN in 2019. Discussions in this paper include a summary of the new exhibit, “Children During the Steamboat Era” at the Arabia Steamboat Museum (Kansas City, MO) and the reasons as to why this topic was chosen as the theme for this display. Goals and reasons for topic choice are: to create a sense of connectivity and inclusion for the thousands of children that visit the …

The Bioarchaeology Of The Tugalo Site (9st1): Diet, Disease, And Health Of The Past, Nompumelelo Beryl Hlophe

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Tugalo site is a prehistoric and early historic Native American site located in northeast Georgia along the upper Savannah River basin, near the junction of Toccoa Creek and the Tugalo River. According to archaeological materials analyzed from the site it was occupied from ca. A.D. 1100 to 1600 (Anderson et al. 1995). Although archaeological investigations of the site revealed basic characteristics of its chronology and architecture, very little analysis and reporting of the skeletal remains from Tugalo has been completed. By analyzing data collected by Williamson (1998) concerning the age and sex of the burials, the presence or absence …

Whose Community Museum Is It? Collaboration Strategies And Identity Affirmation In The Amache Museum, Ting-Chun (Regina) Huang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Amache Museum is a preservation project that has multiple communities involved in preserving Amache history. It represents Japanese American as well as American history and is owned and maintained by the Amache Preservation Society (APS), which is comprised of local Granada High School students. By approaching the Amache Museum as a community museum and noticing its distinct collaborative strategy, this thesis investigates the community collaborations and the identity affirmations within the museum, and addresses the question of whose community museum the Amache Museum represents. My research explores the overlapping conceptual models of the Amache Museum: community museum and ecomuseum, …

New Mexico Composers Archive, Unm Digital Initiatives & Scholarly Communication

Love in the Archives 2019

Merging the digital with the physical, the New Mexico Composers' Archive (MSS 904 BC) was featured on screen and in print during Love in the Archives. Begun in 1973 by then-Dean of Libraries Dr. John Harvey, the collection has been partially digitized. Exhibit-goers were able to interact with the digital and physical objects and draw their own conclusions about the pros and cons of each format. A few pieces were newly digitized for the exhibit and they are included here.

Curated by Amy Winter, Program Specialist, Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication

The Wonders Of The Augsburg Cabinet: Three Ways Of Experiencing A Document, Kiersten F. Latham

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Since even before Frohmann (2009) proposed his document analysis on the meaning of cabinets of curiosity, I have been fascinated with them. Their emergence in the 15th century (MacGregor, 2007) is also the tantalizing beginnings of the birth of the modern museum. In museum studies, we often ask what the meaning of the museum is today (Latham & Simmons, 2014); I believe that part of the answer to this question is in these curious compartmentalized pieces of furniture that held the wonders of the world and helped users make meaning a very long time ago.

One can see examples of …

Employing Natural History Collections In The Aid Of Conservation: Streamlining An Approach To Model Species Distributions En Masse For The Preservation Of Biodiversity, Alice Fornari

Master's Projects and Capstones

Using species distribution models (SDMs) in Natural History Collections (NHCs) can influence how humans implement conservation changes in flora and fauna communities and ecosystems. Through the use of legacy data (old NHCs and their associated locality/collection information), data correction (background data or pseudo absences added to presence-only data), and the SDM software, Maxent (and its associated geographic information systems or GIS projected models), it has been shown that it is feasible to create a low budget protocol/setup to project the past, present and future of species population changes. This has been done in the past few decades as more collections …

Portraits With A Posthumous Voice: Reinforcing And Contesting Social Norms In The Heterotopic Museum And Cemetery, Matthew J. Crissey

Museum Studies Theses

Abstract

The following paper qualitatively analyzes and documents over 500 memorial-photographs/etched portraits on tombstones in ten Western New York cemeteries. This paper covers fourteen topics, ranging from religion to gang-violence. A juxtaposition of portraits exhibited within the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery with memorial-portraits on tombstones revealed heterotopic environments creating a public forum enabling the reinforcing or contestation of social ideologies. In other words, the author observed the similarities of identities and social norms publicly expressed on tombstones and gallery portraits.

A Social Constructionist approach enabled the study to examine how one social phenomenon contributes to the shaping of a culture. …

Object Handling With Contemporary Craft Objects: An Observational Study Of An Embodied, Social And Cognitive Process, Bruce Davenport, Neill James Thompson

The Qualitative Report

This study focuses on the ways that people interact around contemporary craft objects. The ambiguous quality of these objects holds people’s attention and inhibits autobiographical narratives. The study focused on the relationship between the perceptual language used by participants and the ways in which they interacted with the objects. The analytical approach taken here begins with close observation and careful description of single cases and working towards valid generalisations rather than imposing an interpretation from the outset by explicitly positing a hypothesis. Six pairs of women were invited to participate in object handling conversations in an art museum setting. The …

A Tribal Special Library And Archives Project: Establishing The Malki Museum Special Library And Archives, Andrea Geyer

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The Malki Museum Tribal Special Library and Archives project is an on-site repository created in order to provide access to information regarding tribal culture and heritage to local tribal members and researchers. The project filled the need for a space dedicated to material related to the history of local Southern California Native American tribes and information regarding the topics of Archaeology, Anthropology and History. The collection includes: books, manuscripts, documents, audio/visual media, and photographs. Bringing together multimedia sources, the Special Tribal Library allows for the preservation and accessibility of these items through cataloging and digitizing the collection. This method allows …

Enhancing Your Intelligence Agency Information Resource Iq: Pt. 2: The Central Intelligence Agency, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides an overview of information resources produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) including popular reference works like World Factbook and Chiefs of State and Cabinet Leaders of Foreign Governments. Additional content describes the CIA's origins and development, descriptions of current organizational components, information about it's directors, and the text of historical National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) and the President's Daily Brief covering topics as varied as North Korea, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and NIE's on Soviet ballistic missile forces and numerous other topics. Features artifacts from the CIA Museum.

“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales

Theses and Dissertations

After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.

Using Digital Mapping Techniques To Rapidly Document Vulnerable Historical Landscapes In Coastal Louisiana: Holt Cemetery Case Study, Alahna Moore

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis outlines a technique for rapid documentation of historic sites in volatile cultural landscapes. Using Holt Cemetery as an exemplary case study, a workflow was developed incorporating RTK terrain survey, UAS aerial imagery, photogrammetry, GIS, and smartphone data collection in order to create a multifaceted database of the material and spatial conditions, as well as the patterns of use, that exist at the cemetery.

The purpose of this research is to create a framework for improving the speed of data creation and increasing the accessibility of information regarding threatened cultural resources. It is intended that these processes can be …

The Myth Of Southern Atonement: Constructed Forgiveness In Public Spaces, Elizabeth Ashley Clayborn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a rhetorical analysis of public space in Arkansas and examines the ways in which the myth of Southern Atonement is constructed within those spaces. Three formal elements characterize Southern Atonement: absolution from the past, distinctiveness in constructed authenticity, and hope for a post-racial future. The analysis develops over three case studies which I argue contribute to the construction, engagement, and actualization of this cultural myth. The first chapter looks at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and The Unexpected art project as a source of identity construction and place attachment. Then I examine The Billgrimage, or the monuments and museums …

Buying Time: Consuming Urban Pasts In Nineteenth-Century Britain, Dory Agazarian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is about how historical narratives developed in the context of a modern marketplace in nineteenth-century Britain. In particular, it explores British historicism through urban space with a focus on Rome and London. Both cities were invested with complex political, religious and cultural meanings central to the British imagination. These were favorite tourist destinations and the subjects of popular and professional history writing. Both cities operated as palimpsests, offering a variety of histories to be “tried on” across the span of time. In Rome, British consumers struggled when traditional histories were problematized by emerging scholarship and archaeology. In London, …

Lumumba’S Iconography As Interstice Between Art And History, Matthias De Groof

Artl@s Bulletin

How does Congolese art and artistic representations of Lumumba “mediate past, present and future”? How do they relate to historical narratives and to the dialogues within the Global South? This contribution proposes Lumumba’s iconography as a case in point of the interstice between art and history. It positions the image of Lumumba as mediating between past, present and future for both the Congo and the Global South more broadly.

Making Do With What You've Got: Improving Your Collections Storage Now, Adam Stephen Guy Smith, Heather Hoagland

Library Services Publications

Don’t wait until that inventory grant money comes through, get started improving your collection storage today using things you have right now or can get without breaking the bank or begging the board! Come ready to share your ideas as well as learn from your presenters and colleagues in this informal discussion-style session. Attendees will leave the session with easily implemented and inexpensive ideas for storing, displaying, and rehousing objects of all shapes, sizes and materials.

Minnesota Historical And Cultural Heritage (Legacy) Grant Program: Lsa Survey Results And Recommendations, Carolyn Veeser-Egbide, Melinda Hutchinson, Michael Lansing, Sherry Stirling, Sheila Brommel, Daardi Sizemore

Library Services Publications

In August 2017, the Legacy Strategic Agenda (LSA) Collaborative Priority Action Team (PAT) for Grants conducted a survey of Minnesota cultural heritage organizations about the Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage (Legacy) grant program managed by the Minnesota Historical Society. The presenters will provide a background about the survey and share the results and recommendations that came out of the survey.

Who You Gonna Call?: Creating A Call List For Your Facility's Disaster Plan, Nicole Elzenga, Adam Stephen Guy Smith

Library Services Publications

Preservation can involve responding to active and pressing matters. But not all buildings are lost to the bulldozer. Many are lost to natural and human disasters like storms and water. A Disaster Plan is a common document used by museums and history organizations. Learn how to develop a contact list for a Disaster Response Plan so you know whom to call when disaster strikes!

Sitios De Memoria: Una Comparación Analítica Entre Los Espacios De Memoria Y Derechos Humanos En Buenos Aires Y En Santiago / Sites Of Memory: An Analytical Comparison Between Memory And Human Rights Spaces In Buenos Aires And Santiago, Henry Shuldiner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Los museos y monumentos conmemorativos son vehículos centrales a través de los cuales la sociedad puede conmemorar y compartir los hechos del pasado en la actualidad. Tienen la capacidad de contar la historia a través de objetos, medios, artefactos; objetos tangibles, no palabras solamente.

Ésta es una investigación comparativa en que parto observando los lugares de memoria en Santiago y Buenos Aires que rememoran a las víctimas de la dictadura en cada país. Me centraré en cómo funcionan los espacios de memoria para enseñar esta historia, la forma en lo que cada espacio conmemora a las víctimas y cómo estos …

Cherchant Toujours La Paix: Le Systeme Endogene De La Resolution Des Conflits À Batoufam, Becky Sigman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This dissertation will explore two subjects: an internship done with the chiefdom of Batoufam and a research project about the endogenous system of conflict resolution in Batoufam. The first part will illustrate the internship done at the museum of the chiefdom. Here will be described the institution, the work accomplished, and an analysis of the experience. In the second part will be asked the research question “what is the endogenous system of conflict resolution of Batoufam and how has it adapted in the context of the imposition of westernization?” After doing a literature review and explaining the methodology of the …

A Cardiology Exhibit At A Science Museum, Viewed As Speech Acts In Sequence, David H. Lee

Publications and Research

An exhibit about cardiology at a science museum is an elaborate form of health communication, with messaging happening across text, pictures, models, and videos. This qualitative case study uses concepts of speech act sequencing and interpellation to explain a series of multimodal exhibits about cardiovascular health. Health exhibits are described as verbal and audiovisual arguments combining assertions of information; directives to change behavior, and designations of risk candidacy—or sequences of assertive, directive, and declarative speech acts. Visitors are targeted as heart disease candidates according to their risk factors, such as hypertension, overweight, and inactivity. Communication research focused on health exhibits …

Morphological Variation In Three-Dimensional Printed Replicas, Robert Z. Selden Jr., Bernard Means, Edward G. Iglesias, Kreg Mosier

CRHR Research Reports

Employed primarily for outreach and education, the three-dimensional (3D) printer used in this analysis provides a means of producing tangible models of fragile and restricted-use specimens for students from a wide variety of disciplines, and is used here to produce prints associated with historic and prehistoric cultural objects. Recognizing that inconsistencies occur in 3D prints due to environmental variables, this exploratory effort was aimed at identifying the geometry that deviates most from the original scan data. A total of five replicas were printed then compared by calculating the gap distance between the nominal (original scan data) and measured data (scan …

A Preliminary Study Of Smithport Plain Bottle Morphology In The Southern Caddo Area, Robert Z. Selden Jr.

CRHR: Archaeology

This study expands upon a previous analysis of the Clarence H. Webb collection, which resulted in the identification of two discrete shapes used in the manufacture of the base and body of Smithport Plain bottles. The sample includes the Smithport Plain bottles from the Webb collection, and four new bottles: two previously repatriated specimens in the Pohler Collection, and two from the Mitchell site (41BW4) to test whether those specimens align morphologically with the Belcher Mound or Smithport Landing specimens. Results indicate significant allometry and a significant difference in Smithport Plain body and base shapes for bottles produced at the …

Looking Through The Trees: An Anthropologist, A Museum, And The Sasquatch, Carissa Kepner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Sasquatch is incredibly popular in American society. This project explores the impact of the Sasquatch phenomenon on those that live in and visit Bailey, Colorado. It focuses on how the Sasquatch Outpost museum contributes to this impact, especially through outdoor activities, visiting the museum, visiting the Outpost general store, and the sharing of sighting stories. This work takes an in-depth look at the concept of the amateur museum, or micromuseum, and how it can contribute to the larger museum world, particularly through the ideas of Outsider Art and serious leisure. By evaluating the processes, exhibits, and procedures of the …

Ua1c6/8 Exhibit Photos, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Images of exhibits at Western Kentucky University.

Resist: A Controversial Display And Reflections On The Academic Library’S Role In Promoting Discourse And Engagement, Stephanie Beene, Cindy Pierard

Urban Library Journal

Libraries engage communities in a variety of ways, including through exhibitions and displays. However, librarians may not always know how to promote critical discourse if controversy arises surrounding exhibits or displays. This article reflects on one academic library’s experience hosting a controversial display during a divisive political time for the library’s parent institution, its broader urban community, and the United States as a whole. The authors contextualize the display, created by a local art collective, against the backdrop of creative activism, and consider implications for library displays and exhibits within similar environments. Rather than retreating from controversy, libraries have an …

Museum Of Modern-Day Slavery: A Photo Essay, Micah Gamboa

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

A photo essay from the Museum of Modern-Day Slavery in Houston, Texas, with photographs of rooms, entrances, and storage spaces in brothels following raids, including artifacts of the trade found at the scenes are documented. Photographs include brothels, bars, and strip clubs where Korean women and Mexican women were exploited. Photographs from the Mexican-American border document the violence the victims are subjected to during their journey.