MeLa Bibliography January 2012

This bibliography is intended as a general overview of the printed books on museums topics published in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian in Europe and the United States over the last twenty years or so.

The chosen period (1992-2012) is only apparently arbitrary, since this is the period of major output of studies and research in the rapidly changing contemporary museum field.
This bibliography, even though widely comprehensive, is necessarily and intentionally selected and represents a significant frame of reference for the whole disciplinary body of museum studies, museology, museography, museum architecture and exhibition design. What is missing are the essays published in books which are not strictly related to museums, magazines and on the web (a different kind of documentation indeed), and a section dedicated to museums' technicalities and management (this will be added in a further version of the reference). Inside the sections the books are listed by publication date (from old to new) and documented with an image of the cover, a brief description taken from different sources - back covers, publishers' presentations, introduction texts - and the table of contents.

The bibliography represents a background of information shared by all the project's partners and aims to be a useful point of departure for going further in depth in the different fields of MeLa research.