Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

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because it includes all the others,
museology covers a much wider fi eld
comprising all the efforts at theorisation
and critical thinking about
the museal fi eld. In other words,
the common denominator of this
fi eld could be defi ned as a specifi c
relation between man and reality,
which is expressed by documenting
that which is real and can be grasped
through direct sensory contact. This
defi nition does not reject a priori any
form of museum, including the oldest
(Quiccheberg) and the most recent
(cyber museums), because it tends to
concern itself with a domain which
is freely open to all experiments in
the museal fi eld. Nor is it limited to
people who call themselves museologists.
We should note that if some
protagonists have made museology
their fi eld of choice, to the point of
presenting themselves as museologists,
others tied to their professional
branch who only approach the
museal sphere on occasion prefer to
keep a certain distance from “museologists”,
even though they have, or
have had, a fundamental infl uence
in the development of this fi eld of
study (Bourdieu, Baudrillard, Dagognet,
Debray, Foucault, Haskell,
McLuhan, Nora or Pomian). The
guidelines in a map of the museal
fi eld can be traced in two different
directions: either with reference to
the main functions inherent to the
fi eld (documentation, collecting,
display and safeguarding, research,
communication), or by considering
the different branches of knowledge
which examine museology from time
to time.
With this last view in mind, Bernard
Deloche proposed defi ning
museology as museal philosophy.
“Museology is the philosophy of the
museal fi eld which has two tasks:
(1) it serves as metatheory for the
science of intuitive concrete documentation,
(2) it provides regulating
ethics for all institutions responsible
for managing the intuitive concrete
documentary function” (Deloche,
2001).
DERIVATIVES: MUSEOLOGICAL, MUSEOLOGIST.
CORRELATED: MUSEAL, MUSEALIA MUSEALITY,
MUSEALISATION, MUSEALIZE, MUSEOGRAPHY,
MUSEUM, MUSEUM OBJECT, NEW MUSEOLOGY,
REALITY.
MUSEUM
n. (from the Greek mouseion, temple of the
muses). – Equivalent in French: musée; Spanish:
museo; German: Museum; Italian: museo;
Portuguese: museu.
The term ‘museum’ may mean either
the institution or the establishment
or the place generally designed to
select, study and display the material
and intangible evidence of man and
his environment. The form and the
functions of museums have varied
considerably over the centuries.
Their contents have diversifi ed, as
have their mission, their way of operating
and their management.
1. Most countries have established
defi nitions of museum through
legislative texts or national organi-