Developing the Museum Experience: Retailing in American Museums 1945–91
Abstract Museum shops in America were created immediately after World War II (WWII) from what previously were termed museum sales or information desks. Museum retail occurred as a response to increased museum attendance and consumer spending by Americans in the post-war economy. Distinct changes such as mass consumption, the rise of individualism and cultural pluralism, and the modern consumer’s search for novelty, nostalgia, and later high culture, all affected museum responses to visitor needs and museum shop development. As a result, shops were popular and successful throughout the era even in times of general decline in the national economy. Museums, however, did not focus on shops as revenue generators until the 1980s when public support and governmental funding for museums retracted. The manner in which shops contributed to the total museum experience was an important component of museum development.
The Museum Refuses to Stand Still
Kenneth Hudson is the doyen of the international museum community, a recognized trend spotter and iconoclast. As director of the European Museum Forum, with responsibilities for the European Museum of the Year Award, the Forum Workshops and the European Museum Forum magazine, he may be said to be a one-man museum watch; his book Museums for the 1980s – A Survey of World Trends, published by UNESCO in 1977, broke new ground in describing and explaining the great changes in theory and practice that were sweeping through the museum world. For this anniversary issue, we asked him to take a close look at how museums have evolved over the past fifty years and to speculate on what the future might have in store.
Novel method for the determination of the methoxyl content in lignin by headspace gas chromatography.
The paper reports on a headspace gas chromatographic (HS-GC) method for the determination of methoxyl in lignin. The method involves the quantitive cleavage of methoxyl with hydroiodic acid (HI) to form methyl iodide in a closed headspace sample vial at 130 °C for 30 min. After HI has been added, the sample is neutralized by injecting a sodium hydroxide solution; the methyl iodide in the vial was determined by HS-GC using a flame ionization detector. The results showed that the method has an excellent measurement precision (RSD < 0.69%) and accuracy (RSD < 3.5%) for the quantification of methoxyl content in lignin. The present method is simple and accurate and can be used for the efficient determination of methoxy1 content in lignin and related materials.