Book Update:
How To Read A Dinosaur

The Reading the Museum program has been working with Pacific Educational Press on a book about the many ways artifacts and texts are read in the museum. A manuscript has now been prepared and final editing and production will begin shortly. The book is expected to be completed in the spring of 1996 with the formal launch taking place in June at the CMA's annual conference in Vancouver.

Originally called The True Nature of Things, the publication's working title now is: How To Read a Dinosaur: Tales from Canada's Museums. The name comes from a contribution to the book by Monty Reid, a poet and Assistant Director of Operations at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta. There are contri butions from over thirty museums across Canada that contain information about collections, exhibitions and public programs as well as references to specific artifacts and images. Some of the participating museums are the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Musée de la Civilisation, Pointe-à-Callière, Agnes Etherington Art Gallery, Bata Shoe Museum, Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, Dunlop Art Gallery, Glenbow Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, Apple Orchard Museum and Emily Carr House. The book begins with an exploration of labels, panels, maps, cata logues and other didactic material found in museums. Reading skills examined include how to search for, select and attend to specific objects and displays. Metaphorical readings of artifacts and of museum spaces themselves are also suggested. The book recognizes that one reads a museum and its contents from several vantage points that together give multiple meanings to its collections, displays and individual objects.

The book is written informally and is for a general audience. It will be of considerable use to curators and educators seeking to create learning connections across a wide range of objects and texts. The book will be especially valuable for literacy teachers and learners using the museum as an educational source and cultural resource. For more information about How To Read A Dinosaur, contact Venay Felton, Editor, at Pacific Educational Press, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4 Tel: (604) 822-5385, Fax: (604) 822-6603.

-Lon Dubinsky

Publications Available

It's All in The Story or The Artifact as Narrative (1995)
For copies: contact the Canadian Museums Association
280 Metcalfe Suite 400 Ottawa, Ontado K2P 1R7.
Tel: (613) 567-0099 Fax: (613) 233-5438.

Literacy and the Museum: Making The Connections (1990)
For copies: contact the CMA at the above address.

Loggers, Wives and Sawmill Workers: Memories from the Cowichan Valley (1994)
For copies of this oral history collection from the Malaspina University College/B.C. Forest Museum Literacy Project, contact the Adult Literacy Program at Malaspina, 222 Cowichan Way, R.R. #6 Duncan, British Columbia V9L 4T8 Tel: (604) 748-2591, Fax; (604) 746-3529.

Word of Mouth (1994)
For copies of these stones by students in the Halifax Regional Library/Nova Scotia Museum Project, contact Kilby MacRae, Halifax City Regional Library, 5381 Spring Garden Rd., Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 1E9 Tel: (902) 424-6042.

Un voyage au musée (1994)
For copies of this teaching guide from the project Un voyage au musée, contact the Educational and Cultural Services at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, P.O. Box 3000 Station H, Montreal Quebec H3G 2T9 Tel: (514) 285-1600, Fax: (514) 844-6042.

So I've Been Told.... Stories from St. Mary's (1994)
To order this publication ($10.00) from the St. Mary's Museum/St. Mary's Library Project or for more information about other oral history and literacy publications, contact Linda Hunter at Storylinks, 100 Broadview Avenue, Suite 312 Toronto Ontario M4M 2F8, Phone/Fax: (416) 466-3393.

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 three 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: Michael Webb/Alchemy Design
Translation: Bérengère de Guernon, Terry Knowles, 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, Ontado K2P 1R7.
Tel: (613) 567-0099; fax: (613) 233-5438

c1995 Canadian Museums Association
ISSN 1201-9135

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