America's College Museums


America’s College Museums provides a comprehensive overview of the funding, development, exhibitions, governance and future trends of college museums, along with highly informative profiles of these important facilities. The only resource of its kind, this work presents a comprehensive picture of over 1,700 museums and galleries in American colleges and universities.

America’s College Museums was first published in 1996 by Greenwood Publishing Group as University and College Museums, Galleries, and Related Facilities: A Descriptive Directory. This second edition is completely revised with more educational information, more museum listings, and five indices. It is arranged in two major sections:

Life Cycle of College Museums

The first section of America’s College Museums is a comprehensive overview, in eight distinct chapters, of the workings of college museums – from governance to funding, from programming to closures –including photographs and its own index. This section discusses more than 25 different types of institutions, including Art Museums, Archaeology Museums, Science Centers, Health Museums, Music Museums, Sports Museums, and Archival Galleries. It includes governance patterns and management structures, details on missions and objectives, and dwindling collections at many facilities. Following the final chapter is a list of the 26 photographs in this edition of various museums and galleries, with detailed captions.

Directory of Museums

Section two includes detailed profiles of 1,763 facilities. They are arranged in 24 major categories, from Archeology to Zoology, with many categories comprising several related themes, for a total of 48 distinct subjects that include Herbariums, Fashion Museums, and Aquariums. The Other Types category offers a Treasures of the Sea Exhibit, and museums of paper, culinary arts, clocks, broadcasting, and turfgrass. Each profile begins with the name of the college or university, the specific museum, and its city and state. A detailed description follows, including historical facts about its origins and collections, information about its physical space, and what visitors can expect to find. Valuable contact information follows each museum description – address, phone, fax, email, web site, visitor hours, admission fees and new to this edition, a key contact person. These current details make this edition of College Museums a valuable guide for students, travelers, collectors and researchers alike.   

Additional features include:

  • Updated Directory of Organizations, with data on over 400 new facilities with more photos and new contact information for the museum director, present detailed information on museums and collections
  • NEW Resources Chapter includes contact information for hundreds of associations and organizations
  • NEW Founding Year Appendix
  • Indexes:

University and Museums Index lists each college or university and their facilities following;
Museum and University Index lists each museum and the affiliated college or university;
Geographic Index lists each museum, alphabetically by state, and includes the affiliated college or university;
Key Personnel Index lists key contact people, alphabetically by last name, for each museum.

  • Selected Bibliography complete the text
  • Available in print and ebook formats

America’s College Museums is an essential in-house reference tool for all campus museums and galleries, and will be an important resource for university, college, and public libraries as well. Students and their visitors may be surprised at the wealth and variety or culture readily available on their own campuses. This reference provides a wide variety of information about the operations of the facilities, practical details that are not available anywhere else.


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Pub. Date: August 2011
Hardcover: 702 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59237-674-2
Price: $195
e-ISBN: 978-1-59237-675-9
eBook User Price: $244