学会発表:2014:

Displaying popular music: A comparative study on small‐scale museums in the US and Japan

International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML):
Congress 2014, Antwerp, Belgium, 13 June-18 July, 2014.
(ベルギー、アントワープ:2014.07.18.)


Displaying popular music: A comparative study on small‐scale museums in the US and Japan

Hrumichi YAMADA, Professor, Tokyo Keizai University

Tokyo Keizai University, 185-8502, Japan
yamada@tku.ac.jp


Abstract:
Museums designated for the popular music related themes are often found both in the US and in Japan. Those museums in the US include large‐scale well‐established institutions like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and Graceland, the former residence of Elvis Presley in Memphis, TN. Those museums in the US are roughly categorized into three, approximately in accordance with their size of exhibition space or of the buildings. In Japan, however, most of those museums are small in size, and are almost equivalent to those categorized as the smallest group in the US. Large‐scale popular music related museums are almost nonexistent in Japan.
Comparison of small‐scale museums in both countries often shows overt differences in their authenticity of locations, quality of their collections, and also, strategy or philosophy in their display. For example, while most small‐scale museums in the US are either former recording studios or former residences of famous musicians, only few Japanese counterparts are former residences, and no museum in Japan is a former recording studio. Many small‐scale museums in Japan have limited authenticity on their locations. They might be found in the commemorated musicians hometowns, but not in meaningful locations in the artist’s life. Some of them are housed in some historic buildings in their own rights, and some others are in purpose‐built utterly new buildings. Those cases are rarely found among small‐scale museums in the US.
Generally, Japanese museums seldom operate guided tours, while those tours are essential parts of their counterparts in the US. Lack of elaborately organized guided tours may partly be explained by cultural differences between both countries, but apparently reduce the value of the display. In addition, while efforts in outreach educational programs and in research projects are important tasks in museums in the US, they are overwhelmingly insufficient in most Japanese museums. However, it is not proper to blame museums for the situation, for bureaucratic affairs often discourage curators and volunteers in their outreach efforts within Japanese social context.
Small‐scale Japanese museums on popular music have much room to be improved in order to raise their values as an academic institution and/or a tourist attraction. Comparison with similar scale counterparts in the US, and potentially in other countries, may well be productively suggestive to improve quality and popularity of Japanese museums. Speaker: Harumichi Yamada (Tokyo Keizai University, Kokubunji, Tokyo)


Full program of IAML 2014 (pdf)

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