The Last Prisoners of War: How Nazi-Looted Art is Displayed in U.S. Museums

How art museums approach NLA is important today because much of the public relies on museums for their education. NLA cases are especially controversial because they are not only legal battles, but ethical ones so museums have to be extra careful approaching them. Even if the museum has won the legal battle the public may not see them as winning the ethical one therefore they might want to avoid displaying this information to the public. However, as we can see with the previous websites, it actually looks worse for museums not to be open and honest about their NLA pieces and cases because it looks like they\u27re hiding information. Museums currently may be afraid to educate the public about their role in NLA because it could lead to lack of funding and less patrons visiting the museum. This is not a good enough reason to deny the public this information. Instead of being afraid of losing their reputation, museums need to be transparent with their viewers and educate them about the controversies surrounding NLA and its history. This is especially their responsibility because they fought in court to keep these pieces in order to educate the public about them, and it is a gross injustice to the victims of NLA to only share the aspects of the pieces\u27 histories which keep the museum\u27s reputations squeaky clean. Museums are also especially important educators\u27 because they also are forms of entertainment so people are more likely to visit them. Now that we\u27ve seen the effects of a global pandemic, we have been shown how even more important the internet can be for education. Art museums as educators need to update their websites in order to inform the public about Nazi Looted art. Many of the victims of Nazi Looted art are gone so it is the art museum\u27s responsibility to make sure their stories live on and the crimes that happened to them are not forgotten

Middle school art and the Internet

This graduate project focuses on the efforts of one middle school art teacher to integrate the Internet into the middle school art curriculum at one middle school in Iowa. Classrooms with Internet access increased to 63 percent in 2000 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000) with similar numbers of school age children ( 65 percent) having Internet access in their homes (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001). Art teachers have been reluctant to embrace this technology (Matthews, 1997) even though many art education resources exist on the Internet. The Internet can provide a vast resource of artwork from web sites published by museums and galleries around the world as well as providing a means to publish artwork with the potential of worldwide exposure. Through careful orchestration, art instructors can bring engaging and valuable Internet experiences to middle school students. This project describes the author\u27s attempt to integrate Internet experiences into the middle school art curriculum. The project encompassed: (a) setting up an Internet computer lab in the art classroom; (b) identifying valuable and useful web sites; ( c) designing lessons; (d) creating an art classroom web site; and (e) establishing teacher-to-teacher and student-to-student Internet connections. Results of this project indicated the integration into the art curriculum of the Internet (with supporting technologies) can result in: (a) positive and motivating effects on student learning; (b) valuable resources for a studio-based program; ( c) the creation of artistic opportunities not available through other means; ( d) and student construction of learning in new and meaningful ways

Validation of the CIDOC CRM using both extended graphical and category theory representations : includes two New Zealand case studies : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Studies in Information Systems at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

There is considerable interest in the use of the Internet to retrieve and integrate multimedia information from centres of cultural heritage such as museums and art galleries. The ultimate desire of most devotees of cultural matters is to have universal access, through a single portal, to detailed information from sites throughout the world. This level of interoperability is not an easy task both technically and culturally. To provide an avenue where some of the technical problems of accessing information from a huge range of unique database environments can be resolved, a semantic conceptual reference model (CRM) was proposed by The International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CIDOC). The model provides definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in cultural heritage documentation. It is intended to provide a common and extensible semantic framework to which any cultural heritage information can be mapped. In this research two methods are proposed and developed to support the validation of the Conceptual Reference Model. The methodologies, one graphical and the other based on category theory, are used to replicate three published international validation activities and two new validations based on information supplied by two New Zealand heritage sites. This report also includes a literature review describing the main ideas and structures that form the basis of the CRM

Broadband for culture, a culture for broadband?

The augmentation of cultural participation in Flanders is one of the major cornerstones of the current cultural policy. Digital technologies offer a wide range of opportunities to achieve this goal, as the internet is often seen as a way to augment the number of visitors for arts centres. However, the availability of digital information technologies and the willingness to adopt these new ways of processing cultural material, is a prerequisite for this (r)evolution. This article is based on data collected in three surveys, one for each of the cultural actors; cultural organisations such as museums, arts centres etc, individual artists and art lovers in Flanders. Despite that most artists and cultural organizations are sufficiently equipped with up-to-date technological infrastructure, most websites lack true interactivity with a strong one-to-one relationship between audience, artists and cultural institutions. We therefore conclude that, although there are plenty of broadband connections and other digital tools available to the Flemish art scene, artists and cultural organisations lack a mind-set (or culture) to truly embrace and benefit from the potential of the current digital technologies

Trendswatch 2013: Back to the Future

TrendsWatch 2013 highlights six trends that CFM's staff and advisors believe are highly significant to museums and their communities, based on our scanning and analysis over the past year. For each trend, we provide a brief summary, list examples of how the trend is playing out in the world, comment on the trend's significance to society and to museums specifically, and suggest ways that museums might respond. We also provide links to additional readings. TrendsWatch provides valuable background and context for your museum's planning and implementation

Museums and New Media Art

Investigates the relationship between new media art and museums

Performing Art Libraries at Duesseldorf : their role in the field of introducing computer-based information management within the Theatre Museum and the Film Museum

Düsseldorf is the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, the state with the highest number of inhabitants in Germany. The city has a rich cultural history: The theatre history started in 1485 (the festivities in the context of a princely marriage at Düsseldorf). Theatre historiography marks three great periods for Düsseldorf (Immermann, 1834-1837; Dumont-Lindemann, 1905-1933; Gründgens, 1947-1955). The city has a long history of involvment with film, too. For instance the first German film journal „Der Kinematogaph“ began publishing here in 1907. Düsseldorf became after 1945 a distribution center and served for decades as site of all major German and foreign distributors‘ headquartes. It offers still a lot of cultural events: performing arts in different forms (theatre at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, musical at the Capitol, opera and ballet at the German Opera Düsseldorf-Duisburg, dance at the Tanzhaus (Dance House) North Rhine-Westphalia, free and independant theatre groups, private theatres, cinema, media, museums, cultural institutions, representing other countries like France, Poland ..

Millennial cultural consumers : Co-creating value through brand communities

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise millennial cultural consumers (MCCs) to bring together strands of consumer theory with branding theory to consider how to attract and retain younger audiences in arts organisations. With that the authors single out for attention how 'brand community' theory might apply.This paper contributes to the knowledge development of such concepts as value and brand communities. It also provides an explanation of these concepts connecting academic thought on value with pressing management challenges for arts organisations, suggesting ways to apply brand community thinking to innovatively conceptualised MCCs.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums

In 2009 the Center for the Future of Museums commissioned Betty Farrell to produce a report to explore in more detail the demographic trends in American society and their implications for museums. The report identifies, synthesizes, and interprets existing research on demographics, cultural consumer attitudes, museum diversity practices, and related topics. It is meant to help the museum field explore the future of museums in a "majority minority" society. Topics of inquiry include national demographic projections for the next 25 years with a focus on the shifting racial and ethnic composition of the United States; current patterns of museum attendance (and cultural participation more generally) by race, ethnicity, cultural origin and other relevant factors; culturally/ethnically specific attitudes towards museums, including perceptual and behavioral barriers to museum attendance; ways that museums currently reach out to diverse audiences; specific models and best practices; and larger trends in societal attitudes towards racial and other classifications