Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

which establishes a viewpoint on
reality with regard to the world of
heritage (to consider something from
the museal angle, for example, means
to ask oneself whether it is possible
to preserve it for exhibition to the
public). Museology can thus be defi -
ned as all the attempts to theorise
or think critically about the museal
fi eld, or as the ethics and philosophy
of that which is museal.
1. Museal identifi es a “specifi c
relation to reality” (Stránský, 1987;
Gregorová, 1980). This places it
alongside politics and on the same
level as social life, religion, demographics,
economics and so on. Each
example is a sphere or an original
fi eld in which problems will be raised
which will be answered by concepts.
Thus the same phenomenon can
be found at the point where several
levels meet or, to speak in terms of
multidimensional statistical analysis,
it will project itself onto several
heterogeneous levels. For example,
GMO (genetically modifi ed organisms)
can be simultaneously a
technical problem (biotechnology),
a health problem (risks regarding
the biosphere), a political problem
(ecological issues), and also a museal
problem: some social museums have
decided to stage exhibitions on the
risks and the issues of GMO.
2. This position of museal as a
theoretical fi eld of reference opens
considerable avenues to expanded
thinking, because the museum as
institution now appears to be just one
illustration or example of the entire
fi eld. This has two consequences:
(1) It was not museums that gave rise
to museology, but rather museology
that founded museums (the Copernican
revolution); (2) This allows us to
understand that experiences which
are of a different nature to those
usually identifi ed with museums
(collections, building, institution)
are part of the same problem, and
to accept museums of substitutes,
museums without collections, extramural
museums, towns as museums
(Quatremère de Quincy, 1796),
and ecomuseums or even cyber
museums.
3. The specifi city of the museal
fi eld, in other words, that which
makes it unequivocal compared
to neighbouring fi elds, lies in two
aspects: (1) sensory display, which sets
the museal apart from the textual,
managed in a library, which offers
a documentation relayed through
the medium of writing (mainly that
which is printed; books) and which
requires not only the knowledge of
a language but also the ability to
read. This procures an experience
which is more abstract and more
theoretical at the same time. On the
other hand, a museum does not need
any of these aptitudes, because the
documentation it proposes is above
all sensory, perceivable by sight and
sometimes by hearing, more rarely by
the three other senses of touch, taste
and smell. This means that an illiterate
person or even a young child
can always gain something from a
museum visit, whereas they would
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