NEMO Report: "Money Matters: The Economic Value of Museums"

The Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO) has recently published a report entitled Money Matters: The Economic Value of Museums. The report collects the proceedings of NEMO's latest Annual Conference, held in Karslruhe, Germany, in November 2016. The articles introduce and discuss spill-over effects, innovative business models and cooperation strategies for museums and their economies. Museums are integrated into the economic world, but come with certain and unique specifics and layers. They are a part of the leisure society, but cannot be compared to theme parks. They have an impact on tourism, but are not simply marketing instruments for a region or a city. And they create work and wealth, but not in the same way as private companies. Introducing the report, NEMO argues that it stems from this standpoint and provides perspectives from the cultural and economic sector on value measurement, profitability, partnerships and cooperation, financial strategies and business models, and the various spill-over effects. NEMO believes and works to demonstrate that museums have an important economic value – in addition to the value of their collections (and the accessibility thereof), in addition to their social value (and the impact museums have on social cohesion) and in addition to their educational value (how museums inspire, engage and explain the world). The examples from different European countries presented in the report show the shared challenges and opportunities and serve as important reminders of the significant role that museums play in the process of cultural diversity and the free exchange of knowledge, thus inspiring creativity and innovation, as well as their influences on many different levels, i.e. in the tourism sector or urban and regional planning. In addition to introductions by several NEMO representatives (David Vuillaume, Margherita Sani, Dragos Neamu, Siebe Weide), the report includes contributions by Pier Luigi Sacco, Kimmo Levä, Christopher Kremer, Richard Naylor, Sharon Heal, Björn Stenvers, Jan Merk and Dorota Keller-Zalewska. Money Matters: The Economic Value of Museums is available at http://www.ne-mo.org/news/article/nc/1/nemo/nemo-publication-money-matters-the-econmoic-value-of-museums/376.html