Key Concepts of Museology - ICOM

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establishment. The notion of public
is central to almost all of the current
defi nitions of museum: “institution
… at the service of society and its
development, open to the public”
(ICOM, 2007). It is also a “collection
… the conservation and display
of which are of public interest
and intended for public knowledge,
education and enjoyment” (Law on
the museums of France, 2002), or
again “an institution which owns
and uses material objects, preserves
them and exhibits them to the public
according to regular opening hours”
(American Association of Museums,
Accreditation Program, 1973); the
defi nition published in 1998 by the
Museums Association (UK) replaced
the adjective ‘public’ with the noun
‘people’.
The very notion of public closely
associates the museum activities with
its users, even those who are intended
to benefi t from it but do not use its services.
By users we mean of course the
visitors – the public at large – about
whom we think fi rst of all, forgetting
that they have not always played the
central role that the museum recognises
today, because there are many
specifi c publics. Museums have opened
up to everyone only gradually,
being fi rst of all a place for artistic
training and for the territory of the
learned and scholarly. This opening,
which has led museum staff to take
an increasing interest in all its visitors
and also in the population that
does not visit museums, has fostered
the growth of ways of interpreting
the museum to all the users, as we
can see by the new words used over
time: people, public at large, nonpublic,
distant public, disabled or
frail; users, visitors, observers, spectators,
consumers, audience, etc. The
development of the professional fi eld
of exhibition critics, many of whom
present themselves as “public advocates”
or “for the voice of the public”,
is evidence of this current tendency
to reinforce the idea that the public is
at the core of general museum operations.
Essentially since the end of the
1980s we talk of a real “turn towards
the public” in museal action, to show
the growing importance of museum
visits and take account of the needs
and expectations of visitors (which
corresponds to what we also call
“the commercial trend of museums”,
even if the two do not necessarily go
together).
3. By extension, in the models of
community museums and ecomuseums,
the public has been extended
to cover the whole of the population
in the areas in which they are set.
The population is the basis of the
museum and in the case of the ecomuseum,
it becomes the main player
and no longer the target of the establishment
(see Society).
DERIVATIVES: DISABLED PUBLIC, MINORITY PUBLIC,
NON-PUBLIC, PUBLIC AT LARGE, PUBLIC RELATIONS,
PUBLICITY, TARGET PUBLIC.
CORRELATED: AUDIENCE, ASSESSMENTS,
COMMUNITY, CUSTOMERS, ECOMUSEUM, EVALUATION,
EVALUATORS, LOYALTY BUILDING, PEOPLE, POPULATION,
PRIVATE, SOCIETY, SPECTATORS, ENQUIRIES, TOURISTS,
USERS, VISITING, VISITORS.