Table of Contents

Part 1 SETTING THE CONTEXT; 1. Boundary Zone; 2. Publicness, Public Institutions and the Public Interest; 3. Renaissance and the ROM In Public; Part 2 THE ROM IN PUBLIC; 4. Structuring; 5. Positioning; 6. Exhibitioning; 7. Interacting; Part 3 REVISIONING; 8. Revisioning Publicness at the ROM; References

About the Author

Susan L.T. Ashley is Senior Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries Management and AHRC Leadership Fellow in (Multi)Cultural Heritage at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. She is a cultural studies scholar interested in what, how, and why heritage knowledge is created, shaped, communicated, and consumed in the public sphere. Dr Ashley has published widely, including Diverse Spaces: Identity, Heritage and Community in Canadian Public Culture (2013). She has 20 years of experience with culture and heritage sites across Canada.

Reviews

"By attending closely to the goings-on in a single, iconic institution, Susan Ashley’s rich and insightful analysis deftly reveals not only how cultural organisations are inevitably enmeshed in the wider world but also the exciting possibilities that new ways of conceiving of their publicness might hold for museums of all kinds as they seek to enhance their relevance and value in the twenty first century."- Richard Sandell, University of Leicester, UK"A Museum in Public is a compelling and critical portrait of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, circa 2008, at the moment of its multi-million dollar renaissance, which included a spectacular architectural facelift and the promise of a global meeting ground, an agora for all. Combing institutional analysis with ethnographic fieldwork, Ashley shows how lofty rhetoric outpaced action, and corporate cultural norms infiltrated most areas of public service. A Museum in Public demonstrates the layers of analysis needed to see through the emperor’s new clothes, and to understand the workings of privilege, even as it is democratized. The book also offers glimpses of ways in which publics (including museum employees) carve out spaces of sociability and freedom in the museum. This is a welcome contribution to museum studies, and to the ongoing study of Canada’s largest museum." - Shelley Ruth Butler, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, McGill University, Montreal, Canada