A museum is a cultural institution that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and displays the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity for the public benefit. It is open to all and operates ethically, with the active participation of its community.
What makes museums so interesting is their ability to fill many different roles. Museums can inspire, educate, inform, entertain and even be catalysts for economic regeneration and urban revitalization. But how do museums fulfill these functions? This is one of the questions that a new definition of the museum seeks to answer.
A new definition of the museum has been passed by the International Council of Museums (Icom) in Prague, Czech Republic. It includes words like inclusion, sustainability, and diversity that have not previously been part of the definition. But it also raises issues such as decolonisation, repatriation and restitution, which have not been dealt with in the past.
The first consultation on the new definition was in 2019 and the results are being analysed. The responses were very diverse and valuable, and the committee has taken them into account. The committee will now begin a second round of consultations.
Museums often fulfil a political role, for example by serving as the voice of a country or region and representing its history. They can also play a social role by supporting local communities or providing access to the arts. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, for instance, has been credited with revitalising the city of Bilbao and turning it into a tourist destination.
For a long time, the main function of a museum was seen as education, and this is still seen as an important part of their work today. The museologist David Humphrey, writing in Museum News in 1986, defines the museum as having an inner and an outer museum, with the inner museum consisting of the collections and their care and the outer museum comprising all the translational devices that museums use to share knowledge of the collection with their audience.
There is a movement within the field to redefine the museum as a kind of cultural institution that chronicles the past, depicts the present and serves as a touchstone for its future. It is an alternative vision to one that stresses the educational role of museums, which is seen as a competing claim against other and often stronger educational institutions. Stephen Weil, in his book The Manual of Curatorship, describes a pragmatic argument in favour of this model: ‘If museums were presented essentially as centres for learning, they would have to compete with universities and other educational institutions for public funds and it might be difficult for them to distinguish themselves from the broad range of educational activities offered by these institutions.’ The scholarly output of museums, such as publications and papers presented at conferences, also falls into the outer museum category.