The essential guide to museum planning — for founders, directors, board members, students, and anyone who wants to understand how museums actually work.
Museums 101 is the practical handbook for museum founders, directors, board members, staff, students, and enthusiasts. It covers the full arc of museum development — from the first community assessment through opening day — written from inside the field by someone who has planned more than forty institutions.
The museum field is undergoing a dramatic shift. Inclusion, representation, digital engagement, AI-driven visitor experiences, changing funding models, and the rise of civic anchor institutions are redefining what a museum is and who it serves. Museums 101 gives you the language and framework to navigate that shift.
The book covers all museum types: natural history museums, art museums, zoos, aquariums, science centers, children's museums, history museums, and visitors centers.
Writing the book clarified my thinking and helped broadcast it to people. I often send copies to new clients — it helps them understand me and how I think.
— Mark Walhimer
The museum world has changed fundamentally since 2015. The second edition incorporates a decade of new practice, the Museum Vitality Index framework, the Convergence Era thesis on AI and cultural systems, and updated tools across all four planning phases.
New and expanded topics include:
Leave your email and you'll be the first to know when the second edition is available — along with early access to new chapters, frameworks, and the full Museum Toolbox.
The MVI is a proprietary 0–100 scoring framework that benchmarks museums of every size using size-normalized metrics drawn from IRS Form 990 data, visitor reviews, digital analytics, and community context. A $500K museum can outrank a $25M institution — if it's running well. Every metric is a ratio, never a raw number.
Request an MVI Assessment →Mark Walhimer is the Managing Partner of Museum Planning LLC and the author of Museums 101 (2015) and Designing Museum Experiences (2021), both published by AAM Press. He has worked with museums across the United States and internationally on planning, design, and institutional strategy since 1992.
Museum Planning LLC specializes in the full arc of museum development — feasibility through opening day. Community assessment, strategic planning, business planning and pro forma, master planning, exhibition design, capital campaign strategy, operational planning, and post-opening evaluation. More than forty museums over twenty-five years across science centers, art museums, natural history museums, children's museums, history museums, and cultural centers — in the United States, Mexico, and internationally.
Before founding Museum Planning LLC, Mark worked inside institutions at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Liberty Science Center, Discovery Science Center, and the Children's Museum of Manhattan. He also served as Chief Operating Officer at a museum fabrication studio. He holds an M.S. in Industrial Design and Exhibition Design from Pratt Institute and a B.A. in Studio Art from Skidmore College.
The plans I produce are designed to be built, not filed. I have been on the other side of the table when a consultant delivers a master plan. I know what happens to that document when the meeting ends.
— Mark Walhimer, Managing Partner