Museums 101

About the Book

Museums 101 is the definitive primer on museum practice — covering the nonprofit and legal framework, governance, collections, operations, audiences, and the fundamentals of what makes a museum work. Published by AAM Press in 2015, it is used in museum studies programs and by museum professionals worldwide.

A second edition is forthcoming — re-situating these fundamentals in the changed operating environment of 2026: attention and platforms, event-driven visitation, AI in the workplace, measurement, and the digital-first audience behaviors that now shape how museums compete for relevance.

What Has Not Changed

The nonprofit legal and ethical frame. Civil society — museums as part of democratic public life. Public trust — stewardship, transparency, mission over noise. Boards, accountability, audiences, collections, operations. These are the foundations, and they are why museums matter.

What the Second Edition Addresses

The first edition is still true about what a museum is. The second edition is about what a museum is in — the landscape for attention, measurement, and technology has changed, and the primer needs to reflect that reality for anyone entering or leading the field today.

"The first edition is still true about what a museum is. The second edition is about what a museum is in."