What Is a Museum?What Is a Museum?
A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, that acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, to promote learning, education, entertainment and enjoyment.
Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and futures of the worlds we live in. They acknowledge and respond to the complex challenges of our time by engaging with diversity and sustainability. Museums work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, and display their heritage in ways that enhance human dignity and contribute to global equality and planetary well-being.
Many museum organisations have a clear mission statement which articulates their basic purpose and responsibilities, for example:
The museum has traditionally been a place where objects are stored and displayed, often in the form of a cabinet of curiosities (cf. the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles or the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia). This has changed as museums have become more serious about providing inspirational experiences for visitors, a process known as musealisation.
This has involved moving beyond object-based learning to more broadly exploring the themes, issues and histories that museums can bring to life for their audiences. It has also meant developing new types of museum experiences such as augmented reality and virtual reality, and incorporating more interactive components into traditional exhibitions.
As museum experiences have become more sophisticated, so the debate around what a museum is has intensified. Some argue that only those institutions that focus on the collection and preservation of artefacts should be called museums, while others point to the fact that some of the most significant museum-related activities – such as communication and interpretation – do not involve artifacts at all.
Consequently, there are now many different definitions of what makes up a museum, and these have evolved in tandem with the changing roles and responsibilities of museums. Some of these have been more prominent than others in particular contexts, for example the museum’s role in addressing issues such as decolonisation and repatriation.
However, it is important to note that an analysis which focuses on the functions of a museum cannot be used to provide answers as to the origin and reasons for its existence. This is because the function analysis is not a philosophical analysis but merely an empirical method of organisation, based on the division of tasks. The functional analysis of the museum has led to a division into three main areas: preservation, research and communication (Jahn 1970: 167). These are often seen as reflecting the phases in the evolution of a museum. However, the analysis has tended to overlook the fact that museum functions are not autonomous but interrelated and mutually dependent on one another. This is a key issue for the current discussion on the museum’s future.