TOOLS FOR STUDY OF MUSEUMS

Though the legendary “Museion” of historical Alexandria was more like a university, with just an important library, than a venue for the display of items, the name “museum” comes from the nine Muses, the classical Greek gods of inspiration. 

While most scholars date the first museum (in the modern sense) to the 17th or 18th centuries, there were earlier collections of objects and display sites, such as ancient Rome’s public squares or fora (where statuary and war booty were displayed), mediaeval church treasuries (for sacred and valuable objects), and traditional Japanese shrines where small paintings (ema, traditionally of horses) were hung to attract good fortune.

Museums do not give themselves to rigid categorization because of their different origins, ideologies, and social roles. Certain museums cater to a certain demographic, such as children, societies, universities, or schools. Some people are in charge of a certain geographic area, including a city or region. Other museums, particularly those with a patriotic, religious, or political attitude, may provide unique viewpoints, resulting in unique interpretation of artistic, historic, or scientific holdings.

GENERAL MUSEUMS:

General museums, which house collections from a variety of subjects, are frequently referred to as interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary museums. Many of them date from the 18th, 19th, or early 20th centuries. The majority came from private collections in the past and reflected the encyclopaedic attitude of the time. 

Certain general museums demonstrate the impact of cultural exchanges facilitated by trade. Some museums have a large number of noteworthy specialist collections, allowing them to be classified in even more than one specialisation category. This is especially true of many big general museums that may have collections in one or more subjects that are comparable to, if not superior to, the amount and quality of material displayed in a specialty museum. 

Some national museums house their broad collections in their main building; indeed, many started off that way, but the need for more room led to the division of the collections and the formation of specialist museums.

NATURAL HISTORY AND NATURAL SCIENCE MUSEUMS:

Natural history and science museums are interested in the natural world; exhibits of birds, mammals, insects, plants, rocks, minerals, & fossils may be found in their collections. The beginnings of these museums can be traced back to the cabinets of curiosities amassed by famous Europeans during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods.

 Some of the first museums included natural history specimens (albeit as part of an encyclopaedic collection): the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, the British Museum in London, and the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Museums showing natural history artefacts blossomed and grew in number as the natural sciences advanced in the nineteenth century.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUMS:

The creation and use of scientific ideas and apparatus are the focus of technology and science museums. Scientific museums, including natural history and science museums, have their roots in the Enlightenment. 

Some emerged from learned societies’ collections, while others emerged from private collections, such as the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands, in 18th century. The applications of science became a recent innovation in science museums, and museums began to conserve the evidence of both technological and scientific endeavours.

 Some technology and science museums focus on exhibiting science as well as its applications; process preservation takes precedence over object preservation in these museums.

HISTORY MUSEUMS:

The phrase “history museum” is frequently applied to a wide range of museums where collections are accumulated and, in most cases, presented chronologically. Because of the all-encompassing nature of history, these museums may potentially contain so many art and scientific objects that they should be referred to as general museums.

ART MUSEUMS:

The primary concern of an art museum (also known as an art gallery in some locations) is the object as a medium of unassisted communication with its viewers. Accepting things for the collection is consequently based on their aesthetic merit. Paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts have traditionally been included in these collections. 

Since the 19th century, when the industrial arts were first introduced, a number of art museums have featured them, mostly to promote positive industrial design. It may be claimed that aesthetics has sacrificed function & association to the point where objects are frequently displayed in completely foreign settings. This critique also applies to archaeological material in some nations.

VIRTUAL MUSEUMS:

A virtual museum is a digitally recorded collection of photos, sound files, text papers, as well as other data of historical, scientific, or cultural importance that can be accessed via electronic media. A virtual museum lacks the permanency and distinctive attributes of a museum in the formal understanding of the term because it does not store actual things. Most virtual museums, in reality, are supported by institutional museums and rely on their existing collections.

MUSEUM STRUCTURE AND OPERATIONS:

BUILDING DESIGN AND FUNCTION:

The opening of a new museum or the renovation of an existing one is usually a high-profile event. Its design is supposed to reflect this, whether it is a new structure or an old building that is being conserved for its historic or architectural significance.

 It is required of a structure that contains exceptional artefacts to equal the quality and distinctiveness that the exhibits bring to it. Today’s museum structure is multipurpose, with open space for exhibitions and visitors while maintaining tight security and strict environmental controls to conserve the artefacts. 

Shops and restaurants, for example, are heavily featured. Housing for reserved collections, laboratory & workshop space for display conservation and preparation, teaching and studying facilities, and offices are less visible.

MUSEUM ORGANISATION:

ADMINISTRATION:

The overall administration of museums around the world does not follow a consistent pattern. The lack of such a pattern is due in part to the diversity of museum collections, but it also reflects ambiguity about the role of museums in society, such as whether they are guardians and interpreters of cultural heritage, repositories for the study of primary evidence relating to human as well as natural history, social instruments in community development, or leisure and recreation facilities.

MANAGEMENT:

Most museums are overseen by a board of directors. This body establishes the museum’s overall policy and allocates and manages the resources required to carry it out. Its tasks usually include the appointment of the director and sometimes other staff members.

MUSEUM ACTIVITIES:

COLLECTION:

ACQUISITION POLICIES:

The museum then attempts to fill gaps in the collection or expand its activities into other, typically related subjects, using the existing collection as a foundation. As a result, many museums have disparate collections, which were amassed under an “encyclopaedic” mentality at best and a “cabinet of curiosities” approach at worst.

LEGALITY:

Every museum is in charge of ensuring that its acquisitions are legitimate. Collection laws differ from country to country, but regardless of whether a state has adopted its own legislation or ratified relevant international conventions, museum employees are expected to follow commonly accepted professional codes of ethics.

PROTECTION OF CULTURAL PROPERTIES:

Conventions like the ones mentioned above reflect the fact that the industrialised world’s collection operations differ significantly from those available to poor countries. In other cases, entire nations’ cultural assets have been scattered to private collections & museums around the world, leaving developing institutions to rely on casts and reproductions to portray the region’s cultural achievements.

CONSERVATION:

The primary role of a museum should be to maintain its treasures and to do everything necessary to avoid natural deterioration. The purchase of an object almost always places it in a new and perhaps hostile environment. It’s possible that material collected from the earth through archaeological excavation will need to be stabilised right away.

DOCUMENTATION:

Whether a museum has a few hundred or millions of objects, documentation is an important part of its mission. A museum’s case reports provide a vital record of the information related with the artefacts for research, in addition to the necessity for records to maintain proper control of its collections.

RESEARCH:

Museums clearly play an essential role in research since they house primary material evidence for a variety of themes related to people and the environment. The research programme of a museum is linked to the institution’s goals.

CONCLUSION:

Museum studies, also known as museology, takes a broad look at museum activity in its social, cultural, and political context. Museum studies cover innovations in the fields of administration, marketing, and education, as well as core concepts for the formulation of government policies related to the management of cultural resources. The museum studies discipline encompasses art, history, ethnic studies, archaeology, and anthropological theories and concepts.

Museum communication, preservation and conservation of heritage assets, museum exhibition content development, museum and gallery marketing, and more are all covered by museum studies degrees.