She has authored numerous reviews, articles and books about museums.
The book was the basis for public television show of the same title.
After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis in 1978 with a degree in art history and French, Schwarzer earned her MBA at University of California, Berkeley and began her museum career.
After a brief stint at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, she served as Associate Director of Development at Boston Children's Museum and Director of Education at Chicago Children's Museum before returning to Northern California in 1995 where she served as professor and chair of the Museum Studies department at John F. Kennedy University until she joined the University of San Francisco to help found a graduate museum studies program with a focus on social justice.
[citation needed] She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, the architectural historian Mitchell Schwarzer.