Nine meta-functions for science museums and science centres

Abstract

Science centres and science museums face challenges such as increased accountability, increased demands for accessibility, and growing competition from leisure experiences. On their own, the traditional museum practices of preservation, communication, and research are insufficient to address these challenges. Accordingly, we use the framework of eight museum meta-functions, presented by Dubuc (2011) and further developed here, to understand how these institutions respond to calls for change. We analyse the presentations of staff members from 21 science centres and science museums, given at the 2013 Ecsite conference, to map out how these institutions address modern-day challenges. This analysis generates a new framework of nine metafunctions for science centres and science museums that can guide and help qualify discussions about their present and future activities. We discuss the new meta-functions as evidence of a turn away from the self-referential museum functions of the past, towards a more complete externalisation of purpose. This is the pre-print version of the manuscript published as Achiam, M., & Sølberg, J. (2017). Nine metafunctions for science museums and science centres. Museum Management and Curatorship, 32(2), 123-143. The final publication is available at Routledge via http://dx.

Perspective. Museums beyond neutrality

“…We thus invite the community of (science) museum professionals to consider the day-to-day and long-term implications of a museum beyond neutrality. changes in government policy or to promote informed civic engagement (Achiam & Sølberg 2017, Howarth 2017, we claim that transparency about how they came about will strengthen the credibility of the museum.…”

“…More and more, museums are facing demands of accountability. The days are over when museums could legitimise their place in society simply by referring to the traditional functions of collecting, researching and disseminating (Black 2012, Achiam & Sølberg 2017. Today, urges for museums to clarify their contributions to broader society come from many different sources: governments, who may allocate funding based on an institution's potential to generate financial returns (Rex 2019) or public health benefits (Desmarais et al 2018); historians and indigenous experts, who critique the colonialist structures that enable museums to retain property rights to objects looted from former colonies (Knott 2018, Bakare 2019, Owen 2020; or scholars of cultural history, who demand that the white, western, male gaze prevalent in many exhibitions be replaced with a more diverse range of perspectives (Levin 2010, Robinson 2017, Balle 2019.…”

Towards Fourth-Generation Science Museums: Changing Goals, Changing Roles

“…We believe that science museums can become places for change and transformation, productive struggle, allyship, empathy, and epistemic democracy, and can serve as hybrid third spaces. Re-imagining institutional goals, spaces, and practices is difficult (but necessary) work (Pedretti & Navas Iannini, 2020 ) and requires “a turn away from the self-referential museum functions of the past, towards a more complete externalisation of purpose” (Achiam & Sølberg, 2017 , p. 18). In other words, it is not enough that science museums exist for their own sake; they must also embrace their active exchange and co-production of knowledge within the societies in which they exist.…”

“…Over time, science museums have reinvented themselves, shifting and/or expanding their purposes and functions, and moving through different generations (see Amodio, 2013 ; Friedman, 2010 ; McManus, 1992 ). Once dominated by a focus on collecting and preserving, and later communicating science through hands-on experiences (Bradbourne, 1998 ), science museums are slowly reshaping their identities and social goals to explicitly include and promote active citizenship, social responsibility, engagement with complex science and technology issues, and agency (Achiam & Sølberg, 2017 ; Barrett & Sutter, 2006 ; Cameron, 2005 ; Hine & Medvecky, 2015 ; Janes, 2009 ; Koster, 1999 ; Pedretti & Navas Iannini, 2018 ; Quistgaard & Kahr-Højland, 2010 ; Stocklmayer et al, 2010 ). Interestingly, this reshaping of science museums echoes similar calls for reforms in formal science education settings (e.g., Bencze, 2017 ; Hodson, 2011 ; Roth & Barton, 2004 ).…”

Sustainable safety and security at museums in Southeast Nigeria: implications for national reformation

“…This perceived value of the museum collection has made museum safety a research focus in museum studies. This is because the future of human society lies in the careful interpretation of museum collections (Achiam and Solberg, 2017;Huang and Lin, 2016;Pai, 2016;Peter, 2011). Grove and Thomas (2014) were of the opinion that the issue of safety has endangered most of the heritage resources and hence require urgent attention.…”