The Museum as Large-Room Pinball Machine : A 1967 New York City Seminar Featuring Marshall McLuhan, Harley Parker, and Museum Professionals

This new book recovers an innovative venture in museology from the late 1960s that has largely gone unnoticed.In 1967, media theorist Marshall McLuhan and his collaborator Harley Parker, pioneer of museum exhibit design, were invited by the Museum of the City of New York to moderate a two-day seminar on museum communication attended by leading museum officials from around the state and further afield.The seminar report, originally published in 1969, captures the extent to which the audacious views of McLuhan and Parker on rethinking the museum were greeted with puzzlement, scepticism, and consternation by those in attendance.Drawing on extensive archival sources, William J. Buxton sheds light on the context of the seminar, its main participants and organizers, its funding, and its reception.Also included is an essay on Parker and his close working relationship with McLuhan by Gary Genosko, and another on multi-sensory museology and the overall significance of the seminar today by David