Museums and art galleries have never been so much in the news as they have been over the last decade. Yet the public focus at both professional and non-specialist level has been remarkable for what has been accidentally or deliberately left out of this debate. To redress this balance, the Museums Association (the world's oldest professional museum organisation) held an open discussion in its centenary year of 1989. They brought together some of the world's leading museum professionals, active politicians, economists and marketing specialists. This book has grown from those lively (sometimes heated) discussions. The real issues which the authors address move beyond the narrow issues of professional practice which dominate so many meetings, and into the much harder world of political, economic and cultural realities. And because the authors are drawn from the museum profession worldwide, the book is truly international, reflecting issues which really affect all museums. Contributors include : Dr. Saraj Ghose, Director General, National Council of Science Museums, India; Frans Verbaas, Director Museum Year Pass, The Netherlands ; Dr. Tomislav Sola, Museum Studies Centre, Zagreb, Yugoslavia ; Dr. Neil Cossons, Director, The Science Museum, London ; Paul Perrot, Director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, USA ; Eric Moody, City University, London, ; Dr. Donald Horne, Council of Australia ; Lorena San Roman, General Director, National Museum of Costa Rica