Continuing donations of appreciated property to museums has become increasingly difficult amid constant tax reform. This booklet highlights the 1984 Tax Reform Act, the last significant change in valuation requirements, and covers requirements for donors and museums as recipients. It includes IRS Tax Forms 8282 and 8283. Updated with information on recent tax changes, including the 1993 change regarding appreciated property.

Gifts of Property: A Guide for Donors and Museums

Business & Money

American Alliance of Museums

Finance

American Alliance of Museums Press

Model programs in 19 American museums offer insights as to how institutions are dealing successfully with issues of accessibility, making adjustments to policy, programs, and facilities in order to reach out to people with disabilities and older adults. This richly illustrated book with its extensive bibliography is an important resource for all museums following the landmark legislation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The Accessible Museum: Model Programs of Accesibility for Disabled and Older People

Arts & Photography

This final report describes the goals, pilot partnerships, and results of the Museums in the Life of a City Initiative. This project was established to enhance the appreciation of cultural diversity by building partnerships between museums and communities.

Museums in the Life of a City: Strategies for Community Partnerships

Industries

Developed by the American Association of Museums with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, this pamphlet explores the most important responsibility of all museums-collections care. More than 65 curators, registrars, and conservators discuss how to improve environmental collections in museums, manage inventory, register objects, and enhance public awareness of museum collection.

Caring For Collections: Strategies for Conservation, Maintenance and Documentation

American Association of Museums

A must-have reference book for every museum, the Guide helps your institution develop the set of expectations and responsibilities for staff and management, from hiring practices, health benefits, and employee performance appraisals to policies on equal employment opportunity and racial/sexual harassment. Includes sample handbook statements, relevant federal laws, and more.

The AAM Guide to Writing an Employee Handbook

Chin, Paul L.

Reference

What Students Need to Know poses a series of questions to help you research graduate training programs and plan a museum career. Topics covered include: choosing between a certificate and a master's degree, finding an internship to suit your needs, and the value of a museum studies degree in the "real world." Written by the chair of the museum studies department at John F. Kennedy University and reviewed by students and faculty at museum studies programs across the country.

What Students Need To Know: Graduate Training in Museum Studies

Schwarzer, Marjorie

Edson, Gary

Slay the financial dragon of a slumping economy and falling revenues with this valuable arsenal of strategies and tactics for fiscal success. Gain the competitive edge as you learn the latest trends and forecasts from experts in the areas of individual and corporate giving, earned revenue and investment, travel and tourism, and state and local funding. Slaying the Financial Dragon's 10 authors discuss the mega-trends that are changing the face of fund raising, tell you how to talk to local officials about your funding needs, analyze the current state of the travel and tourism industry, and much more. Originally presented at AAM's "Slaying the Financial Dragon" seminar in November 2002, these practical, clearly stated articles present case studies and offer expert advice on how museums can best meet today's daunting financial challenges.

Slaying the Financial Dragon: Strategies for Museums

Every museum should have a clear vision of what it aspires to be, but it may never reach its goal if it can't shape and develop its collections as a whole. This AAM guide will help your museum create a collections plan, the first step to gaining intellectual control over the collections and ensuring that you have the appropriate staff and resources for collections care. The authors discuss building an intellectual framework, writing the plan itself, the planning process, and the challenges of museum politics. Also features excerpts from sample collections plans, a glossary, and other resources.

The AAM Guide to Collections Planning

Gardner, James B.

Merritt, Elizabeth E.

A new museum environment is taking shape in America, states author Bonnie Pitman. Art museums are becoming forums for the discussion of new ideas, places where people can interact and learn from one another. This book explains how this transformation is occurring in a nationwide test group of 11 art museums. Supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts' Program for Art Museums and Communities, these museums were able to think creatively about enhancing the quality of the visitor experience and expanding service to their communities. Though the routes they took were different, from community-based artist residencies to fundamental changes in board/staff attitudes, all became institutions where learning, flexibility, and innovation are integral parts of the organizational culture.

New Forums: Art Museums and Communities

Pitman, Bonnie

Hirzy, Ellen Cochran

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Collections care is a core responsibility for all museums that own, care for, or use collections. The foundation stone for good collections care is a good collections management policy. Things Great and Small is the first to comprehensively address how to write such a policy for any type of museum. Drawing on his extensive experience - as director of the University of Kansas museum studies program, collections manager at the university's museum of natural history, and surveyor for AAM's Museum Assessment Program - John Simmons reviews the issues that a collections management policy should address and the pros and cons of choosing one policy option over another.

Things Great and Small: Collections Management Policies

Simmons, John E.

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Books by American Alliance of Museums Press