Table of Contents

Prologue Time Immemorial The Willow Lakers The Curator The Exhibit Technician The Chief Executive Officer The Future 1. Museums and Irrelevance Troubling Questions Sobering Assumptions Uncertainty, Elitism and Myopia 2. A Troubled World The Absence of Stewardship A Troubled World Our Lethal Footprint A Virtual Impression Killing Our Relatives – Close and Distant Enter Museums Homogenizing the Ethnosphere Diagnosing the Assault on Stewardship 3. It’s a Jungle in Here: Museums and their Self-Inflicted Challenges The Three Agendas The Fallacy of Authoritative Neutrality The Lone Museum Director Management Myopia The Consequences of Hierarchy: Learning from Hunters Museum Exhibitions: Ploughing Old Ground Collections: Museums as Consumption 4. Debunking the Marketplace Corporatism Has Arrived Back to the Beginning A Clash of Values The Anatomy of Failure Courting the Corporatists: A Cautionary Tale Business Literacy Methods Aren’t Values 5. Searching for Resilience? Resilient Innovators Why Resilience? Resilient Values Assuming Responsibility 6. The Mindful Museum Mindfulness Museum Chatter Thinking Orthogonally Museum Mindfulness Museums for a Troubled World 7. Museums: Stewards or Spectators? A Brief Retrospective The Consequences of Ignoring the Present Renewal – Denial is Not An Alternative In Praise of Museums