Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

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its assumed materiality as a starting
point. Since this collection is made
of material objects – as was the case
very recently for the ICOM defi nition
of museums – the collection is
identifi ed by the place where is located.
Krysztof Pomian defi nes the
collection as “any group of natural
or artifi cial objects that are held temporarily
or permanently outside the
circuit of economic activity, subject
to special protection in an enclosed
place designed for this purpose, and
displayed on view” (Pomian, 1987).
Pomian thus defi nes the collection
by its essentially symbolic value, in
so far as the object has lost its usefulness
or its value as an item for
exchange and has become a carrier
of meaning (“semiophore” or carrier
of signifi cance). (see Object).
3. The recent development of
museums – in particular the recognition
of intangible heritage – has
emphasised the more general nature
of collections while also raising new
challenges. Intangible collections (traditional
knowledge, rituals and myths
in ethnology, ephemeral gestures and
performances in contemporary art)
have led to the development of new
systems for acquisition. The material
composition of objects alone sometimes
becomes secondary, and the
documentation of the collecting process
– which has always been important
in archaeology and ethnology
– now becomes the most important
information. This information is not
only part of research, but also part
of communicating to the public.
Museum collections have always
appeared relevant provided that they
are defi ned in relation to the accompanying
documentation, and also
by the work that results from them.
This evolution has led to a much
wider meaning of the collection as
a gathering of objects, each preserving
its individuality, and assembled
intentionally according to a specifi c
logic. This latter meaning, the most
open, includes toothpick collections
accumulated as well as traditional
museum collections, but also collections
of oral history, memories or
scientifi c experiments.
DERIVATIVES: COLLECT, COLLECTION, COLLECTOR,
COLLECTION MANAGEMENT.
CORRELATED: ACQUISITION, CATALOGUE,
CATALOGUING, CONSERVATION, DEACCESSION,
DOCUMENTATION, EXHIBIT, EXHIBITION, PRESERVATION,
RESEARCH, RESTORATION, RETURN, RESTITUTION, STUDY.
COMMUNICATION
n. – Equivalent in French: communication;
Spanish: comunicación; German: Kommunikation;
Italian: communicazione, Portuguese:
communicaçāo.
Communication (C) is the action
of conveying information between
one or several emitters (E) and one
or several receivers (R) through a
channel (the ECR model, Lasswell
1948). The concept is so general that
it is not limited to human processes
of bearing information of a semantic
nature, but is also encountered in
relation to machines and to animals
or social life (Wiener 1949). The