Day: April 9, 2025

When people hear the word ‘cultural heritage’, they usually imagine artefacts such as paintings, sculptures or historical monuments and buildings. But cultural heritage is more than just tangible objects that can be touched; it also includes a wide variety of intangible forms of culture. These can include, for example, dance, music and oral traditions. All these forms of cultural heritage are vital and deserve to be preserved. They are part of the fabric that makes up unique communities and their loss during conflict or natural disasters is extremely devastating.

UNESCO, the world’s leading organisation for protecting cultural heritage, has recognised this fact and has developed an international convention to safeguard intangible cultural heritage. This is an important step because cultural heritage, whether it’s a musical instrument or a historical document, is not just about the past; it’s a conduit for shaping the future. When this cultural heritage is threatened, it can affect the way community members see their own identity and the future of their environment.

But preserving cultural heritage is not easy. One of the major challenges is to find adequate funding. In addition to that, it is also difficult to secure the support of local communities for long-term preservation projects. It is also important to find the right balance between preserving cultural heritage for everyone and maintaining it in its authentic form. This can be a challenge since the perception of what is considered as cultural heritage may vary from person to person.

Some of the most important factors that influence how heritage is conserved and protected are: lack of government concern and professional commitment, illicit trafficking, poor destination management and conservation practice, low level of public awareness and interest, and a negative attitude towards cultural heritage conservation amongst local communities (Mancacaritadipura: 2015).

Moreover, the definition of what constitutes ‘cultural heritage’ is quite complex. UNESCO has defined it as “those properties, areas or sites which are of Outstanding Universal Value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological and anthropological point of view”. This means that the heritage is not only about things that can be touched, but also about those that can be experienced.

This definition is a bit vague and it has been criticised for being too broad and subjective in nature. It also doesn’t take into account the fact that some forms of cultural heritage, such as music or dance, are not necessarily tangible and can be difficult to preserve.

Another problem is that cultural heritage materials are subject to many threats and dangers such as war and conflict, climate change, unsustainable tourism and natural deterioration. The latter is particularly challenging when dealing with fragile documents such as old diaries and manuscripts. That’s where Transkribus comes in – our software is designed to digitise, decipher and make these historical records more accessible for research and the public. That way, we can help in the efforts to safeguard cultural heritage for generations to come.

A museum is a space that houses a collection of art, objects, specimens, or plants and shows it to the public for education and enjoyment. Museums vary widely in focus and type, but all share a desire to preserve and display a portion of a culture’s history for future generations. Museums can serve a number of purposes: as recreational facilities; as scholarly venues; as symbols of national pride or memory; as sources of civic inspiration; and even as vehicles for overtly ideological concepts.

Museums have been established for many reasons throughout the centuries, reflecting an innate human desire to collect and interpret, often with discernible origins in large collections built up by individuals and groups before the modern era. The definition of museum has also evolved to reflect the changing needs and intentions of these institutions over time.

Today, museums are often defined as independent institutions that acquire, conserve, research, communicate, and exhibit both tangible and intangible heritage for the benefit of all humanity. This is a broad and flexible definition that allows for a great deal of creativity in the types of museums we can now find around the world.

Currently, there are around 43,000 museums worldwide, with the largest being the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with a staggering 8.7 million visitors in 2022 and the Natural History Museum of London in second with 6.8 million visitors. These institutions are often funded by taxpayers and may be for-profit or nonprofit organizations. Some for-profit museums are operated by companies, while others are run by private individuals who have collected items for a long time and wish to share their collections with the public for profit.

While most museums display some of their objects at any given time, they own many more that are never on view. These items can be used for research by scholars who study paintings, the posture of a particular person, or the behavior of a species. Additionally, some museums own objects that were taken without permission from people or their cultures, and there is a movement to return these items to their rightful owners.

The International Council of Museums (Icom) has been working to revise the definition of a museum for over a decade, and in April, 2022 a revised draft was passed at Icom’s Extraordinary General Conference in Prague. The final definition will be published shortly. In the meantime, Icom is engaging in a process of consultation that includes four rounds over 18 months with museum representatives from Icom’s 126 National Committees. The results of this outreach will be incorporated into the final definition. The process is open to everyone who wants to participate. For more information, visit the Icom Define page.