2015 Annual Meeting & Museum Expo

The Social Value of Museums: Inspiring Change

The founding impulse of museums was social interaction, connection and engagement with the public. From their origins, museums have continually evolved to nurture and sustain the human spirit. Today, as we teach, inspire, collect, preserve and interpret, we fulfill our public service roles as community centers, forums for discussing the pressing social and political issues of the day while learning from the issues of the past.

Recently we have witnessed major upheavals—technological, social, political, environmental and economic. In response, many museums have become less object-centered and more visitor-centered, providing greater access in order to improve the quality of visitors’ lives, social change and the wellbeing of communities.

At the 2015 AAM Annual Meeting in Atlanta—capital of the South, birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr., home of the MLK National Historic Site, the Carter Center, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and many other cultural, social, business and civic institutions that provide a deeper understanding about our social value—we ask all museums to consider how we embody this spirit through our educational mission, our programs and collections, our community presence and our public service.