Conveners Liz Hide (University of Cambridge Museums) Tim Knox (Fitzwilliam Museum) Robin Osborne (Museum of Classical Archaeology) Liba Taub (Whipple Museum) Caroline Vout (Classics) Summary This conference is the culmination of a series of events during 2014 in which the University of Cambridge Museums have explored the art and science of museum curation. It brings together a wide range of speakers to take a long hard look at what museums do, what they should do, and what they might do. We will explore the ways in which what museums do is enabled and limited by their history and the history of collecting, asking whether and how museums can use their collections to transcend time. We will explore the constraints placed on museums by national history and how they contest natural history. We will think about museums as installations and museums as laboratories. And we will ask how healthy is the pressure to make visitors love their experiences in museums. Have museums failed or succeeded if some people hate them? This is a conference designed both to celebrate and to question what we do in museums and what museums do to us, and to ask what the future should hold for the museum and what the museum should hold for the future. Confirmed speakers include: Sam Alberti (Royal College of Surgeons of. England/ Hunterian Museum), Maurice Davis (Former Head of Policy at the Museums Association), Paul Greenhalgh (Sainsbury Centre, UEA), Henry McGhie (Manchester Museum), Paul Smith (Oxford University Museum of Natural History), Martin Roth (V & A), and Mark Wallinger. In preparation for this conference there will be a series of seminars organised by University of Cambridge Museums on Wednesdays at 5.15 p.m. in Room G 21, Faculty of Classics, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge on November 12, 19, 26th and December 3rd; speakers include Penelope Curtis (Tate Britain), Richard Evans (Beamish Museum), Stephen Feeke (New Art Centre), Jane Munro (Fitzwilliam Museum) and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (Herculaneum Conservation Project). All are welcome.

Latest episodes of the podcast Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

• Session 1: Tim Knox and Alexander Sturgis
• Session 1: Tim Knox and Alexander Sturgis (Discussion)
• Session 2: Minna Moore Ede and Paul Greenhalgh
• Session 2: Minna Moore Ede and Paul Greenhalgh (Discussion)
• Session 3: Paul Smith and Martin Roth
• Session 3: Paul Smith and Martin Roth (Discussion)
• Session 4: Sam Alberti and Mark Wallinger
• Session 4: Sam Alberti and Mark Wallinger (Discussion)
• Session 5: Maurice Davies