The book launches a challenge, a starting-point to encourage serious reflection and urgent dialogue about the cultural heritage that constitutes our primary resource in terms of the identity and civic growth of our country: our museums.
Recognition of the public value of museums, places of dialogue and synthesis between museum studies and management. This is the profound sense behind the question that the economic crisis is asking Italian museums. The answer can only be found by reaching beyond the long-standing dichotomies between public and private, safeguarding and exploiting, art historian and art manager¿ by contamination and collaboration at the heart of a project that is economically sustainable and long-lasting. Planning, innovation and experimentation: these are the keywords if we are thinking of creating a new kind of museum management. It must have its roots in strong links with the community in which and for which the museum is being planned. It must be open to dialogue with the local people and visitors to the museum so as to create a place that is no longer merely something to be exploited, but is subjected to the shared production and construction of culture, understood as knowledge, experience, experimentation and education¿