University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 2005. 196 pp.

Reviewed by Mary Case

In 1995 Bob Janes published a book in which he stated he had no idea how difficult it would be to change a museum until he got his first death threat.(1) Despite that harrowing event, he soldiered on and now, with Gerald T. Conaty, Janes gives us Looking Reality in the Eye: Museums and Social Responsibility, case studies of socially responsible museum work in North America with one revelatory, heartrending description of the fate of Maori human remains from Auckland.

In the authors' view, social responsibility in museums constitutes a search for meaning amid the complexities of change, a move beyond the imperatives of the marketplace, an antidote to extreme, narcissistic individualism exemplified by American Baby Boomerism, and the explicit interdependence of staff, board, volunteers, members, visitors, and the wider community. A socially responsibility museum seeks to understand the issues of relevance to its community and to direct the museum's resources to those needs. Nothing new in this, obviously, as the authors acknowledge, except specificity of purpose, depth of philosophy, Herculean persistence, and in all cases, it should be noted, something intangible in the persona and personality of the leader of each of the organizations described.

Consider Ruth J. Abrams, President, Lower East Side Tenement Museum and experienced activist working on behalf of racial and gender equality and civil liberties. Dr. Abrams has recalibrated the very nature of how historic sites in the U.S. are presented by trying to create spaces where visitors ask questions like: How will we create an equitable society? She determined that objects would support the story of the people living in the tenements, not the other way around; the tenements act as a stage set for the stories. It's shocking to realize that the Tenement Museum presents the first female household head ever presented in a National Historic Site! Programs include immigrant resource guides and training for children on how to recognize housing code violations and what to do about it. Every full-time staff member conducts public tours, participates in weekly learning programs and the annual study plan, and receives health insurance. Relevant evaluation criteria, stemming from the mission, accompany every program and aspect of museum work. History is viewed as an instrument of public value and a foundation for civic engagement.

http://www.tenement.org
http://www.sitesofconscience.org

Joanne DiCosimo, writing about the Canadian Museum of Nature, is undoubtedly a scientist. As such she approaches her work systemically, insisting on viable models, considers big questions, high-level collaborations and partnerships, defines terms, evaluates, interlinks and overlaps studies, convenes formal meetings, and devises methodical, deliberate, and whole-systems approaches. DiCosimo's results - an ongoing process - can be viewed on their website as transparency hallmarks the work. This essay particularly speaks to the noble struggle to define how a major organization focuses on the contributions it may make because of its particular position as a national museum. Anyone working for or with a big institution or within a big partnership will gain enormous insight from DiCosimo's perspective.

http://www.nature.ca/reno/index_e.cfm

Gerald Conaty and Beth Carter from the Glenbow Museum took a completely different approach when developing the exhibit presenting the culture and history of the Blackfoot-speaking people. The Glenbow team took the "opportunity to move away from a safe, neutral position if, by so doing, we could … enhance the human rights debate." The relationships became paramount. All decision-making was consensus. Everyone car-pooled to centrally located meetings. Walking away from a typical linear exhibit storyline wasn't easy but walk away they did in favor of non-linear themes and concepts, often repetitive. It's particularly encouraging to read Conaty and Carter along with DiCosimo as it signals that the museum world is big enough to accommodate a wide variety of decision-making techniques, approaches, and processes. One size does not fit all, any more than one size fits all communities or all social needs.

http://www.glenbow.org/exhibitions/permanent.cfm

When the Liberty Science Center opened in 1993, it seemed to founder on the banks of the Hudson River where it is located near Jersey City. Built as a regional economic driver, it began life economically unstable. Through thoughtful persistence the museum's director, Emlyn Koster, can now be credited with developing (certainly, he would say, with the help of an extraordinary board, staff, volunteers, and partners) an unusually varied suite of onsite, offsite, and online educational programs. Koster's essay, written with VP for Education Stephen Baumann, focuses mostly on these programs: aligning field trips, traveling science, videoconferencing, and curriculum material to reach the state's most at-risk youth; The Unfiltered Truth: Tackling Youth Smoking; and Cardiac Classroom where medical operations are narrowcast into local classrooms and students speak to nurses, doctors, and technicians opening career opportunities. Koster and Baumann demonstrate how each program aligns with the museum's mission: an innovative learning resource for lifelong exploration of nature, humanity and technology, supporting the growth of our diverse region and promoting informed stewardship of the world.

http://www.lsc.org

I've reported here on four of the nine essays in this book. All are worth reading. Each has important philosophical underpinnings and great programmatic ideas to steal. I'm sure the authors hope you will. I do.

Last year I reviewed Whose Muse, edited by James Cuno, a book antithetical to this one. Cuno's book speaks to the primacy of the object in museums and is a useful reminder of that critical element of our work. With Looking Reality in the Eye, Janes and Conaty bring together essays by equally passionate and renowned museum leaders, speaking about the stories of humanity and the possibilities of nature, to a philosophy for the future, perhaps, and compels us to reconsider our work, to think anew, to wonder.

1. Robert R. Janes, Museums and the Paradox of Change, Glenbow Museum, 1995