Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

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Etymologically speaking museology
is the ‘study of the museum’ (or
museum studies), and not its practice,
which is museography. But the term
museology and its derivative museological,
accepted in its wider sense in
the 1950s, now has fi ve clearly distinct
meanings.
1. The fi rst and most commonly
accepted meaning applies the term
museology to anything relating to
museums and generally listed, in
this dictionary, under the heading
museal. Thus one might speak of
the museological departments of a
library (the reserved section or the
numismatic cabinet), museological
questions (relating to museums) and
so on. This is often the meaning used
in Anglo-Saxon countries, which has
even spread from North America
to Latin-American countries. Thus,
where there is no specifi c recognised
profession, such as in France where
the general term curator (conservateur)
would be used, the term museologist
applies to the entire museum
profession (for example in Québec),
in particular to consultants given the
task of drawing up a museum project
or creating and staging an exhibition.
This use is not favoured here.
2. The second meaning of the
term is generally accepted in many
western university networks and is
close to the etymological sense of
the word: museum studies. The most
commonly used defi nition is that
proposed by Georges Henri Rivière:
“Museology: an applied science, the
science of the museum. Museology
studies its history, its role in society,
the specifi c forms of research and
physical conservation, activities
and dissemination, organisation
and functioning, new or musealised
architecture, sites that have been
received or chosen, its typology
and its deontology” (Rivière, 1981).
In some ways museology contrasts
with museography, which refers to
the practices attached to museology.
Anglo-Americans are generally
reluctant to accept the invention of
new ‘sciences’ and have favoured
the expression museum studies, particularly
in Great Britain where the
term museology is still rarely used
to date. Although the term has been
increasingly frequently applied internationally
since the 1950s, along with
the increased interest in museums, it
is still rarely used by people who live
with museums on a daily basis, and
the use of the term remains limited
to people who observe the museum
from the outside. This use of museology,
widely accepted by professionals,
has gradually established itself
in Romance countries from the 1960s,
replacing the term museography.
3. From the 1960s in Central and
Eastern Europe, museology gradually
came to be considered as a
genuine fi eld of scientifi c research
(albeit a developing science) and an
independent discipline examining
reality. This view, which greatly
infl uenced ICOFOM in the years
1980-1990, presents museology as
the study of a specifi c relationship
between man and reality, a study in