PERPETUAL MUSEUM ISSUES‪:‬

Museums enjoy considerable media attention. Much is pleasant.

But coverage can also be about difficulties. Major controversies

can erupt at a moment’s notice. Oddly, most are brought to the

public’s attention by museum outsiders. PERPETUAL MUSEUM

ISSUES: An Insider’s Essays 1987 – Now is an exception. It offers one

practitioner’s perspectives on a host of issues. Steven Miller has

decades of museum experience as a curator, director, consultant,

and trustee. The content presents warnings he gave to the field

that continue to be relevant. Topics discussed touch on personnel

matters, exhibitions, collections, governance, along with inclusion,

equity, and diversity practices. Definitions of community and

mission are explored along with debates about collecting and

how to explain public trust duties for what museums own. The

highly controversial practice of removing collections is analyzed.

Known in the trade as deaccessioning, the author is a specialist

in the subject.