Bookstore
Browse books, reports, and toolkits, as well as discounts for AAM Members.
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Book Titles
From titles covering DEAI and governance to exhibitions and digital, the Alliance partners with Rowman & Littlefield to publish the best and most comprehensive literature for and about museum work with a well-established commercial publisher in the museum field. AAM members receive 20% off all AAM titles when they use promo code AAMPRESS20.
Browse the catalog of 2023-2024 New Books for Museum Professionals!
Interested in becoming a published author?
AAM is always looking for new book ideas that interest a significant segment of the museum community. If you’re interested in submitting a proposal as an author or editor, learn more about publishing through AAM Press.
Toolkits
Toolkits include detailed guidance, worksheets, and more to help you better understand challenges in the museum field and how you can address them. From creating your five core documents to refreshing your volunteer program, toolkits can provide the helpful guidance you need when you need it most.
Designing a Museum Volunteer Program
Toolkit
Guidance, policies, worksheets, and real-life examples you need to create an incredible volunteer program at your museum.
From the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Starting a Museum
Toolkit
A comprehensive guide to the basics of creating, launching, and operating a sustainable museum.
Strategic Foresight
Toolkit
Worksheets, slide presentations, and games to help you build your foresight skills. The toolkit can be used for staff and team training in the basic tools of futurism and help you integrate foresight into planning and operations.
Mastering Your Museum’s Core Documents
Toolkit
Guidance and resources to create exceptional core documents: mission statements, codes of ethics, strategic plans, disaster preparedness and emergency response plans, and collections management policies.
Speaking Up: Museum Advocacy in Action
Toolkit
A practical guide for nonprofit advocacy with tips on how to tell the stories of your museum’s important activities and contributions to policymakers, the press, and the public.
Reopening Starter Kit for Museums
Toolkit
A starter kit for museums reopening after pandemic closures. Customizable health and safety posters and decals, messaging templates, and checklists to make this task a little less daunting.
Interested in creating a toolkit for the field?
A toolkit should be a compilation of authoritative and adaptable resources that enable people to learn about an issue and identify approaches for addressing it. If you want to create a toolkit for the museum field, pitch your idea using our idea submission form.
Reports
National Standards and Best Practices
Free to AAM members, $14.95 for nonmembers. Print copies can be purchased through Rowman and Littlefield.
This publication is a full outline of museum operating standards in areas from public accountability to facilities and risk management, and an essential guide any museum striving to meet best practices in its operations. An introductory section explains how virtually anyone associated with museums will find the book valuable, from trustees to staff to funders and the media.
General Facility Report
Reporting template, discounts for AAM Members
The updated (2019) General Facility Report provides the template to record the latest information about an institution’s physical specifications and staff practices. The streamlined standard form expedites the exchange of information critical to lenders and insurers. Architects and designers will want to use this form as a handy checklist for construction and engineering.
Direct Care of Collections: Ethics, Guidelines, and Recommendations
Free report
This report includes field-wide guidance on the use of proceeds from the sale of deaccessioned objects. It focuses specifically on direct care. Updated in 2019.
2024 Museum Board Leadership
Free report
This 2024 report highlights the critical strides museum boards have taken with diversity and inclusion in recent years, as well as the many challenges and opportunities to further equity in the highest ranks of museum leadership and improve overall efficacy.
2017 Museum Board Leadership
Free report
Museum Board Leadership 2017, commissioned by AAM, grades boards on a wide variety of policies, practices, and performance. The survey was conducted in partnership with BoardSource and Northern Trust.
Stand for Your Mission: The Power of Board Advocacy
Free report
This report, in partnership with BoardSource, is a discussion guide for museum leaders—especially directors and trustees—to get involved with advocacy.
Building the Future of Education: Museums and the Learning Ecosystem
Free report
A full outline of museum standards. This guide is an essential reference work for any museum striving to meet best practices in its operations.
2017 Salary Survey
Report
Prepared in partnership with the six regional museum associations (Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, Mountain-Plains, New England, Southeastern, and Western) and five state museum associations (California, Florida, New York, Texas, and Virginia), the 2017 National Museum Salary Survey is the only comprehensive study of its kind for our diverse field.
2014 Salary Survey
Free report for AAM Tier 3 Members and Individual Members
Prepared in collaboration with AMM, MAAM, MPMA, NEMA, SEMC, and WMA, the 2014 National Comparative Museum Salary Survey is a comprehensive study.
2012 Salary Survey
Free Report for AAM Members
Prepared in collaboration with AMM, MPMA, NEMA, and SEMC. Together, these associations represent 36 states, 64% of the American population and approximately two-thirds of all museums in the United States.
Speak Up for Museums: The AAM Guide to Advocacy
Report, free to AAM members
Speak Up For Museums is full of smart, practical advice on how to be an effective advocate, making it essential reading for everyone from paid and volunteer staff to your board of trustees.
Building a Sustainable Nonprofit Organization
Workbook. $9.95 for AAM Members, $14.95 for nonmembers
In this e-workbook, available as PDF download, management consultant John Durel demonstrates how museums and other cultural nonprofits can become more sustainable organizations. Durel makes the distinction between “sustainable” and “viable,” discusses the importance of strategic thinking, and presents the “Four Essential Elements of Sustainability.” The workbook includes CEO Assessment tools, a CEO Action Plan, and multiple graphs of Key Financial Indicators for use in helping your institution get on the path to long-term sustainability.
TrendsWatch 2012-2016
Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research. The reports:
explore how each trend is playing out in the world
investigate what this means for society and for museums
share examples of how museums are engaging with this trend
suggest how museums might respond
Purchase in Print: $9.95
The Future of Financial Sustainability
Earned Revenue | Charitable Income | Government Funding | Capital (including income derived from financial investments)
TrendsWatch is the CFM’s annual forecasting report. Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research.
Executive summary: Free
Download as PDF: Free to members* ($10 for non-members)
*Make sure to log in to your AAM account prior to purchasing to receive this free version.
Truth, Trust, and Fake News | Blockchain | Decolonization | Homelessness and Housing Insecurity | Self-Care
TrendsWatch is the CFM’s annual forecasting report. Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research.
Purchase in Print: $15.00
Executive summary: Free
Download as PDF: Free to members ($10 for non-members)
Museums and Trust: video and discussion guide: $50
TrendsWatch 2018
TrendsWatch 2018: the Scenario Edition presents four stories of potential futures to help museums come up with creative solutions to the central challenge: how can we create a world informed and enriched by thriving museums? How can museums thrive, in the face of diverse forces of change? Each scenario provides guidance for structuring conversations around these playful provocations, prompting readers and planning teams to ask questions that can help guide your strategic planning.
Purchase in Print: $5.95
Download as PDF: Free
TrendsWatch 2017
TrendsWatch is the CFM’s annual forecasting report. Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research.
Purchase in Print: $5.95
Download as PDF: Free
TrendsWatch 2016
TrendsWatch is the CFM’s annual forecasting report. Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research.
Purchase in Print: $5.95
Download as PDF: Free
TrendsWatch 2015
TrendsWatch is the CFM’s annual forecasting report. Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research.
Purchase in Print: $5.95
Download as PDF: Free
TrendsWatch 2014
TrendsWatch is the CFM’s annual forecasting report. Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research.
Purchase in Print: $7.95
Download as PDF: Free
TrendsWatch 2013
TrendsWatch is the CFM’s annual forecasting report. Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research.
Download as PDF: Free
TrendsWatch 2012
TrendsWatch is the CFM’s annual forecasting report. Each edition summarizes emerging trends identified through CFM’s research.
Download as PDF: Free
Looking for a publication such as Exhibition or Museum Magazine? See all Alliance publications here.
If you have ordered with an institutional membership number in the past, you will need to create an individual account. Problems? Email bookstore@aam-us.org or call 877-226-3034.