Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

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another museal institution, destruction
or sale. Storage and classifi cation
are also part of collection management,
along with the supervision of
all movements of objects within and
outside the museum. Finally, the
objective of conservation is to use all
the means necessary to guarantee
the condition of an object against
any kind of alteration in order to
bequeath it to future generations.
In the broadest sense these actions
include overall security (protection
against theft and vandalism, fi re and
fl oods, earthquakes or riots), general
measures known as preventive conservation,
or “all measures and actions
aimed at avoiding and minimizing
future deterioration or loss. They are
carried out within the context or on
the surroundings of an item, but more
often a group of items, whatever their
age and condition. These measures
and actions are indirect – they do
not interfere with the materials and
structures of the items. They do not
modify their appearance” ( ICOM-
CC, 2008). Additionally, remedial
conservation is “all actions directly
applied to an item or a group of items
aimed at arresting current damaging
processes or reinforcing their structure.
These actions are only carried
out when the items are in such a
fragile condition or deteriorating at
such a rate that they could be lost in
a relatively short time. These actions
sometimes modify the appearance of
the items” ( ICOM-CC, 2008). Restoration
covers “all actions directly
applied to a single and stable item
aimed at facilitating its appreciation,
understanding and use. These
actions are only carried out when the
item has lost part of its signifi cance
or function through past alteration
or deterioration. They are based on
respect for the original material.
Most often such actions modify the
appearance of the item” ( ICOM-CC,
2008). To preserve the integrity of
the items as far as possible, restorers
choose interventions which are reversible
and can be easily identifi ed.
2. In practice, the concept of
conservation is often preferred to
that of preservation. For many
museum professionals, conservation,
which addresses both the action
and the intention to protect cultural
property, whether material or
intangible, constitutes a museum’s
core mission. This explains the use
in French of the word conservateurs
(in English curators, in the UK keepers)
which appeared at the time of
the French Revolution. For a long
time (throughout the 19 th century at
least) this word seems to have best
described the function of a museum.
Moreover the current defi nition of
museum by ICOM (2007) does not
use the term preservation to cover
the concepts of acquisition and
conservation. From this perspective,
the notion of conservation should
probably be envisaged in a much
wider sense, to include questions of
inventories and storage. Nonetheless,
this concept collides with a different
reality, which is that conservation
(for example, in the ICOM Conser-