Until recently the information relating to museums has been much dispersed, but detailed studies are now being published in book form. The following list identifies some of the literature available.
Works concerning the history of museums and collecting include Edward P. Alexander, Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums (1979), and Museum Masters: Their Museums and Their Influence (1983), tracing the origins of 12 important 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century museums; Germain Bazin, The Museum Age, trans. from French (1967); Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (1994), on natural history collecting before 1700; Kenneth Hudson, Museums of Influence (1987), reviewing worldwide museum development over the past 200 years through the histories of 37 pioneer museums; Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor (eds.), The Origins of Museums: The Cabinets of Curiosities in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe (1985); Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museums During the Late Nineteenth Century (1988); and Niels von Holst, Creators, Collectors, and Connoisseurs: The Anatomy of Artistic Taste from Antiquity to the Present Day (1967; originally published in German, 1960). Ongoing research is published in Journal of the History of Collections (semiannual).