Museum Studies

It can sometimes be hard to track down internal documents about museum exhibitions. Sometimes your best bet will be to contact the museums (or the museum libraries) directly to ask about what types of documentation they have and are able to share. The following information will help you find many items.

Statistical Reports, case studies

• The American Association of Museums publishes many statistical reports and possibly case studies for purchase through their bookstore.
• The Art Newspaper does an annual exhibition wrap-up (usually in February/March).
• The Smithsonian Institute publishes some case studies.
• Some economic impact studies end up in library catalogs. Try searching LibrarySearch by museum name or exhibit title and "economic impact."

Exhibit Materials

Musuems often have agreements with libraries for the archiving of their exhibit materials. For instance:

• The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art keeps some of its papers in the UO Special Collections
• Seattle Art Museum sometimes archives documents in its registrar's office, and sometimes at the University of Washington's Special Collections as well as in their own libraries.

Some museums share information about their past exhibitions online:

• Moma
• MFA Boston