With multimillion-dollar blockbuster shows a dying species due to the economic crisis, how can museums attract the public? Who will go to them, and why should they bother?

This talk will delve into the subject of the new book Beyond the Turnstile: Making the Case for Museums and Sustainable Values, edited by Selma Holo and Mari-Tere Alvarez. Three museum professionals will join Holo and Alvarez to discuss the crisis in museums today and the opportunities to rise above it.

Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and one of our most dynamic and creative art museum leaders, will discuss the transformation he is leading to make LACMA more relevant to a vital contemporary life in Los Angeles. Donny George Youkhanna, who served as director of the Baghdad Museum during the American invasion of Iraq and was witness to the looting of some of civilization’s keystone culture monuments, will share his thoughts about archaeology collections and their future in an ever more globalized world. Dr. Jorge Wagensberg, scientific director of the Foundation “la Caixa” and creator of CosmoCaixa in Barcelona, one of the world’s most exciting science museums, will contribute his idea that, unlike any other institution, museums can provide an experience of authenticity — a way of learning that emanates not from the word, but from the world.

The event will be moderated by Selma Holo, director of USC’s Fisher Museum and its new International Museum Institute. It will also include remarks by Mari-Tere Alvarez, project specialist in the department of education at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Holo and Alvarez’s new book, Beyond the Turnstile: Making the Case for Museums and Sustainable Values, examines what museums — whether devoted to art or science or history — must do to be indispensable to society today and in the future. Their book is changing the conversation in the museum world from “How many came to the show, and how much money did we make today?” to “How did our museum serve and change society today? How did it help to make society better, smarter, more tolerant and more creative?”

Please join us and be a part of this new conversation.

A reception and book signing will follow.