Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

tion and how to inventorize museum
objects. They create the scenario for
the contents and propose a form of
language which includes additional
media to aid understanding. They
are concerned with the needs of
the public and employ the communication
methods most suitable for
putting across the message of the
exhibition. Their role, often as the
head of a project, is to coordinate
all the scientifi c and technical specialists
working within a museum:
organising them, sometimes clashing
with them and arbitrating. Other
specifi c posts have been created to
fulfi l these tasks: the management
of the art works or objects is left to
the registrars, the head of security is
responsible for surveillance and the
tasks carried out by this department,
the conservator is a specialist in preventive
conservation and in remedial
conservation measures, and even
restoration. It is in this context, and
in interrelation with the different
departments, that museographers
concern themselves with the exhibition
tasks. Museography is distinct
from scenography (exhibition or
stage design), which is understood to
mean all the techniques required for
installing and fi tting out display spaces,
just as it is different from interior
design. Certainly stage design
and museum interior design are a
part of museography, which brings
museums closer to other methods
of visualisation, but other elements
must also be taken into account such
as the public, its understanding of
the message, and the preservation
of heritage. These aspects make
museographers (or exhibition specialists)
the intermediary between
the collections curator, the architect
and the public. Their role varies,
however, depending whether or not
the museum or the exhibition site
has a curator to lead the project.
The further development of the role
of some specialists within museums
(architects, artists, exhibition curators,
etc.) has led to a constant fi netuning
of the museogapher’s role as
intermediary.
3. Formerly and through its etymology,
museography referred to
the description of the contents of
a museum. Just as a bibliography
is one of the fundamental stages of
scientifi c research, museography
was devised as a way to facilitate the
search for documentary sources of
objects in order to develop their systematic
study. This meaning endured
throughout the 19 th century and still
continues today in some languages,
in particular Russian.
DERIVATIVES: MUSEOGRAPHER, MUSEOGRAPHIC.
CORRELATED: EXHIBITION DESIGN, EXHIBITION
PRACTICE, INTERIOR DESIGN, MUSEUM FUNCTIONS,
MUSEUM OPERATIONS, MUSEUM PRACTICE.
MUSEOLOGY
(MUSEUM STUDIES)
n. – Equivalent in French: muséologie; Spanish:
museología; German: Museologie,
Museumswissenschaft, Museumskunde; Italian:
museologia; Portuguese: museologia.
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