This project explores the future of the museum industry and seeks to examine the ways in which the industry has changed to adapt to the current competitive environment. It explores the increasing competitiveness inside the industry and the growing concentration of funding that has resulted in an extremely high percentage of unfunded museums.
The strategies that can be effectively employed to ‘modernize’ a museum are examined and several living history museums that have employed these strategies are used as examples of their relative effectiveness/ineffectiveness. An analysis of how the museum industry has morphed over time to create these mega-museums which effectively dominate all their competitors is explored. It appears that they are a product of funding trends within the industry. How the evolution of these mega-museums has created an opportunity for smaller museums to regain market share by duplicating their museum partnerships on a different scale. The possibility that these partnerships may enable small museums to overcome many of the barriers that have held them back (awareness, location, etc)
