How To Read A Dinosaur and Other Museum Tales

"How To Read A Dinosaur and Other Museum Tales." a publication of the "Reading The Museum" program and Pacific Educational Press, will be available in Spring '99. Compiled and written by Carolyn Sale, the book demonstrates how museums tell stories in an effort to encourage visitors to interpret single artifacts as well as whole collections and exhibitions. The publication includes illustrations from all types of museums, both large and small, with art galleries, local history museums, science centers, historic sites and houses and multifaceted institutions all represented. As the title indicates, the books starts out by looking at a dinosaur display at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumhiller, Alberta. In other instances, it is a special collection, such as the Hudson's Bay collection at the Manitoba Museum, or the historical displays at Pointe-à-Callière in Montréal, that merit attention. Or it is a temporary or travelling exhibition that provides the context for "reading other museum tales," such as "Savage Graces", by Plains Cree artist and curator Gerald McMaster, the "O Canada Project" at the Art Gallery of Ontario, or "Africville: A Spirit That Lives On, a collaboration of the Art Gallery at Mount Saint Vincent University and the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia. The book is designed for curators and educators interested in the many ways to read museums but is also useful for museum-goers who want to know more about the presentation of collections and exhibitions in Canada's museums. For more information, contact the "Reading The Museum" program or Pacific Educational Press, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4, Tel: (604) 822-5385, Fax: (604) 822-6603.

Reading The Museum

The newsletter of Reading The Museum, a program of the Canadian Museums Association to encourage literacy in and through museums, is published two times a year and mailed to all CMA members as a benefit of membership and to various literacy programs and organizations throughout Canada.

Coordinator of Reading The Museum: Lon Dubinsky

Executive Director of the Canadian Museums Association: John G. McAvity

Designer: Alchemy Design

Translation: Bérengère de Guernon, Pamela Ireland

The CMA wishes to thank the National Literacy Secretariat
for support of its program.

Address all enquiries to: Reading The Museum,
Canadian Museums Association,
280 Metcalfe Street, Suite 400,
Ottawa, Ontario K2P 1R7.
Tel.: (613) 567-0099; Fax: (613) 233-5438

	©1998 Canadian Museums Association ISSN 1201-9135