News:

Canada University Press announces publishing date for Lynne Teather's
The Royal Ontario Museum: A Prehistory, 1830-1914

Photo of postcard of Toronto City Hall, circa 1900.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Toronto, Ontario, Canada- January 27, 2006 - On February 24, 2006, Canada University Press(CUP) will hold a book launch to announce the publication of the first work of its forthcoming International Museum and Culture Series – The Royal Ontario Museum: A Prehistory, 1830-1914 by Professor Lynne Teather. According to the author, ‘As the Royal Ontario Museum opens the first phase of the Renaissance ROM addition, this volume invites a reassessment of the ROM’s formation history, and, after nearly 100 years of successful existence, a rethinking of its social promise.’ According to CUP’s CEO, Chief Adetola Adeniyi, ‘With this publication, Canada University Press declares its dedication to bringing forth new and varied voices on all aspects of arts, culture and heritage, beginning with one of Canada’s premier museums, now undergoing a major cultural re-formation of great significance for the civic life of Toronto and to Canada’s cultural presence in the world.’

Photo of postcard of original ROM building from the University of Toronto Archives. ( 2001-77-114MS)

Lynne Teather is associate professor of in the Museum Studies Masters Program, University of Toronto, where she has been teaching since 1980. She holds the first doctoral degree in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester and the Ontario Museums Association Award of Merit. She has studied and consulted broadly for museums in Canada and abroad for the last 30 years, during which she has been working on Canadian museum history and building more inclusive perspectives on culture in Canada and abroad. Teather states: “This volume is the result of many years of work and is aimed both at academics and museum and cultural workers, but most of all to Canadians and cultural enthusiasts, be they supporters or critics, interested in recovering our museum stories and in moving the orthodox Canadian history of museums back many decades to show how important they were in the roster of the first civic institutions of a settler society.’ ‘But,’ she adds, ‘it is also important to all concerned for the role that Canadian cultural development has played in forming our civil society and a reconsideration of our cultural future in light of a fuller understanding of this past. These histories demand our consideration as to what our museums and galleries have the potential to be and for whom they exist. In a world of multi-million dollar investments in museum extensions or new buildings now going on across the country, this is the least we should do.‘

Canada University Press’s publisher, Chief Adetola Adeniyi, is a Canadian Nigerian with a long career as a writer, broadcaster, actor and publisher, announces: ‘Canada University Press is committed to presenting a variety of writers, types of work, perspectives and locations, hitherto inaccessible to international readers.’ The Press plans to become a locus for cultural writings and information about them using cross-cultural perspectives and to give opportunity to aspiring authors and young writers beginning with an African Writers Series for Fall 2006.

Publication: Lynne Teather, The Royal Ontario Museum: A Prehistory, 1830-1914.

Publisher: Canada University Press

BOOK LAUNCH :
Friday, February 24, 2006 at the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 42 Queen’s Park Crescent, Toronto, Ontario from 6:30-9:30pm.

RSVP
Maria or Elma Revivis,  905-760-5643