Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

I NTRODUCTION
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a compendium of basic concepts in museology, coordinated by André
Desvallées, was launched in 1992 by Martin R. Schärer, Chairman of
ICOFOM. He was joined eight years later by Norma Rusconi (who
sadly passed away in 2007), and by François Mairesse. Over the years
a consensus emerged that we should try to present, in some twenty
terms, a panorama of the varied landscape that the museum fi eld
has to offer. This work has gathered momentum over the past few
years. Several preliminary versions of the articles were published (in
ICOFOM Study Series and in the review Publics & musées, which later
became Culture & musées). We propose here a summary of each of
these terms, presenting different aspects of each concept in condensed
form. These are addressed and further developed in the articles
of about ten to thirty pages each, along with a dictionary of about
400 terms, which will appear in the Dictionary of Museology now being
prepared for publication.
The project to compile the Dictionary is based on an international
vision of the museum, fuelled by many exchanges within ICOFOM.
The authors come from French-speaking countries, for reasons of
linguistic coherence: Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland. They
are Yves Bergeron, Serge Chaumier, Jean Davallon, Bernard Deloche,
André Desvallées, Noémie Drouguet, François Mairesse, Raymond
Montpetit and Martin R. Schärer. A fi rst version of this work was
presented and discussed at length at the 32 nd symposium of ICOFOM
in Liège and Mariemont (Belgium) in 2009.
Two points are worthy of brief discussion at this point: the
composition of the editorial committee and the choice of the twentyone
terms.
The French-speaking museal world
in the ICOM dialogue
Why did we choose a committee with almost exclusively French
speakers? Many reasons explain this choice, most but not all of
them practical ones. We know that the idea of an international and
per fectly harmonious collective work is a utopian vision, when not