NEW DEFINITION OF THE MUSEUM: IT'S PROS AND CONS Proceedings of The Conference.
NEW DEFINITION OF THE MUSEUM: IT'S PROS AND CONS Proceedings of The Conference.
NEW DEFINITION
OF THE MUSEUM:
ITS PROS AND
CONS
Proceedings of the conference
NEW DEFINITION
OF THE MUSEUM:
ITS PROS AND
CONS
Proceedings of the conference
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons
Proceedings of the conference held on 7th–8th March 2022 in the Technical Museum in Brno
Jan Dolák—Josef Večeřa (eds.)
The proceedings are published with the contribution of the Czech ICOM Committee and the Association of Museums
and Galleries of the Czech Republic, z.s.
Authors: Bc. Karolína Bukovská, Doc. PhDr. Jan Dolák, Ph.D., Mgr. Tomáš Drobný, Mgr. Pavel Holman, Mgr. Jakub Jareš,
Mgr. Františka Marcinová, PhD., PhDr. Petra Mertová, Ph.D, Mgr. Václav Rutar, PhDr. RNDr. Richard Senček, Ph.D.,
Mgr. Jiří Šabek, PhDr. František Šebek, Mgr. Pavla Vykoupilová
Reviewers: PhDr. Oskar Brůža, PaeDr. Tibor Díte, PhDr. Daniel Hupko, PhD.
CONTENTS
97 Abstract
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 4
INTRODUCTION TO DEFINING
A MUSEUM
Jan Dolák
Comenius University Bratislava
How can we name things precisely? The issue of naming, of producing definitions, is one that
has engaged philosophers since time immemorial. Since Aristotle at the latest, endeavours
at categorizing and classifying things in some way have been increasing, including making
collections, e.g. of plant and animal samples, and creating a hierarchical system, developing
syllogism, a kind of logical argument in which one statement (conclusion) is deduced from
two other propositions (premises), etc. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) is considered the founder
of so-called syllogistic logic. A definition (from Latin de = from, away and finis = boundary,
i.e. definitio = bounding, limiting) is an ideally unambiguous determination of the mean-
ing of a particular term. The term which is defined is also called the definiendum (Latin for
“what is to be defined”), while the description of the meaning of the defined term is called
the definiens (Latin for “defining”). Redefining (redefinition) then describes the determina-
tion of a new definition replacing the previous one. Logicians use expressions such as “var-
ious ways of subject determination” (Gottlob Frege), they write of intension and extension
of terms (Rudolf Carnap) and of the most general terms comprising the heights of various
hierarchies as categories (Aristotles, Kant). Definitions then have predefined forms, defini-
tions can be nominal and real, analytical and synthetic, etc.
Evidently logicians don’t have an easy job. Museum specialists around the entire world,
however, have got into frequently fierce disputes over whether their particular combination
of words and sentences, often put together on a purely emotive basis, is the most precise defi-
nition of the museum concept. As if years working within the museum world and plenty of
self-confidence is enough to formulate a globally accepted definition. Many museum defi-
nitions have appeared over the course of the centuries. I am sure that the authors of some of
these carefully considered each word and phrase. I doubt that others did. So on the basis of
“wise words come from wise men”, I consider it something of a challenge to claim that it was
at this particular time that this or that phenomenon came into the concept of a museum, or
that “from this time” this or the other is considered a museum. The popular statement that,
“a museum is a museum,” attributed to Czech poet Petr Bezruč, is a circular definition, or
a form of tautology in which nothing is said other than A equals A.
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has also been endeavouring to find
the right definition for the word “museum” for decades. Its International Committee for
Introduction to defining a museum 5
Museology (ICOFOM) began intensive efforts focused on this issue under the presidency
of France’s François Mairesse, with the work then continuing under Brazil’s Bruno Brulon
Soarez. Some of the hundreds of studies looking at the definition of a museum include large
encyclopaedias and collective monographs1, writings from the most renowned figures in
the field,2 and in fact within the Slovak-Czech context I myself have made some contribution
towards the global debate.3
Following the failed submission of a proposed definition at the ICOM General
Conference in Kyoto, Japan, a major breakthrough is anticipated at the ICOM General
Conference in Prague in August 2022. This is one reason why our domestic museologists did
not want to stand on the sidelines of global debates on the definition of a museum. Thanks
to the kindness and organisational commitment of the Technical Museum in Brno and with
the assistance of ICOM’s Czech National Committee, the Czech Association of Museums and
Galleries, in particular its museology committee and the generous support of our Slovak
partners, a specialist seminar took place at the Technical Museum in Brno on 7–8 March 2022
entitled: Nová definice muzea, aneb její klady a zápory (New Definition of a Museum, or its
pros and cons). We really didn’t mind that at that time ICOM had not submitted a new defini-
tion for debate. The meeting allowed us to grasp the issue to its full extent. Dozens of leading
representatives of the Czech and Slovak museology and museum world took part in the semi-
nar, and a total of fourteen talks were given, with some of those contributing supplying their
texts, which comprise the contents of these proceedings. Not everyone, of course, focused
strictly on the creation of a new definition. Some noted shifts in the concept of museums in
the past, some spoke mainly on the current concept, significance and mission of museums,
often making use of notable domestic and international examples, perhaps also with ref-
erence to ICOM’s Code of Ethics. The submitted proceedings are thus a significant demon-
stration of the level of contemporary Czech and Slovak museology. The texts vary in their
genre. They include scientific studies, academic articles and minutes. Overall, the seminar
took place in more of a traditionalist style, with the words “collect”, “public”, and “education”
the most frequently used. Most participants did not consider the issue of a new definition of
a museum to be an absolutely pressing one, which was confirmed by surveys amongst Czech
and Slovak museum representatives. But being a traditionalist, or a conservative, does not
mean being backward. We are well aware that the traditional concept of “in situ” museums
(the village of Vlkolínec in Slovakia, the village of Wuzhen in Zhejiang, China, most castles
and chateaux) and “in fondo” museums (most museums) is not obsolete, but rather expanded
by a mix of these approaches, and by a copious number of other elements. Exhibitions often
feature living animals, such as fish at the Prácheň Museum in Písek and the Moravian Regional
Museum in Brno. The most attractive “object” in the history-focused museum in Jenštejn is
the nest of bats, including their rather pungent faeces. Guides at Canada’s Writing-on-Stone
park while showing ancient Indian rock carvings also like to show visitors the local insects,
and the shaping of soft rock into so-called hoodoos.
These are just some examples of various hybrid approaches to museum documenta-
tion and presentation. In the vast majority of cases, we should welcome these mostly crea-
tive mixes. The problem of determining where a museum begins and where it ends is not so
much a museological one as an administrative one. When organisations apply for financial
support, tax relief or to join national or international associations, it is then that we should
be determining whether the particular organisation is or is not a museum.
The job of the new definition, hopefully set in Prague, is not to classify museums in
some way. They have been a part of the culture or memorial organisations since time immemo-
rial. The job is rather to define the museum in the true meaning of the word, that is to delimit
them, to separate them from similar establishments. This should not be a negative definition.
There is no list of what museum documentations or presentations should not contain. We’ve
got to tackle the problem from the other side; that is to say a positive list of those hallmarks
which when arranged as a whole form the unique concept of a museum. According to Josef Beneš,
a museum must fulfil a documentation and communication role. There is rarely dispute over
collections being “open to the public”. Thus private collections of paintings accessible to just
a small circle of the owner’s friends, or a shrine in New Caledonia only accessible to tribal
members, are undoubtedly a part of our heritage, but they are not museums. Definition-wise,
it become more difficult to tackle the mission of “documenting”.
Archives also document, as do the historical collections of libraries. And here this can
in fact refer to anything. I know of archives where besides the usual objects of “writing cul-
ture” (stamps, seals, etc.) they also contain very old herbariums.
The “museum” did not begin with the dancing of ancient man to the rhythm of
music, even though this was played on a flute made from bone. It certainly didn’t begin with
the records of scribes who noted down who had provided the amount of wheat demanded
to their overlords, which we can see in ancient societies. The “museum” rather began with
the killing of a bear and the creation of a necklace from its teeth. The man was showing on
his neck (an illustration of ostentation): look at me, I am a mighty hunter, I have killed a bear.
These premises also apply today at a time of an explosion of oral history, and at a time when
any sounds or images can be transmitted by the latest technology. Here, in my opinion, that
required “separation” of the museum from other organisations, although we cannot call
for some obligatory percentage representation of three-dimensional objects, is somehow
genetically linked.
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 7
Since time immemorial, people have endeavoured to understand and explain the world by
surrounding themselves with physical objects. For these reasons, over time we began to cre-
ate the facilities we now call museums. Roughly 60 years ago, a new university discipline
began to take shape—museology—and it is no surprise that it focused on and continues to
focus on various museum concepts. In my opinion, Z Z Stránský and Wojciech Gluzinski
went the furthest in this museological and philosophical reasoning.1 Josef Beneš has even
put together a short dictionary.2 This method of reasoning, including reflecting on various
changes in society and documenting these, will undoubtedly continue even after the ICOM
General Conference in Prague in August 2022.3 Today,4 we are faced with a distinctly differ-
ent challenge: to formulate a definition for the International Council of Museums—ICOM.
As such, I think it is crucial to fundamentally differentiate two basic approaches.
1. A philosophical/museological approach.
2. Creating a definition for the International Council of Museums.
Thus there is the philosophical/museological analysis of museums on the one hand and the defini-
tion of a museum for the museums association on the other hand—these are not the same things.
Thus, museology should be a kind of background, a knowledge of matters, an awareness of
where museum activities can reach, in what different ways museums can be perceived. This
1 STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk Zbyslav. Archeologie a muzeologie. Brno: 2005. GLUZINSKI, Wojciech. U podstaw
muzeologii. Warschava: 1980.
2 BENEŠ, Josef. Muzeologický slovník. Praha: 1978.
3 According to Gluziński, a museum is “only and foremost a manifestation, a material objectification of
consciousness, expressing actions and interactions in certain systems”. Gluzinski’s argument is a powerful
one, but immediately unusable for the needs of defining a museum.
4 The lecture was delivered at the beginning of the conference The New Definition of Museum, Its Pros and
Cons at the Technical Museum in Brno on March 7, 2022.
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 8
in-depth knowledge can then be used to formulate a definition of museums for ICOM. Here
there is no longer much room for philosophy. ICOM needs a simple, apt, concise definition
which is also understandable and substantive, and certainly strictly apolitical. This defini-
tion must be sufficiently broad and encompassing, yet also constraining.5 Every ICOM pres-
ident or official providing grants in different countries of the world must know immediately
when grant applications are submitted whether they involve a museum or not, and whether
that particular organisation can become an ICOM member or receive a museum grant or not.
In the vast majority of cases, this person is neither a philosopher nor museologist. Thus we
should formulate an ICOM definition without philosophy or poetics.
We should note that museology’s closest disciplines—archival science, library science and
cultural heritage care—are not holding such intensive debate on how they should be defined.
Nor does the international association of philosophers aim to definitively determine what
metaphysics or ontology actually mean, and meetings of sociologist associations do not vote
on what society is, or whether there even is such a thing. This leads to two core premises.
1. The museum world is so specific that the definition of a museum has needed to be
investigated in depth for dozens of years.
2. The museum world has succumbed (and not for the first time) to the endless desire for
gnoseological manifestations and self-definitions which do not result in much of any use.
The frequent argument that an ICOM definition offers inspiration for national legislation is
easily demolished. I know of no country which would incorporate an ICOM definition into
its legislation. The Czech Republic, for example, dealt with nonprofit issues in its own way,
while Slovaks did not look at nonprofits at all in its Act no. 206/2009 Zb. The Slovak approach
leads to a fundamental question. If a particular facility fulfils all the functions (hallmarks) of
a museum, do we need to bother looking at its accounting? Personally, I think the whole agenda
regarding the definition of a museum is a hypertrophied one, but if ICOM feels the need to
change, let’s offer a helping hand.
5 See Baruch Spinoza—Omnis determinatio est negatio (Determinateness is negation). A deeper analysis of
the statement of the famous Dutch-Jewish thinker from his letter to his friend was given by Martin Hemelík
from Vysoká School of Economics in Prague. HEMELÍK, Martin. Determinatio est negatio. E-LOGOS/2004.
Available at: https://e-logos.vse.cz/pdfs/elg/2004/01/06.pdf [cit. 7. 1. 2022].
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 9
ICOM has worked on different museum definitions, initially based on French language (with
subsequent translation into other languages), and later based on English. French museolo-
gists in particular, influenced by structuralist or post-structuralist philosophy, often refer to
the fact that people perceive the world in the language they think in, i.e. differently accord-
ing to the language they speak.
Later, the definition incorporated the expression in the services of society and its devel-
opment, which is sometimes replaced by expressions such as “to the benefit of society”, etc. This
raises a core question. What has homo sapiens sapiens created “to the detriment of society” over
the tens of thousands of years it has existed? A piece of flint, a North Korean or British machine
gun, a Russian or American nuclear bomb? Who can make this determination? A machine gun
in the hands of German fascists during the Second World War was undoubtedly on the side of
evil, while it stood on the side of good when captured by Slovak partisans. But absolutely noth-
ing has changed in terms of its actual definition. The fact that the words “to the benefit of society”
are not just the hallmark of museums, was also noted by French philosopher Bernard Deloche.6
Deloche asks whether this expression refers to the moral good, or to happiness, and correctly
notes that healthcare, education and the legal system are also of benefit to society. We could
add, with some scepticism, whether Country A’s legal system, or the system of international
law and its application, are always necessarily perceived as to the good of society in Country B.
At an international level, I was personally involved in “definition discussions” for
the first time in 2005 at an ICOFOM symposium in Calgary, during which the so-called
Declaration of Calgary determined that museums are not nonprofit, but rather not for profit.7
When I asked what the difference was between these two expressions, native speakers told
me that not for profit means that the organisation is not focused on profit, but some profit
is welcome. I am not entirely sure whether all native speakers of English understand this
minor difference in the same way, nor how one could translate the expression into different
languages (so it is distinct from nonprofit). This leads me to Finding 1.
F1: When determining the right sentences to use, we may sometimes end up dealing
with verbal gymnastics.
In 2008, I pointed out at a meeting of the ICOFOM Commission in Liege, Belgium, that a museum
is not an institution in the true sense of the word. Peter van Mensch concluded the following
hour-long rather contentious and heterogeneous discussion by lamenting that we are entirely
unable to agree on what an institution actually is. From this, I formulate Finding 2.
6 DELOCHE, Bernard. Definition of Museum. In: DAVIS, Ann—DESVALÉES, Andre -MAIRESSE, Francois. What is
a Museum? München: 2010, p. 118.
7 This shift was also reflected in the definition at the General Conference in Kyoto.
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 10
I have never come across any response to this discussion or a published definition of an insti-
tution—organisation. From this finding, and from many similar ones, I formulate Finding 3.
F3: There is very limited dialogue conducted on the definition of a museum, although
there are a large number of dialogues in which each party does not listen to the other.
The most visible outcome of the current efforts is the concise dictionary, Key Concepts of
Museology,8 written by renowned museologists from French-speaking areas, and put together
by André Desvallées and Francois Mairesse. The same team of authors also wrote the large
Dictionnaire encyclopédique de muséologie.9 I consider these works the true greatest achieve-
ments of museological terminology. Even so, these authors’ concepts seem a little tight, that
is to say overly Francophone. Today, the extensive Dictionary of Museology is currently being
produced,10 again edited by Francois Mairesse. Also of high quality is the compendium, What
is a museum?, published by Christian Müller—Straten publishers in Munich.11 Today, however,
there are an inexhaustible number of texts available which discuss the definition of a museum.
The wording of a definition was produced for the ICOM General Conference in
Kyoto, but it was not adopted by the conference. It was neither a bad nor a good definition;
it was not a non-definition. Polish museologist Magdalena Lorenc described the wording
as a political manifesto.12 The flowery text provides a definition of a museum as seen from
the position of a middle-class person within the Euro-Atlantic civilisation. No definition
of a museum should contain expressions such as democratising, polyphonic, for critical dia-
logue, etc. Not even the word inclusive, ostensibly neutral, is appropriate.13 Do the Technical
Museum in Brno, or the J V Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia promote planetary well-being?
8 This dictionary has been translated into many languages, with the first “non-ICOFOM” language being
Czech: DESVALÉES, Andre—MAIRESSE, Francois. Základní muzeologické pojmy. Brno: 2011.
9 DESVALÉES, Andre—MAIRESSE, Francois (eds). Dictionnaire encyclopédique de muséologie. Paris: 2011.
10 It is being published in French by publishers Armand Colin and in English by publishers Routledge.
11 DAVIS, Ann—DESVALÉES, Andre—MAIRESSE, Francois (eds.). What is a Museum? Münichen: 2010.
12 LORENC, Magdalena. Polityczność nowej definicji muzeum ICOM, czyli manewrovanje transatlantykiem
wśród gór lodowych. Muzealnictwo, r. 61, pp. 164–171.
13 There are three basic forms of coexistence between persons or groups of different cultural circles.
1. Assimilation, meaning a significant or complete merger with the majority community (e.g. in the USA in
the 19th century and first half of the 20th century). 2. Integration, in which the individual maintains some
of his own culture, but respects and observes the principles of the majority community (e.g. laws, use of
the majority language, etc.). 3. Inclusion, meaning merely living next to each other without any due features
of integration. Minimising social, spatial and cultural integration leads to the creation of parallel societies.
While some praise the principle of “differences enrich us”, others consider the creation of parallel societies
as today’s greatest problem. So inclusion is not a neutral expression.
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 11
Probably? Or not? Who has the power to determine something like that? What would have to
happen for a museum to acquire or lose this characteristic? Is there well-being in Auschwitz?
In terms of the facilities I suppose so: there is a large car-park, the site is flat, it is easy to move
around. But in other ways? I strongly recommend the Kyoto wording remain in the history books
of the discipline and that something else be focused on. We would surely agree that it is better
to leave the current definition as it is than to adopt a worse definition.
Expressions such as “democratising”, “inclusive”, etc. are common expressions mainly
within the Euro-Atlantic civilisation.14 Europe has the largest number of members of ICOM,
and evidently it will mostly be Europeans at the General Conference in Prague. I would cau-
tion against Europe “steamrolling” the rest of the world with its current vocabulary. This
might lead to a breaking of cohesion, something with is already rather fragile.
A definition of a museum for ICOM should include only arbitrary expressions, somehow
measurable. If we can agree what we understand by the expressions “communication”, “collec-
tion” or “permanent”, we are able to evaluate in some way if these requirements are met. Non-
arbitrary expressions such as “feeling of wellbeing” should not be a component of any definition.
The ICOFOM international committee did not have a large influence on the change of defi-
nition. First of all, it was established in 1977, and secondly its members were not involved in
the crucial discussions. The ICOFOM committee was invited to take part in definition dis-
cussions prior to the General Conference in Kyoto, and ICOFOM’s then-president, Francois
Mairesse, resigned his membership of the committee in protest at its conclusions. Thus
the initiator of the changes is not ICOFOM, but rather someone else. So who? It is not easy
to ascertain exactly. They evidently work at ICOM’s Paris headquarters, comprising various
museum managers, some chairs of ICOM national associations or other national associations,
etc. Perhaps their efforts at producing a new definition are just an attempt to “go down in
history”. Another reason might be that organisations have already joined ICOM which are
not true museums, and they now “legitimately” claim their rights.
Methods
ICOM chose the right method for creating a museum definition prior to the GC in Kyoto. It set
up a committee of experts which was tasked with discussing and putting together the wording
14 A few dozen responses to the ICOM questionnaire from different continents or regions do not provide
relevant information on the vocabulary and ways of thinking of the billions of people who live here. This
text is being written in mid-March 2022, when the ICOM Define—Standing Committee for the Museum
Definition—submitted five different, in fact very similar proposals from which the final draft will be selected
for the General Conference in Prague.
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 12
of a new definition, to explain why it uses particular words, and to submit the wording to
the floor of the general conference. The failure of this endeavour was evidently the result of
the composition of the committee.
Prior to the GC in Prague, ICOM chose an entirely different method. They called on
the general public to vote themselves on what the definition should contain.15 Non-ICOM
members are also called upon to take part in the survey. It should be noted that I do not know
any organisation in the world whose own fundamental concepts should be formulated by
non-members. We are witnesses to a kind of all-out “crowdsourcing”, rejecting deeper exper-
tise. I still believe, however, that explaining the concept of a museum requires some kind of
expert knowledge. I trust that all respondents taking part are experts in particular aspects
of work in museums, but how many of them are actual experts on the logical construction
of definitions, on the coherent system of first-order logic? I do not imagine that everybody
working in libraries and archives, from cleaners to top management, could contribute towards
the definition of a library or archive. Never mind the recommendation that twenty words
would be optimal. Carefully written results from the questionnaires are certainly not without
value, and they bring some knowledge for that part which I termed “philosophical-museo-
logical” above. Undoubtedly a large number of bachelor’s theses will be written investigat-
ing which continent or country worked harder in giving their responses, what terms they
preferred, and what they shunned. The filled-in questionnaires, however, do not bring a lot
to the table in regard to a practical solution for the definition for the international organi-
sation. A cursory glance makes at least one shortcoming clear, this being the lack of verbs.
So should we change some nouns to verbs? Perhaps the word “collection” to “collect”? Shall
some sentences begin: Museums collect… ? This approach would undoubtedly have a large
number of opponents. A number of museums, which we call in situ (in loco), devote minimal
or even no time to active collecting. These are, for example, castles or chateaux with essen-
tially permanent interior furnishings, but we can also include important palaeontological or
archaeological sites, various memorial or sacred sites, etc. These museums, so to say, „have it
all collected“ already. How many of the most common words are we going to choose for our
museum definition? Twenty, thirty, or more? Unfortunately, this survey, as could be antici-
pated, resulted in a certain frequency of words, which we cannot consider to be politically, or
even ideologically, neutral (democracy), are unverifiable and merely fashionable (sustaina-
bility), or not accepted everywhere in the world (forest, wood). Certainly, even a sacred wood
can sometimes be considered a museum. But this is just one of the many forms that museums
take. If we wanted to include all forms a museum can take in the definition, the definition
could easily be three pages long.
15 https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ICOM-Define-Consultation-2-Results-Report-vf-
ENGLISH-180821OK.pdf
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 13
— Be able to get down to the very core of your mother tongue in order to formulate terms
and sentences well. You need a good knowledge of English, the language international
debates are conducted in.
— Have a knowledge of museum work and museological studies in regard to terminology,
within the Slovak-Czech context this means knowledge of the works of Z. Z. Stránský,
J. Beneš, M. Lalkovič, V. Rutar, R. Senček and others.
— Have general knowledge of the creation of definitions, logical sentence construction, be
focused on logically correct and incorrect statements. In this regard, I would refer to
the works of logicians—e.g. Bernard Russell, Alfred Tarsi, Kurt Gödel, Marián Zouhar
and many others. The discipline known as terminography is today a separate subject.16
— We need to realise that the definition of a museum cannot be scientifically calculated.
We can only use a stipulative definition (C. G. Hempel), i.e. whatever the expert com-
munity agrees a museum will be. Astronomers also previously considered Ceres and
Pluto to be planets, but today they are no longer so. Yet nothing changed in regard to
the actual objects themselves (the satellites). Rather there is a consensus of the experts.
While natural science and physics require the creation of prescriptive definitions, social
sciences strive for a precise descriptive definition, which describes and explains.
The science dealing with the way of drawing conclusions, including sentences, is called logic.
Within its frame, the so-called Illocutionary act has been studied and developed for sixty
years (John Austin, John Searle, Marian Zouhar and many others). Putting it simply, a sen-
tence can be descriptive and express a state or claim or, conversely, it can be prescriptive and
express a promise or wish. Even if we all agree on the direction in which museums should
progress, the “Prague definition” must capture the current state of affairs. No promises or
wishes, i.e. prescriptive words, can be part of the definition.
New definition
But what should any definition for ICOM look like? It should be concise, not offensive to anyone,
yet also apposite. The final wording could comprise three parts.
16 SCHWARZ, Josef. Vybrané teoretické a metodologické problémy terminografie: poznatky z tvorby České
terminologické databáze knihovnictví a informační vědy (Selected theoretical and methodological
problems of terminography: findings from the creation of the Czech terminological database of
librarianship and information science). In: National Library, Library Review, 2003, No 1, pp. 21–41. Available at:
http://full.nkp.cz/ nkkr/NKKR0301/0301021.html
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 14
Let us move on to the actual definition. A majority opinion prevails amongst experts in a num-
ber of aspects. A museum should be permanent (but not perpetual), accessible and not primarily
focused on financial profit. We also want to include business museums (often part of joint stock
companies) and special museums like the Jewish Museum in Prague which are not nonprofit
in the true sense of the word within the museum family. Here I can reproduce from Czech
legislation the sentence: museums do not generally make a profit. The Czech Museums Act has
been in force for over twenty years, and I am not aware of any suggestion of issues with this
paragraph. I am not against a different formulation, however.
To whom should a museum be open, however? Society or the public? The word society
might be interpreted as a “closed society” (members of a sports club, or an indigenous tribe).
The term “public” seems broader than society to me, as the broadest expression, and auto-
matically includes all minority groups (the disabled, members of racial, ethnic and sexual
minorities, etc.), whose participation in museums is today heavily emphasised.
A museum is open to the public and generally does not make profit
But what is a museum? Probably not an institution.18 According to economists (Thorstein
Veblen) and sociologists (Jan Keller, Jan Sokol, Jan Janďourek), an institution is a gener-
ally established, practised and approved method of transferring acts and relationships.
Organisations are a more or less permanent, purposeful societal formations with a clear
border, membership, internal division of activities, etc. So duels and usury were institu-
tions, and today marriage, banking, healthcare, museum sphere, etc. are. So a person can
never be an employee of an institution, but rather something “within” the institution, and so
some organisation. Within institutions are some organisational groupings—organisations
i.e. within museology (the museum sphere) these are mainly museums, but also relevant
authorities focused on the work of museums, and departments of museology, etc.
So a museum is a permanent organisation. Using the word organisation, however,
might give the impression that museums can only be rather formal, with a charter, a stat-
ute, a codified internal structure, etc. But even very small, less formally organised museum
17 The use of comments would not be an entirely revolutionary step. Until the GC in Vienna in 2007,
the definition of a museum contained similar comments (clarifications), from which we ascertained that
zoos are also considered to be museums.
18 DOLÁK, Jan. Some remarks on museum terminology. In: Museology : back to basics. Morlanwelz: 2009., pp.
199–208. (ICOFOM study series; 38).
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 15
facilities will also have to have the opportunity to become ICOM members. In one text, I used
the displeasing expression organisational unit19 and used a comparison20 with a shoemaker
who repairs shoes. We probably don’t perceive the shoemaker as a fully fledged organisa-
tion, but rather he is some kind of unit, subject to business and tax laws, occupational safety
rules, etc.
19 DOLÁK, Jan Some remarks toward the ICOM museum definition. Museum.—no. 6 (2017), pp. 33–38.
(published by the University of Beijīng).
20 DOLÁK, Jan. Some remarks toward the ICOM definition. Museology and culture: museum and heritage, city,
sacred and museum definition. Taipei: 2018, pp. 526–536.
Moving on the definition of a museum—without philosophy or poetics 16
will be effectively duplicated, and in this case a dictionary of art can be of use. Historians
of architecture correctly point out that any decoration or addition to some buildings would
only disturb their clarity, usefulness and effect. In other words, they say: Less is more. Adding
more that is good does not necessarily make it better.21
Literature
21 The statement “less is more” is attributed to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who in fact took it from his teacher,
Peter Behrens. It was first used in Robert Browning’s poem, Andrea del Sarto (1855).
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 17
“…the almost fifty-year old definition, which underwent just one major change at the 21st ICOM
General Conference in 2007, is a part of the ICOM Statutes, and museology students logically
encounter it during their course. The Czech Republic’s Act no. 122/2000 Coll. on the Protection
of Collections of Museum Character provides a similar wording for its definition of the term
“museum” (if considerably expanded), which was added to it in 2004…”
During this period of constant seminars and consultations focused on a narrow terminologi-
cal view of our discipline, many authors are providing brief perspectives on the development
of the term being investigated at the start of their studies. Thus, we can read multiple times
about the beginnings of the Musaeum, a temple dedicated to the Muses, and its later concep-
tually more understandable use of the term in descriptions of the Alexandria Museum. This
museum is considered a place of philosophical discussions, closer to a prototype set of build-
ings linked to knowledge than to protecting and interpreting material heritage. The under-
standing of museums as places specifically for protecting and exhibiting collections did not
actually come about until the 18th century.
Even today’s familiar understanding of the museum as an “institution” leads us to
understand the word as a description of a “building” in which cultural material is kept.
The public now has access to this, as it did over the entire 19th century. The 20th century wit-
nessed a small shift in emphasis away from the word “building” (this is when the museum
becomes used in reference, e.g., to an open-air museum, while the second half of the century
sees the use of the term in the nascent ecomuseums, and, e.g., community museums) . We can
encounter some definitions which include botanical and zoological gardens, etc., as museums.
There was a major shift in determining the definition of the term “museum” at
the UNESCO, ICOM and ICOM Chile conference in Santiago de Chile on 20–31 May 1972, as
a result of which the Declaration of the Roundtable of Santiago came into force in 1973. During
discussions, new terms are introduced into museological discourse—participatory museol-
ogy, social museology, postcolonial, community museum… in regard to community museum,
dealt with in Chile in the context of the introduced term, Museo Integral, there is an emphasis
on integrating the museum into the community. The definition wording, with minor mod-
ifications, became official in 1974, and it was introduced into the ICOM Statutes (although
Why do we need a new museum definition, after all? 18
still with the word “intangible” missing). The importance of the Chilean conference in work
on this issue is also confirmed by the fact that the International Committee for Museology
(“ICOFOM”) chose commemoration of 50 years since the above noted date as one of the main
topics for its work in 2022.
During the 1970s, the term “institution” began to become increasingly commonly
understood differently, and even replaced in the works of some authors. Within discussions,
the interpretation of the word “museum” as a “centre of social transformation” begins to
appear, and this proves to be fundamental in subsequent years. In this regard, it is worth
remembering the definition written by Zbyněk Z Stránský in 1980—Stránský does not write
of museums as an institution, but rather understands it as a “form for realising a specific,
museological relationship of man to reality…”. The key aspect of this definition, however, is
in its second part. Without stressing political connotations (as was often the case in other
definitions in Eastern Bloc states), he says that, “… this form is not permanent, changes and
will change as there will also be change in the historical and social orders and the specific
contents of this relationship.”
In regard to terminological events within ICOM, in my opinion ICOM, set up in 1977,
played the most significant role. The breadth of topics within museology, which are processed
in annual studies and conferences needn’t be stressed. The terminology itself was and still
is one of the most important issues in the committee’s activities. From the outset, ICOFOM
collaborated with CIDOC (the committee for documentation) in creating Dictionarium
Museologicum, which was published in a number of editions, during the first half of the 1980s,
with the last edition issued in 1986. It began to work on a separate study in 1993—work on
the Thesaurus of Museology began, and despite a slight delay this was first published in 2010
as Concepts of Museology (published in Czech as Základní muzeologické pojmy, 2011) and
an expanded edition was produced in 2011 as Dictionnaire encyclopédique de muséologie.
In the period after 2000, we should also make note of the ICOFOM conference in Calgary on
30 June—2 July 2005. Again, the term “museum” was one of the main topics here—results
were supported by the ideas of Peter van Mensch and Zbyněk Z Stránský, in particular in
regard to their application in clearly established museum functions—research, protection and
communication. The main outcome, however, was the term “intangible”, which was incorpo-
rated into the definition in 2007 at ICOM’s 21st General Conference in Vienna. Thus this word
was only included in the definition more than 30 years after its official introduction (1974).
In relation to the newly introduced terms, it should also be noted that the defini-
tion was further added to in a number of interpretations. The broadest interpretation was
the result of work by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics—alongside the “short” definition
contained in the ICOM Statutes in Part 3 Definition of Terms, located in Section 3 the Institute
adds another nine areas, including botanical and zoological gardens, and also science cen-
tres, planetariums, non-profit galleries, nature reserves, … Certainly not all of these, how-
ever, can be included amongst the noted main functions of museums (selection, protection,
education, enlightenment, etc.).
Why do we need a new museum definition, after all? 19
The most prominent study in the subsequent period which developed museologi-
cal terminology was ICOFOM’s previously mentioned Concepts of Museology—as well as
the term “museum”, which is interpreted in five ways (related to areas, periods, theoretical
focus), the authors also incorporated another twenty terms here, in many cases for defini-
tions already established (institution, education, heritage). Emphasis was also placed on
investigating the terms museology, public, ethics and society, which had a major impact on
ICOM’s further work.
Discussion on a new definition was re-opened at the 24th General Conference in Milan
in 2016. By January 2017, the Standing Committee on the Museum Definition, Prospects and
Potentials (“MDPP”) had been set up. In December 2018, the ICOM Executive Board (“EB”)
had adopted the MDPP recommendations, alongside a set of eight parameters. Consultation
was held with over 900 participants, and five versions of possible definitions were created,
and then submitted to the EB in June 2019—which was to select the definition which was to
be voted on at the 25th General Conference in Kyoto. Due to the lack of co-operation between
the EB and MDPP, however, voting was postponed. François Mairesse and others took a critical
stance—Mairesse considered the prepared definition as more a declaration of fashionable
values (democratisation, well-being). There was also criticism that the definition should be
simple and clearly focused on the term itself. In his report from the Kyoto discussions, John
Fraser says that, “the committee has offered useful recommendations for civic action that fit
well with the museum form, but those purposes should not be construed as a definition of
what museums are.” Many parties expressed the opinion that the new definition seemed more
like a political statement which in no way accepted the diversity of museums and how they
work. Twenty-four ICOM committees with representatives of a number of states (France, Italy,
Spain, Germany, Canada, Russia) rejected a vote. It was also noted that the submitted defini-
tion lacked a number of core terms in their original form (education, intangible, tangible).
Thus, implementing this new definition could have had a negative impact on the legislation
of selected countries. It should be noted here that legislation often incorporates a definition
directly impacting co-operation between state and museums.
Following postponement of the vote, MDPP EB proposed a comprehensive methodol-
ogy in September 2019 for further work and processes. Unfortunately, once again there was
not sufficient EB involvement, and at the end of the year the MDPP’s work was terminated.
By January 2020, however, the work formally continued in a committee now given the new
acronym MDPP 2. In March, EB received a new methodology again, however as before there
was insufficient collaboration, resulting in a number of committee members withdrawing—
Léontine Meijer-van Mensch, Hilda Abreu Utermohlen and Suay Aksoy (who also resigned
from her position as ICOM President) all expressed their severe criticism of the lack of co-op-
eration—the EB is accused of not observing the established procedures, of a lack of trans-
parency, passivity and indecision. Reference is made to unfair political games and a lack of
solidarity. A number of national and international ICOM committees also made negative
statements on the entire situation (all in June 2020).
Why do we need a new museum definition, after all? 20
The situation gradually settled down in the second half of the year, and a new solution
and work procedures were sought. On 7 July 2020, ICOM’s main criteria for selecting the most
appropriate words were submitted. Their first webinar was held a few months later on 10
December 2020, during which a new system of work was submitted—this was planned for
the period from December 2020 until 10 May 2022 with a total of eleven steps, during which
four consultations were to take place. Included in this period is an introduction to method-
ology, assessment of the situation in Kyoto, selection of approx. twenty words important for
a definition and other work with them according to established methodology (qualitative
and quantitative analysis, meaning maps…).
Five definitions have been published from the end of February 2022, put together
on the basis of the terms of selected committees. These definitions are to be assessed dur-
ing the final fourth consultation, and submitted for completion to MDDP2. The EB’s state-
ment and published results must be submitted to the 26th General Conference in Prague on
20–27 August 2022.
The methodology for constructing a definition is based on a selection of terms within seven dif-
ferent areas (Entity—Entity qualifiers—Objects—Action—Experience—Social Values—Target)—
roughly 5-6 terms were progressively selected in each of these areas in consultation with
the committees (national, international and also affiliated organisations). These were then
used to “construct” the mentioned five definitions. Below, I provide a brief description of
the selected terms, and in some cases also ICOFOM’s specific approach (if it differed from
the words adopted, or if it added new ones). In some places, I have also included other ICOM
representatives’ understanding of the issue.
Entity (what a museum is)—the main ones chosen were Institution (80%), Space, and
Place. In their explanation, the term “institution” is presented mainly in connection with
the terms organisation, non-profit and permanent. Space is understood as a public, or digital,
space open to the public. Finally, “place” is interpreted mostly from a physical, or architectural,
perspective. It is evident from the ICOFOM results (here Museum nature) that of the three
presented terms, Space is preferred, which is described in a broad way also incorporating eco-
museums, digital museums (cyberspace), community centres and on-line museums. Here,
“museum” is not linked solely with a building or institution, but to an open space (fulfilling
other definition parts). For many other committees, however, the term is considered vague,
and more specific boundaries are not determined for it.
In the group of Entity qualifiers (what qualifies/determines a museum), there are
mainly two already established words—Non-profit and Permanent, but also three new ones—
Inclusive, Sustainability and Accessibility, which we can assume will be inserted into the new
definition. Accessibility is of course also linked to the most frequently mentioned phrase
here—Open to public (78%). ICOFOM (Legal Aspects) assessed the selection a little differently—
as well as the common terms Non-profit and Public, they also include words from the opposite
end of the spectrum, specifically Profit and Private. This is quite an unusual perspective—if
we look at the mentioned Concepts of Museology, or the vocabulary of selected main words
Why do we need a new museum definition, after all? 21
for the prepared definition, these cannot be found. In ICOM materials, however, we do find
remarks on some apparently evident terms given by individual committees. The International
Committee for the Collections and Activities of Museums of Cities (“CAMOC”), for example,
states that the term “Non-profit” is not applicable to community museums, where heritage
can be utilised within a “business model”. Similarly, “Professional” cannot be used in regard
to many community or private museums. Furthermore, “Permanent” cannot be easily used
in regard to ecomuseums or “individual-run” museums where there is not an obvious need
for permanence and they can be linked to one-off events.
Objects (what museum objects are)—the most important term here is Heritage (92%),
which most commonly appears alongside Tangible/Intangible, and so incorporates “all natural
or man-made goods and values”. Amongst the most commonly requested terms are in par-
ticular Culture and Memory, general terms linked to museum activities in all possible inter-
pretations. In particular, the term “memory” is irrefutable and represents the very core of
museum work. Instead of the term Objects, ICOFOM uses in my opinion the more accurate
term Museum content, and besides Heritage they also highlight Collections and Knowledge. They
also note the importance of the word Media, which is closely linked to collection and showing
a collection. In this area, CAMOC provides an interesting interpretation of the word Heritage.
They say that it is an emotional term and it evokes memories linked to emotions, and not to
historical facts. In some cases, the term Heritage is interpreted together for both tangible
and intangible heritage—such that this division need not be utilised.
Action (what museums do), understood as a function, includes traditional terms—
Researches (93%)—Displays/Exhibits—Educated—Conserves—Communicates—Preserves—
Interprets. ICOFOM, which in its submitted results uses the more precise term Museum
functions, chooses on the basis of many years of terminological work, again more clearly,
the following terms—research, preservation, exhibition, education, conservation, documenta-
tion. From the perspective of general museum terminology, a term is lacking here which
would link directly to the activities around building collections. Terms like acquisition or
selection, paradoxically, do not play a main role in preparations for a new definition, even
though “acquisition” is a word clearly established in today’s definition. Some of the commit-
tees promote other terms too—e.g. Participate, Connect and Restore.
Experience (what experience people acquire in museums). The newly submitted term
here is Dialogue, which implies an emphasis on the increasing openness of museums. For a long
time, museums’ communication channel has no longer been perceived as one-way. The pro-
cess of communication is now firmly linked to inclusivity and participation. The educational
purpose is no longer interpreted solely using the traditional idea of education—knowledge
can be shared, learning can be informal, or perceived as life-long education. Some of the most
commonly proposed terms include Enjoyment/Entertainment, Knowledge, and the new sug-
gestions of Reflection and Curiosity, which are also linked to Discovery. ICOFOM, which inter-
prets the terms under the descriptor Museum missions adds alongside the purposes given in
the old definition also Emancipation and Study. It also includes community museology, and
Why do we need a new museum definition, after all? 22
do not retain their clarity. Are museums really accessible on the basis of their inclusivity to
all? Might the price of tickets not play a role, for example, preventing access to members of
certain groups? Can a museum unambiguously commit itself to presentations within envi-
ronmental protection when technical museums display a number of objects which have had/
have an impact on nature and relate to the climate crisis? How can we consider collections
as contributing towards human dignity when some of them were essentially stolen in his-
tory? Is the term non-profit absolutely essential for museums? Should access to museums
be free of charge?
The difficult to grasp contexts of globalisation, communities, inclusivity and cultural diversity
have led to a lot of misunderstandings within museology. Misunderstandings are generally
dealt with by trying to find shared terms, and putting these together in a definition. These are
then tested out in communications, and then further modified if necessary by finding other
differences in contexts with different perspectives. And so we don’t always fully understand
each other, and we go back to the current agreements at general levels which do not result in
differences. And so then—why do we need a new museum definition, after all?
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 24
The origin of the word “museum” can be found in Ancient Greece, where it was used to describe
the Temple of the Muses. In Greek, the name of this temple was Mouseion (Μουσείον), and
this is generally transcribed into English as the Musaeum, or Mouseion. The Muses were
goddesses of science and the arts, and they had temples at various sites.1 Over time, the name
“Temple of the Muses” came to be used for other institutions of a scientific and learning nature.2
The first and most famed was the Musaeum in Alexandria, Egypt. This was founded by King
Ptolemy I Soter in around 300 BCE, who charged Demetrius of Phalerum, with building it.
Demetrius had previously been based at the Lyceum in Athens, founded by Aristotle and later
led by another major scholar, Theophrastus. The Musaeum included the famed Great Library,
which is considered the largest library of the ancient world. At its height, it was said to contain
700 thousand scrolls and the works of various scientific disciplines, and also fiction, poetry and
drama. There were also collections in the Musaeum which were used in science and in teach-
ing—botanical, zoological, anatomical, physical and astronomical collections. The Musaeum
ceased to exist in the 5th century CE, as one of the last pagan institutions of antiquity.
There were a number of similar institutions in the ancient world, and their existence
was based on the political, societal, religious and economic situation in the ancient world.
Some of them ceased to exist at around the time of the beginning of the Common Era, or
in the first centuries of the Common Era, while others survived up to the 4th and early 5th
century AD, when Christianity became the only permitted religion as a result of decrees by
Emperor Theodosius I. Temples and academies, as symbols of paganism and the pagan world,
1 The Muses were the daughters of the god Zeus and Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory, and escorts to
the God Apollo. Calliope was patron of epic poetry and heroic song, Euterpe of music and lyric poetry, Erato
of love poetry, Thalia of comedy, Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of dance, Clio of history, Urania of
astronomy and mathematics, and Polyhymnia of hymns and choral songs.
2 Educational and academic institutions were founded in the ancient world in the 4th and 3rd centuries
BCE. In Athens, these included Isocrates’ sophist school, Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum and
Epicurus’s Garden. Similar institutions were also set up in other cities. The largest and most important
institution was the Musaeum in Alexandria, which we might compare with today’s academies of science and
also universities.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 25
were closed or destroyed. Thus, the word “musaeum”, or its modified form, “museum”, dis-
appeared for a number of centuries.
The word reappeared in the 15th century during the Renaissance, which saw renewed
interest in the ancient world and its ideas. The making of collections also developed, to some
degree developing on its ancient form, and in many cases similar objects were collected. At this
time, collections were mainly secular in nature, although some may have continued to contain
religious objects. The form of collections was also influenced by contemporaneous science, in
particular in terms of what was collected and how the collection was arranged. Collections are
miniature versions of the world, designed to help in one’s understanding of the world, and also
fulfilling a representational role, in particular in the case of the collections of monarchs and
aristocrats. Terminology and the words for various types of collection also developed. Most
commonly, collections were referred to using the word cabinet, or kammer (from German)
with an epithet describing the type of collection. In Italy, the words studiola or galleria were
used. At the end of the 15th century, the descriptor museum began to be used again. The first
use of the word is usually said to be for a part of Lorenzo de Medici’s collection—Museo dei
codici e cimeli artistici (collection of manuscripts and gemstones). Florence was famed for
its processing of gemstones, and there were a large number of workshops there, some of
whom also worked for the House of Medici. Precious stones, transformed into gems, cameos,
Florentine mosaics, jewellery, containers and furniture decoration, comprised a large part of
the family collection. Lorenzo de Medici set them apart as a special collection, which he termed
“museum”.3 In subsequent centuries, collections of scientific nature in particular, focused on
a particular discipline or number of disciplines were termed museums. It should be added that
the vast majority of “cabinets” were multidisciplinary, bringing together objects of various
nature. Those focused on a single discipline were the exception. Beginning in the 16th cen-
tury, the word “museum” was also used in another meaning—it was used in literature to refer,
for example, to works bringing together perhaps stories from a particular country, myths
and legends or scientific findings regarding objects of a similar character. The major Italian
16th century collector, Ulisse Aldrovandi, for example, wrote the book Musaeum metallicum,
which was essentially a work of mineralogy presenting prevailing opinions on various min-
erals and ores.4 It was not a catalogue of Aldrovandi’s collection.
Some of the most renowned collections of the time described as museums were, e.g.,
Danish physician, natural historian, ethnographer and historian Olaf Worm’s Museum
3 The family had long been interested in collecting cut gemstones. Cosimo de’ Medici began the collections,
and successors built upon them. The Medici family endeavoured to employ skilled stone cutters, and later
trained up new ones, who could create new items for their collections, and also objects for sale. In 1588,
Ferdinando I de’ Medici established Opificio delle pietre dure, which was an academy for stone cutters,
and it also held a study collection. The academy is still running today. See, e.g., ACIDINI LUCHINAT, Cristina.
SCALINI, Mario (Hrsg.). Die Pracht der Medici. Florenz und Europa. 1. díl. München, London, New York:
Prestel—Verlag, 1998, p. 108. ISBN 3-7913-2063-7.
4 ALDROVANDI, Ulisse. Musaeum metallicumin libros IV. Bononiae: Baptistae Ferroni, 1648.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 26
5 WORM, Olaf. Museum Wormianum. Seu historia rerum rariorum, tam naturalium, tam artificialium, tam
domesticarum, Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Iohannem Elsevirium, 1655.
6 HEBENSTREIT, Johann Ernst. Museum Richterianum continens Fossilia, Animalia, Vegetabilia. Lipsiae:
Casparus Fritsch, 1743.
7 QUICCHENBERG, Samuel. Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimmi… München: ex officina Adami Berg, 1565.
8 NEICKELIUS, C. F. Museographia, oder Anleitung zum rechten Begriff und nutzlicher Anlegung
der Museorum oder Raritäten –Kammer... Leipzig und Breslau: Michael Hubert, 1727, pp. 5–6.
9 Two catalogues for this collection were produced in the 17th and 18th centuries: BUONANNI, Filippo.
Musaeum Kircherianum. Sive Musaeum P. Athanasio Kircherion in Collegio Romano Societas Iesu… Romae:
Georgius Plachi, 1709. and KIRCHER, Athanasius. Romani Collegii Societas Iesu Musaeum Celeberrimum…
Amsterodami: Joannem Janssonium à Waesberge, 1678. For more on Kircher himself, see, e.g. Magie
des Wissens. Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) Universalgelehter—Sammler—Visionär. 1. vyd., Dettelbach:
Verlag J. H. Röll, 2002, 216 pp. ISBN 3-89754-211-0. or FINDLEN, Paula (ed.). Athanasius Kircher.the last man
who knew everything. 1st ed., London, New York: Routledge, 2004, 465 pp. ISBN 0-415-94016-8.
10 KOMENSKÝ, Jan Ámos: Orbis sensualium pictus. Leutschoviae: Typis Samuelis Brewer, 1685, p. 199.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 27
The first two museums in today’s sense of the word were also opened in the 17th cen-
tury. In 1671, the collection of the Amerbach family was opened to the public in Basel, the city
having received ownership of it, forming the basis of the future Historical Museum. Then
in 1683, the Ashmoleon Museum was founded at the University of Oxford.11 Other museums
were founded in the eighteenth century. The most well-known of these is the British Museum,
set up in 1753 as a museum celebrating the British Empire. The French Revolution was a land-
mark, when parliament nationalised some collections, turning them into four large museums,
the most well-known of which are the Musée du Louvre and the Musée nationale d’histoire
naturelle. In subsequent years, the idea of public collection institutions spread across Europe,
and shortly afterwards in other continents, and it could be said that museums were set up
en masse. In addition, private, company and institutional collections remained in existence.
Sometimes, these private collections were transformed into publically accessible museums.
Over the course of the 19th century in Europe, and in the 20th century on other con-
tinents, museology evolved as a theoretical discipline looking at collecting and museums.
Many of its theoreticians endeavoured to define what a museum was, with greater or lesser
reflection in practice. During the 20th century, various museum associations got involved
in discussions on the definition of a museum—national and international, general and spe-
cialist associations. They also endeavoured to define what a museum was, and incorporate
the outcome into their statutes or charters. Most widely applied was the definition cre-
ated by the International Council of Museums, and this is commonly used across the world.
Definitions written by museologists mostly did not achieve broad public acceptance. However,
it is not the subject of this article to present and analyse these.
Within the Czech lands, we encounter the common use of the term “museum” from
the 18th century, when it was used in regard to a number of collection institutions. An actual
definition of a museum, however, was not written down until the last century. Probably
the most well-known example of a museum is the mathematics museum in the Clementinum,
which was officially founded in 1722 and opened to the public in 1723 on the occasion of
the coronation of Charles VI as King of Bohemia. Its full name was Museum Mathematicum
Collegii Clementini, but the word “museum” was not specially defined. It was a scientific
collection which served scientists for their research and students in their studies, providing
visual aids and used for representation. It contained various scientific instruments (clocks,
globes, models, etc.), plants and animals, rocks, minerals, mechanical devices, ethnographic
material, portraits of renowned scientists, coins and medals. It closed following the disso-
lution of the Jesuit Order in 1773. Its parts were progressively transferred to other institu-
tions, or were lost. Some of the natural artefacts remained in the Clementinum, and in 1775
11 This museum was set up from the inheritance of Elias Ashmole, who bequeathed to the university his
humanities collection and natural history and ethnographical collection, which had been created by John
Tradescant Sr. and John Tradescant Jr., which he had acquired on the basis of an agreement. A selection of
objects from the original collections is today exhibited in a special room of the Ashmolean Museum.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 28
the Museum Naturae Pragense was set up and opened to the public. This collection was owned
by Prague’s German University in 1882, from where it moved to the National Museum after
1945. Again, the word “museum” was not explained in any way.
The establishment of these institutions ushered in the era of museums being set up
from the early 19th century. Considering the extent of what was then the Kingdom of Bohemia,
the oldest museum was the Szersznik Museum, founded in 1802 in Cieszyn (today part of
Poland). This was followed by regional museums—Opava in 1814, Brno in 1817, Prague in 1818.
In subsequent years, museums were not founded because the political situation prevented it.
Only with the adoption of the 1861 constitution, and then federal law, did the situation allow
museums to be set up, with dozens established. Despite this, no definition in the true sense of
the word was ever produced during the entirety of the century. While we can find explanations
of what a museum is in the statutes of the museums and museum associations, in fact these
were just descriptions of the particular institution. They stated what the institution should
do, what it should collect, from what territory, and how it should look after the collection,
but these were not definitions of a museum. Not even museology theorists such as Kliment
Čermák, Lubor Niederle, Karel Adámek and others created a definition. In their works, they
merely generally explained what a museum is, and what its mission and main activities are.
Various encyclopaedias written during the 19th and 20th centuries contained an entry
for museum. Again, these were not definitions, but rather general characteristics and most
entries also incorporated examples of types of museums in different countries, or special
entries for certain museums or types of museum.
Let us begin with how perhaps the most famed and valued encyclopaedia of the time—
Ottův slovník naučný—explains the term. The introduction to the “Museum” entry notes
the ancient origin of the word, Alexandria’s Musaeum and ancient collections in general.
Subsequently, it states: “Since the end of the Middle Ages, the expression museum has been
used for a collection of interesting and rare objects within the natural science and art fields.
Later, the expression museum was mainly used for a collection of art objects, while in recent
times, museums are devoted to art and science collections of all types. So we have anatomical,
botanical, zoological, mineralogical, geological, physical, natural science, historical, prehis-
torical, national, anthropological, military, maritime, postal, industrial, economic, hygiene,
business, national costume museums, museums for industry, art, etc. In museums of this
kind, generally found in capital cities, most commonly at universities, technical universities,
industrial schools, etc., they show the system and historical development of different branches
of science, art industry, etc., their creations and products, imitation preparations, tables, dia-
grams, etc. Displays of pictures are often referred to using the term pinacotheque or gallery,
while museums of sculptures use the term glyptothek (the Glyptothek in Munich, the Ny
Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen).”12 The entry continues with more anecdotes from the his-
tory of museums and collecting, and presents selected museums in certain countries. The same
12 Ottův slovník naučný, díl 17., Praha: Vydavatel a nakladatel J. Otto, 1901. p. 890.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 29
work has another two entries related to museums, specifically Museum království českého13
(the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia) and Musea průmyslová14 (Technical Museums).
The former entry describes the history and then-current state of the National Museum, while
the second describes the phenomenon of decorative art and technical museums.
Another important encyclopaedia was Masarykův slovník naučný. Like Ottův slovník
naučný, its entry begins with the ancient origin of the word and mentions the Musaeum in
Alexandra. It then names a number of foreign and domestic museums, followed by a char-
acterisation of museums: “The main purpose of museums is to preserve the relics of previ-
ous eras for future generations. Thus the museum’s main focus is on conserving antiques.
Museums are also institutions for researching sources and documents, especially within
history, archaeology and science, and they also educate the public. Museums contain col-
lections of historical sources, various objects which are important documents of human
activities in antiquity or in the past, collections of a scientific nature, art artefacts. Museums
usually contain libraries, reading rooms, archives and manuscript, photography, phonogra-
phy departments, etc. Museums are also often important organisational factors in scientific
work, generally published scientific journals. Museums are often either central, collecting
material from all disciplines, or specialist (anatomical, anthropological, zoological, botanical,
mineralogical, archaeological, technological, national, criminological, economic, business,
technical, military museums, etc.). Central museums are generally in a capital city, and spe-
cialist museums are based at universities. Rural museums collect items which mainly have
a relationship to their site and its surroundings, and are nationalist in nature.”15
Post-1945, a number of encyclopaedias which published which included the word
“museum”. What all these encyclopaedias have in common is that they contain not just
the entry “museum”, but also entries for selected museums in Czechoslovakia, or today
in the Czech Republic, and around the world. Most of them include the entry “múseion”
(musaeum). Encyclopaedias published after 1959 provide the definition of a museum as con-
tained in Act 54/1959 Coll. on Museums and Galleries in their introduction to the entry. This
is either given word-for-word, or else it is loosely paraphrased. This trend disappears for
encyclopaedias published from the mid-1990s onwards.
Let us first recall the definition given in Act 54/1959 Coll.16 This is given in para. 2 and
goes as follows: “Museums and galleries are institutions which on the basis of investigation,
or scientific research, systematically collect, professionally manage and process collections
of tangible documentary material on the evolution of nature and society, on artistic crea-
tion or other kinds of human activity using scientific methods, and utilise these collections
13 Ottův slovník naučný, díl 17., Praha: Vydavatel a nakladatel J. Otto, 1901. pp. 892–902.
14 Ottův slovník naučný, díl 17., Praha: Vydavatel a nakladatel J. Otto, 1901. pp. 902–903.
15 Masarykův slovník naučný. Díl IV., Ko-M, Praha, 1929. p. 1093.
16 An Act on Museums was written in the 1930s by the Museums Associations. Due to various events, and
especially the outbreak of the Second World War, this act was never adopted. It was considered, however
when writing the 1950s act, but modified so as to conform to the new regime.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 30
for cultural and educational outreach purposes.”17 Subsequent paragraphs then describe in
detail the basic functions and activities of museums.
The definition in the act is used, for example, by the encyclopaedia Příruční slovník
naučný, and it adds a typology of museums to it. The entry reads: “Museum—an institution
which on the basis of investigation, or scientific research, systematically collects, profession-
ally manages and processes collections of tangible documentary material on the evolution
of nature and on artistic creation or other kinds of human activity using scientific methods,
and utilises them for outreach purposes. We differentiate museums according to their scope
into: central (national and central museums with nationwide scope, focused, specialised in
a particular field); these include science, historical, technical, literary, theatrical and music
museums, etc., in these fields these museums are central museum workplaces; regional (run
with a significance of regional/district nature); regional museums in combination with each
other document the evolution of nature and society within a particular region. Usually all
the museum activities in larger regional institutions (South Bohemian Museum in České
Budějovice, West Bohemian Museum in Plzeň, North Bohemian Museum in Liberec, Zdeněk
Nejedlý Museum in Hradec Králové, East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice, Vysočina Regional
Museum in Jihlava and Gottwaldov, Regional Museum in Olomouc, West Slovak Museum in
Trnava, Regional Museum in Bojnice, East Slovak Museum in Košice etc.) are in the field of
natural and social sciences, while smaller institutions have a core specialisation within a main
and typical field; town museums usually document the history of the town and its surround-
ings.—Muzeum—monument, focused on a significant event or person and developing outreach
and educational activities with the help of a museum of a higher type. Museum exhibition, a per-
manent exhibition of selected (typical) museum collections documenting a particular topic in
mutual relations based on the field or mission of the museum. Museum collections, collections
of tangible documents of scientific or artistic value which need to be protected so they are
preserved for the future.”18 This entry reflects changes which Czech museums underwent in
the 1950s, and especially in the 1960s, and the creation of a hierarchical network of museums.
Malá československá encyklopedie gives a similar description. It reads: “Museum—
an institution which on the basis of investigation, or scientific research, systematically col-
lects, professionally manages and processes collections of tangible documentary material
on the evolution of nature and on artistic creation or other kinds of human activity using
scientific methods; it utilises these collections for cultural and educational outreach pur-
poses. There are a total of 247 museums with 273 branches and 105 separate monuments in
Czechoslovakia (of which there are 180 museums with 186 branches and 55 separate mon-
uments in the Czech Socialist Republic, and 67 museums with 87 branches and 50 separate
monuments in the Slovak Socialist Republic), which are components of a single network of
museums, galleries and specialist exhibitions in the CSR or SSR, and divided into a) a network
17 Sbírka zákonů Republiky československé roč. 1959, částka 22, published 25 July 1959.
18 Příruční slovník naučný. díl 3, M-Ř, Praha: Academia, Nakladatelství Československé akademie věd, 1966, p. 239.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 31
of centrally run organisations (in the CSR museums run by the Ministry of Culture and other
departments, or else by social organisations, in the SSR the Central Museums and Galleries
Administration, other departments and social organisations); b) a network of museums run
by councils, c) a network of business museums. According to type these encompass central,
regional, district museums, and also town and business museums. According to profile, muse-
ums are specialist (including business), regional with specialisation and regional. Territorial
scope and topical focus are determined by statute.”19
Ilustrovaný encyklopedický slovník also uses the definition in the act: “Museum—a sci-
entific educational establishment which on the basis of investigation, or scientific research,
systematically collects, professionally manages and processes collections of tangible documen-
tary material on the evolution of nature and human society within its scope of competence.”20
Other encyclopaedias try to make their entry shorter and more condensed. These only
give the most basic characteristics of the institution. There is also an entry for museum in
some specialist encyclopaedias and dictionaries, e.g. technically-focused ones. Let us now
give the wording of definitions in just some encyclopaedias.
Encyklopedie Universum writes: “Museum—specialised buildings or spaces for keep-
ing and exhibiting artworks or historical, scientific or technical collections.”21
And Technický naučný slovník—“museum in the ancient world, originally temple of
the muses, then gradually institutionalised scientific and philosophical associations (schools)
which focused around museums; later transferred to collections of art, historical and other
objects and to the buildings or places in which they are stored.”22
In another version of Technický naučný slovník, a museum is, “an institution which on
the basis of investigation and scientific research, systematically collects, professionally man-
ages and processes collections of tangible documentary material on the evolution of nature
and human society.”23
Finally, according to Všeobecná encyklopedie: “A museum is a public collection of art,
cultural historical, scientific and other material and also the institution which collects, stores
and processes this material and which makes it accessible to the public through exhibits, or
through print and talks.”24
As stated above, the characterisation of a museum is found in the statutes of individ-
ual museums. The vast majority of these state what the museums should do: what activities
19 Malá československá encyklopedie. Díl IV., M-Pol, Praha: Academia, 1986. p. 378.
20 Ilustrovaný encyklopedický slovník. Díl 2., J-Při, Praha: Academia, 1981. p. 597.
21 Universum. Všeobecná encyklopedie. Díl 6, Mb-Op. Praha: Odeon, 2001. p. 269. ISBN 80-207-1068-X.
22 Technický naučný slovník. IV. díl, M-O, 2. Revised and expanded edition. Praha: SNTL—Nakladatelství
technické literatury, 1983. p. 180.
23 Technický slovník naučný. Díl 5, M-O, Praha: Encyklopedický dům, 2003, ISBN 80-86044-16-5
and 80-86044-23-8. p. 211.
24 Všeobecná encyklopedie ve čtyřech svazcích. díl 3, M-R, Praha: Nakladatelský dům OP, 1997.
ISBN 80-85841-35-5. p. 215.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 32
and from what time period and territory. There are some exceptions. The West Bohemian
Museum of Decorative Arts in Plzeň expands the museum’s activities to include a commer-
cial aspect. Visitors to exhibitions should be taken to a museum store, where they can buy
some of the items viewed. The Statute states: “The job of the institution is to support specialist
learning and education in manufacturing circles, in particular in terms of technology and art.
It should help wide swathes of society in refining and elevating the taste of the audience, i.e.
collectors and customers so that their understanding and correct appreciation of labour is
expanded and consolidated; considering technical construction and artistry and also the prac-
tical use of the products and works of all branches of art. The museum should also support
education, provided in all the detailed areas at schools and educational institutes of all kind.”
Here I shall also state how the Union of Czechoslovak Regional Museums perceives
a museum in its statute. Museums: … collect material to ascertain the situation in precisely
defined prehistorical, historical, regional, cultural, economic and natural regions.
Important figures of 20th century Czech museology also focused on defining a museum.
Although J F Svoboda did not give a direct definition of a museum in his work, Principles of
Czech Museology, he does list the important features which a collection must fulfil in order
to be called a museum.25 These are the following:
a) “it is organised as a research institution according to principles for scientific work, and
especially it has a precise work programme;”
b) “it has public right and is public property;”
c) “it systematically collects, professionally conserves and purposefully stores objects
and documents of at least one scientific field;”
d) “it prepares objects acquired for scientific processing, in which it allows scientific checks;”
e) “it publicly exhibits objects for general learning purposes in which exhibitions are in
line with current scientific knowledge and the need to teach the broadest swathes of
society about the museum’s content.”
Svoboda was also responding to the prevailing situation in which most museums were
founded by a museum association. According to him, there was a need to differentiate ter-
minologically between museums and museum associations. The existence of an association
did not imply the existence of a museum.
One of the doyens of Czech museology, Jiří Neústupný, also characterises the term
“museum” in his work, Muzeum a věda (Museum and Science).26 Specifically, in Chapter 11
25 SVOBODA, J. F. Zásady českého muzejnictví. Praha: Svaz českých muzeí, 1949. p. 7. Svoboda also states
here that the term “museum” is misused at that time, because it is not protected. Thus “museum” must be
precisely defined.
26 NEÚSTUPNÝ, Jiří. Muzeum a věda. Praha: Kabinet muzejní a vlastivědné práce při Národním muzeu v Praze,
1968. p. 150.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 33
he looks at the terms “museum” and “museology”. He states that publications to that time
only rarely define the term “museum”. He then characterises the activities of a museum and
looks at their typology and what institutions can still be considered museums. In the end, he
defines the term “museum” from two perspectives.
The first perspective is based on museums collecting sources, undertaking scientific
and research and educational work within scientific disciplines. “In this concept, ‘museum’
can be defined as an institution which purposefully collects, preserves and scientifically
processes sources of knowledge about nature and society, and uses them for scientific edu-
cational activities, particularly exhibitions, within a particular scientific discipline or group
of disciplines. They contribute towards museological theory and practice.”
The second perspective considers them as historical institutions which, however, need
to be differentiated from similar institutions. “In this concept, a museum would be an institu-
tion which purposefully collects and preserves transferred tangible (substantive) or extinct
sources of knowledge of nature and society within a scientific discipline or group of disci-
plines. In its scientific and scientific educational work, in particular exhibitions, it makes use
of these sources and other sources from the same scientific discipline which similar institu-
tions keep. It contributes towards museological theory and practice.”
Another prominent figure of Czech museology—Josef Beneš—created an entire muse-
ology dictionary of terminology. Unfortunately, this work did not do well, and it is little
known even amongst experts. It is still worthy of note, however. Some of Beneš’s definitions
are interesting, and they could be used by today’s museologists. Amongst other examples, he
defines “museum” as follows: “marks a public cultural institution which within the division
of labour with other institutions—systematically creates and stores collections of tangible
documents on the evolution of nature or society within a defined territory, or particular field
of human activity and utilises these to develop science, culture and education, in particular
through exhibiting them to the general public.”27
Finally, here is Zbyněk Zbyslav Stránský’s definition of a museum: “The current insti-
tutional form—its essence—through which man’s specific relationship to reality is realised,
i.e. the museality relationship. Its existence is characterised by the fulfilment of a docu-
mentary communication role. Establishments which do not fulfil this dialectical role are not
museums in the true sense of the word. This institutional form arose and developed under
particular historical societal situations. It is thus not a permanent form, and it will and must
change in accordance with other societal developments if man is to preserve that specific
relationship to reality.”28
Despite these attempts by major Czech museologists, none of their definitions gained
traction amongst the experts. From the mid-1950s, either the definition within the Act on
27 BENEŠ, Josef. Muzeologický slovník. Praha: Národní muzeum, Ústřední muzeologický kabinet, 1978. 169 pp.
28 STRÁNSKÝ, Z. Z. Úvod do studia muzeologie. 1st ed. Brno: Univerzita J. E. Purkyně, Fakulta filozofická, 1980.
167 pp.
Evolution of the definition of a museum 34
Museums was used, or later the definition adopted by the international organisation ICOM
was used. Within the history of Czech museology, we see attempts at defining the term
“museum”. They were few in number, however, and whenever definitions were produced
they were not applied in practice.
The study was created on the basis of institutional support of the long-term concep-
tual development of the research organization Technical Museum in Brno provided
by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
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à Waesberge, 1678.
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Magie des Wissens. Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) Universalgelehter—Sammler—Visionär. 1. vyd., Dettelbach:
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Raritäten –Kammer... Leipzig und Breslau : Michael Hubert, 1727.
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New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 35
Modern museums have evolved and the emphasis on elements of their activities has changed.
Today, emphasis is placed on higher quality new forms of communication between museum
and public. There are a growing number of institutions which are considered to be muse-
ums, but which do not build up collections. Here an important criterion is the definition of
the term “museum”. In terms of logic, we need to observe certain rules in defining a term.
In this paper, we analyse the definition of the term “museum” according to ICOM’s Code of
Ethics for Museums. The proposed new definition as given in the wording adopted at the ICOM
General Conference in Kyoto does not fully conform to this, however. Of the updated propos-
als of March 2022, the author believes Proposal 2 (and to some degree Proposal 5) are accept-
able. It is particularly important to enshrine the vital role of museums in creating museum
collections within the definition. Otherwise, this would result in irreparable social damage
and it would mark the start of an upheaval in the museum world.
There have been modern museums within European culture for over 200 years, and these
have taken on various forms during their development. In the most general sense of the word,
I understand museums to be certain establishments offering the public remarkable displays
of collected objects which are of historical value. They have had a long genesis, going back to
ancient times, and hypothetically even further. When the museum phenomenon was in its
infancy, we can speak of a “proto-museum” phase. Modern museums then developed along-
side changes in social circumstances. During this time, the emphasis on different segments
of their activities also changed.
The earliest period until the end of the 19th century was typically marked by an empha-
sis on building up collections. The intensive collection of material items documenting the tra-
ditions of national history and culture, or the uniqueness of the region, including its landscape
and natural environment, became a part of political events in the Czech lands in particular.
Where is the museum world heading in the midst of early 21st century changes? 36
This period also saw the nascence of a type of regional museum, and these have remained for
the much part the same in their core principles to the present day, and in a sense they repre-
sent a unique phenomenon within the European museum context.1
This collection-building activity then caused increased interest in museum collections
as sources of scientific interest. In the final decades of the 19th century, it was under this influ-
ence that some fields of history were fully constituted, e.g. ethnography, numismatics and
archaeology. A number of museums also began undertaking field research and investigating
the environment in which they were selecting objects for their collections. Domestically, this
trend became more prevalent from the 1960s, when university qualified staff were employed
by museums as collections managers. Museum collections represent crucial and indispen-
sable source bases for a number of scientific disciplines.
Increasing scientific interest in ever-growing collections from roughly the early 20th
century gave rise to calls for improving the conditions they were stored in. This occurred to
a greater extent after the Second World War, and in Czechoslovakia from roughly the 1960s.
To the present day, the conservation, restoration and general protection of collections is
an integral component of considerations of the activities of those museums which have not
lost sight of the fact that they are institutions with collections.
Some time at the start of the 20th century, public interest in museums was seen to be
fading. Ideas were focused on changing ways of accessing collections. Following the First World
War, occasional exhibitions began to be organised in addition to more clearly set-up exhibi-
tions. Following the Second World, there were intensive efforts at finding ways to improve
the quality of installations; exhibition activities increased. Even so, public interest in museums
did not increase proportionally, aside from the fact that museums activities in Czechoslovakia
were forced to follow the diktat of the Communist regime. From the end of the 1980s, and
especially from the early 21st century, efforts at rejuvenating exhibition projects were par-
ticularly focused on making use of interactive features, and improving the effectiveness of
programmes by using new museum pedagogy methods, using modern marketing methods, etc.
The latest issues are the effective use of digital and AT technologies, and in particular expand-
ing the range of different forms of communication with the public and museum products
available. The appearance of many museums is changing. While the presentation of museum
collections through exhibitions remains a vital way of making them accessible to the public,
it is far from the only method today, and furthermore they communicate findings acquired
through studying them and interpreting their role in society to the public.
And no wonder! We’re living in a turbulent time, characteristic for deepening globali-
sation. Many differences between traditional cultures (civilisations) are becoming blurred,
while at the same time different attitudes amongst different interest groups in the popu-
lation are becoming radicalised, leading to increasing conflicts between them. Modern AT
1 For more, see ŠEBEK, František. Historický vývoj sítě muzeí; právní postavení regionálních muzeí. In:
Regionální muzea v době reformy veřejné správy v ČR. Praha: AMG 2000, pp. 6–9.
Where is the museum world heading in the midst of early 21st century changes? 37
technology is penetrating ever deeper into our lives and as a result is transforming our per-
ception of the surrounding world, ways of thinking and mentality, and also our values. All of
this is bound to impact the museum world too.2
There are so many entities today which describe themselves as public “museums” that
we are not able to ascertain how many of them have already abandoned the original form
of collection-building institutions. Within the Czech Republic, there are around 490 muse-
ums which officially submit annual statistical reports on their activities and are considered
museums. Of those, scarcely 70% represent collection-building institutions (they represent
53% of those in the Central Registry of Collections).3
If we aren’t to lose the ability to mutually agree, we need to come to a consensus on
a definition for the term “museum”. This also has a practical significance. For example, as well
as entities for whom looking after their collections is a core activity, those without collections
and with a different costs structure, but nevertheless called “museums” also apply for grants
awarded from government budgets for museums. Similarly, it is misleading to evaluate effi-
ciency and measure cost-effectiveness if the group you are looking at do not have the same
structure of activities and costs.
That famous pendulum of history has swung over the course of time from a preference
for creating collections to the need to use them as a source of science, and then to improving
the conditions of their storage and then on so that efforts at improving exhibition activities
and the expansion of other forms of work with the public have came to the fore. Somewhere
in the middle of that imaginary swing of the pendulum, during a certain middle phase in
the mid-1970s, ICOM decided to formulate its Code of Ethics for Museums, which also con-
tains the definition of a museum. 4
So if we accept the importance of the requirement for a clear definition of the term
being considered here, we should at least briefly turn our attention to the basic rules for cre-
ating definitions in terms of the scientific discipline of logic.5 According to this, a definition
2 For more with reference to other publications, see ŠEBEK, František. Doba je v pohybu: Bude se měnit vztah
muzeí k veřejnosti a tím i kvalifikační požadavky na zaměstnance muzeí? In: Muzejní profese a veřejnost 2
/Reflexe edukačního fenoménu v současné muzejní praxi/. Eds. Lucie JAGOŠOVÁ—Otakar KIRSCH. Brno:
Ústav archeologie a muzeologie FF Masarykovy univerzity 2018, pp. 8–16.
3 For more details, see Šebek, F. Otazníky nad sítí a strukturou muzeí ČR. In: Muzeum a změna IV. /
The Museum and Change IV.: Sborník z mezinárodní muzeologické konference v Národním muzeu v Praze
12.–14. listopadu 2013. (edd. J. BUKAČOVÁ—A. KOMÁRKOVÁ). Praha: AMG 2014. ISBN 978-80-86611-63-1, pp.
20–23.
4 The Code of Ethics of Museums was formulated and approved in 1976 at the 15th ICOM General Assembly
in Buenos Aires, and its updated wording was approved at the 20th ICOM General Assembly in Barcelona
in 2001, with the final revision approved at the 21st General Assembly in Seoul in 2004. For the Czech
translation of the document see Profesní etický kodex ICOM. (ed. TLACHOVÁ, Kateřina). Praha: Český
výbor ICOM a AMG 1994. p. 7. For the wording of the revised code of 2004 in Czech, see Etické kodexy (ed.
LEHMANOVÁ, Martina). Praha: Český výbor ICOM 2014, p. 35. ISBN 978-80-260-7405-2.
5 For more on this, see TVRDÝ, Josef. Logika. (Vysokoškolské rukověti, řada duchovědná, sv. 5). Praha:
Melantrich 1937, pp. 95–98.
Where is the museum world heading in the midst of early 21st century changes? 38
expresses the meaning of a particular term by drawing out the core attributes of the described
phenomenon or object, which must form a comprehensible logical whole. Such a set of attrib-
utes might include in addition to primary and secondary attributes also supplementary attrib-
utes, which are the consequence of one of the primary or secondary attributes. The mean-
ing of the term may evolve and change. If we leave out, add to or modify any secondary or
additional attribute, this changes its properties, or parameters. But if we leave out or change
basic attributes, the meaning of the term changes, and so it then refers to a different term
(different meaning). Attributes which express the meaning of a term in its definition must of
themselves be clear and unambiguous; they cannot be ambiguous expressions (judgements)
allowing for different interpretations of meaning.
The current definition of a museum in the ICOM Code of Ethics in English is as follows:
A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its devel-
opment, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and
exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for
the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.
6 For more detail, see, e.g. Latinsko-český slovník (sestavili Josef M. PRAŽÁK a kol). Praha 1940 (14th edition),
p. 678. For more on the problem also see DESVALLÉES, Andrés—MAIRESSE, François a kol.: Základní
muzeologické pojmy (translated from the French original by LightPoint in Brno). Brno: Technické muzeum
v Brně 2011, pp. 29-30. ISBN 978-80-86413.
Where is the museum world heading in the midst of early 21st century changes? 39
this paper. In terms of the logic of definition construction, this is a secondary attrib-
ute. If we accept the requirement for the non-profit nature of the institution, then
the other characteristic that it is an institution “open to the public” is merely a supple-
mentary attribute. This follows on from the characteristic of the non-profit nature of
the institution, and also from the commitment to open the collection (communicate
it) to the public. We can also determine that the statement that the institution acts
“in the service of society” is a supplementary attribute, i.e. that it is a public benefit
institution. This characteristic of the definition is also expanded by the statement
that it is done in the service of society and “its development” (another supplementary
attribute). In my opinion, this formulation is too vague.
2. A museum acquires tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environ-
ment. I think that in the definition on the nature of collection activities, the substance
implied in the expression “acquires” heritage would be better captured by the term
“creates collections”. This is because many objects in collections are deliberately cre-
ated by the museum itself and its workers (e.g. through producing digital and video
documents), and also because it’s not just about a quantitative growth of collections,
but also the qualitative aspect, which is expressed by an increased informative value
of objects (and collections) through their investigation and research into the environ-
ment in which they are acquired.
3. A museum conserves its acquired collection. This comprises a broad range of activities:
preventive conservation, remedial conservation, restoration, and also preparation,
protection and depository regimen, security management.
4. A museum communicates its collection (to the public). Other attributes given in
the definition linked to this proclamation are secondary attributes, or supplemen-
tary attributes. The most important form, exhibiting collections, is highlighted. Other
forms of presenting collections and disseminating information acquired during their
study were unjustifiably sidelined.
If we look at the entire text from a formal perspective, it does not have any major errors.
In terms of content, it accepts besides the museum’s institutionality, also three primary activ-
ities (creating collections, storing them, opening them to the public). Interaction between
museum and public should probably be better expressed.
The attempt at updating the definition led ICOM to produce a new proposal, its form
coming out of the General Conference in Kyoto and this currently goes as follows: 7
Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue
about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and
7 I took the wording here from a survey produced on the issue in 2021 by the Department of Archaeology and
Museology of Masaryk University in Brno’s Faculty of Arts.
Where is the museum world heading in the midst of early 21st century changes? 40
challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safe-
guard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal
access to heritage for all people. Museums are not for profit. They are participatory
and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communi-
ties to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of
the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality
and planetary wellbeing.
From a purely formal perspective in terms of logic rules for defining terms, it is hard to come
up with a positive assessment here. There are a large number of ambiguous expressions, often
close or identical in meaning. The primary attributes of the formulated meaning of the term
are hard to find, and they do not create a coherent whole. From a formal perspective, it is not
the definition of a term, but rather a proclamation on the recommended focus of museum
activities, almost with the characteristics of an ideological political manifesto.
A new formulation for the definition of a museum emerged in March 2022, which
the relevant ICOM committee submitted for discussion in five versions.8 If we think that
it is essential that the definition enshrines the basic three mutually conditional activities
of museums (creating collections, storing them, opening them to the public), then I think
Proposal 29 is acceptable, and perhaps also Proposal 5. Both of these are based on the current
definition, adding what is missing from it: expanding on museums’ activities in relation to
the public, more involvement of acquired knowledge in different forms of communication
in society. Proposal 2 better attempts to express this “new” hallmark of museums in its defi-
nition. Even so, there are expressions (supplementary attributes) which are ambiguous and
unnecessary remnants of the wording adopted in Kyoto.
Comparing the ICOM definition, the Kyoto document and some of the definition
proposals from March 2022 (Proposals 1, 3 and 4), as well as occasional discussion within
the domestic environment, it appears that those voices which claim that the core essence of
a museum is not creating collections, that some “museums” need not be institutions with
collections and it is enough when just “some museum functions” are fulfilled are growing
stronger. I think this is a grave error and a tendency which, if it were to prevail, would be
socially damaging. We need to realise that man’s natural (instinctive) expression is to preserve
objects documenting a disappearing reality, which he needs as a substantive memory. They
then become an important element of cultural memory. A person without cultural memory
8 These wordings are accessible at the ICOM Czech committee office website, including in Czech translation.
9 The wording of this proposal in English (see previous note): A museum is a permanent, not-for-profit
institution, accessible to the public and of service to society. It collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits,
tangible, intangible, cultural and natural heritage in a profession, ethical and sustainable manner for
research, education, reflection and enjoyment. It communicates in an inclusive, diversified and participatory
way with communities and the public.
Where is the museum world heading in the midst of early 21st century changes? 41
Literature
ASSMANN, Jan: Kultura a paměť: písmo, vzpomínka a politická identita v rozvinutých kulturách starověku. Překlad
Martin POKORNÝ. Praha: Prostor 2001. ISBN 80-7260-051-6.
DESVALLÉES, Andrés –MAIRESSE, François a kol.: Základní muzeologické pojmy (z francouzského originálu přeložil
LightPoint v Brně). Brno: Technické muzeum v Brně 2011. ISBN 978-80-86413.
Etické kodexy (edd. Martina LEHMANOVÁ). Praha: Český výbor ICOM 2014. ISBN 978-80-260-7405-2.
Profesní etický kodex ICOM. (edd. TLACHOVÁ, Kateřina). Praha: Český výbor ICOM a AMG 1994.
STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk Z. Úvod do studia muzeologie. Brno: Masarykova univerzita 2000. ISBN 80-210-1272-2
ŠEBEK, František. Historický vývoj sítě muzeí; právní postavení regionálních muzeí. In: Regionální muzea v době
reformy veřejné správy v ČR. Praha: AMG 2000, pp. 6—9.
10 For more on this issue, se, e.g. STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk Z. Úvod do studia muzeologie. Brno: Masarykova
univerzita 2000, pp. 56–58; též např. ASSMANN, Jan: Kultura a paměť: písmo, vzpomínka a politická identita
v rozvinutých kulturách starověku. Translated by Martin POKORNÝ. Praha: Prostor 2001. esp. pp. 23–33.
ISBN 80-7260-051-6.
11 ŠEBEK, František. Cesta českých muzeí od národních obrození k věku turbulentních změn. In: Muzeum
a proměny společnosti. VIII.: Celorepublikové kolokvium na aktuální téma českého muzejnictví. Brno 4.–5. 11.
2014. Praha: Asociace muzeí a galerií ČR 2015, pp. 12–17. ISBN 978-80-86611-71-6.
Where is the museum world heading in the midst of early 21st century changes? 42
ŠEBEK, František. Otazníky nad sítí a strukturou muzeí ČR. In: Muzeum a změna IV. / The Museum and Change IV.:
Sborník z mezinárodní muzeologické konference v Národním muzeu v Praze. 12.—14. listopadu 2013.
(edd. J. BUKAČOVÁ—A. KOMÁRKOVÁ). Praha: AMG 2014. ISBN 978-80-86611-63-1, pp. 20–23.
ŠEBEK, František. Cesta českých muzeí od národních obrození k věku turbulentních změn. In: Muzeum a proměny
společnosti. VIII.: Celorepublikové kolokvium na aktuální téma českého muzejnictví. Brno 4.—5. 11. 2014.
Praha: Asociace muzeí a galerií ČR 2015, pp. 12—17. ISBN 978-80-86611-71-6.tečka
ŠEBEK, František. Doba je v pohybu: Bude se měnit vztah muzeí k veřejnosti a tím i kvalifikační požadavky na zaměst-
nance muzeí? In: Muzejní profese a veřejnost 2 /Reflexe edukačního fenoménu v současné muzejní praxi/.
Eds. Lucie JAGOŠOVÁ – Otakar KIRSCH. Brno: Ústav archeologie a muzeologie FF Masarykovy univerzity
2018, pp. 8—16.
TVRDÝ, Josef. Logika. Praha: Melantrich 1937.
f-Museum 43
F-MUSEUM
Richard R. Senček
The Slovak Mining Museum, Banská Štiavnica
The issue of defining a museum, which is currently being intensively discussed, cannot be
positively concluded without a certain “visionary“ perspective. The new definition, if based
on the assumption that it can be derived, should reflect the dynamic development of a modern
society. Hyperreality, virtual world and digital space is 30500/1800 no longer merely a theme for
sci-fi movies, as it is here and ever more penetrating into everyday life. To think that a museum is
not unaffected by these trends is not open-minded. Not only the space, but also the interactions
of society and its thinking change. Trends evolve quickly and need to be captured. Can a museum
exist in digital space? Can a real museum exist or—using the words of Jean Baudrillard—is it
a simulacrum in hyper-reality? If a real digital museum does exist, what is its character like and
what are its collections like? Does museality exist in this space? These are some of the questions
that arise from the position of museums in this new space and the questions that the author asks,
too. Knowing the answers can help to better understand the functionality of museums and to
contribute thereby to the formulation of a new definition reflecting the given completely new
virtual space. The letter “f “ in the title of this paper signalizes two possible poles of conclusion:
f as a futuristic regular museum or f as a fictitious (pseudo)museum.
Preface
The debate on the definition of a museum is not new, nor is it the only one not to cause problems.
This is because a museum has a number of forms and approaches to activities and a lucrative
trademark to begin with, whereby even institutions that are not lucrative per se can often hide
under the trademark of a museum. Thus, it is necessary at all to define a museum? Is it not
merely an attempt to get this institution to move forward in a predetermined direction? Is it
not more important to make sure that the name itself be used correctly? One may ask whether
it is possible without a meaningful and factual definition or whether it is merely a commo-
tion “in a vicious circle”. Regardless of these facts, defining a museum as such and deciding
whether it is able to exist adequately even in the modern environment of virtual space, it is
necessary to define the factual concrete base first, i.e., the circumstances which are sine qua non
for the existence of every museum. The base, without which a museum cannot exist. Where
are we to look for something that is characteristic for a museum institution, something that
only a museum has? In order to be able to find something like this, it is necessary to “look back
into the past” and try to understand the very essence and meaning of the museum concept.
f-Museum 44
People have been collecting items for a long time. It is practically impossible to find out
exactly what led to the creation of specific set of objects, for example, from an archeological
find. The reasons for the emergence of this interesting cultural phenomenon have not yet
been clearly identified. One may however assume that somewhere “in the background” was
a set of power-oriented or religious factors, perhaps related to certain economic or aesthetic
values and the effort to preserve tem, as Zbyněk Z. Stránsky wrote: In the beginning, there was
a human tendency to preserve things contrary to the nature of change and extinction, in a mean-
ingful shift of certain entities of reality. This is reflected in the many myths of various early cultures,
but even later during the formation of philosophical and early rational thinking.1 The concentrated
objects were a confirmation, a guarantee of a certain reality. Whether it was a philosophical
or mythological idea, an attribute of power, or something else, it basically does not matter
in the context of the problem under study. The confirmation or assurance applied to the pre-
sented or empirical truth, whereas the objects represented a confirmation of the reality pre-
sented. It does not matter whether the given fact is true from today’s point of view, for it is
important that it was true for the society of that time. One always has to think at the level of
contemporary facts and options of a coherent society to be able to verify the presented truth.
Interpretation of such collected sets is very difficult without preserving the context, espe-
cially with regard to archeological finds. Zbyněk Z. Stránsky often mentions an ethnological
example of such preservation as protection against destruction in time. He took the example
from Claude Lévi-Strauss in the attempt at explaining the function of special totems named
churinga. It is one example of initial gathering of objects with the aim to preserve and protect
them against destruction in time, but Claude Lévi Strauss also draws attention to their docu-
mentary value, comparing them to contemporary archives: Churingas are a tangible testimony of
the mythical era of the alcheringas: were it not for them, it would still be possible to phantom the era,
but it could not be physically substantiated. Likewise, even if we lost all our archives, our past would
not be liquidated, but it would be stripped of its diachronic flavor, if one may use this expression.
It would still exist as the past, but it would only be preserved in reproductions, books, institution,
an even in certain situations—and all that would be mostly recent or not a long time ago and spread
out synchronically. The value of archives is that they mediate contact with pure historicism for us.2
Confirmation of reality cannot be achieved without the attribute of truth which is
present in the coherent link to the given reality or facts and somewhere in the “fog” of his-
tory. Collections therefore are the beginning of the truth line that winds through the history
of collecting activities and museums to this day.
Legitimization
The attribute of truth has already become an important shaping factor that is condition for
museums, despite the ambiguity of this concept. Society is above all gradually realizing
the scientific significance and educational potential of museums, which must be based on
a truthful basis. However, the museum concept referred to various institutions and was not
in the past, nor is it in the present clearly defined. Even today, there is no real restriction on
what is and what is not a museum, as the designation can be used for institutions that similar
to a museum or otherwise. Slovak, Czech, or European (global) legislations do have a defini-
tion or the museum concept, but the concept is not protected in any way or manner. Nobody
can prevent the term “museum” to be used for a “pub”, for example, even though the gener-
ally accepted meaning of a pub has little in common with a museum. Unfortunately, there
are many examples of such examples in the virtual space. The websites and social networks
contain countless institutions that are museums by name only. The term museum is attractive
for its external appearance, rather than its essence (which is not clear and difficult to define).
3 STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk Z. Úvod do studia muzeologie. Brno: Masaryk University. 2000, p. 40. 2nd ed.
ISBN 80-210-1272-2.
f-Museum 46
It does not help to wishfully hope for a change. The term “museum” was, is, and will often
be used for various purposes. Moreover, the ambiguity of the term „museum“ stems from
opposite efforts that push for a change of the very essence of the meaning of the concept in
the direction of these institutions’ educational purposes for science and research or, alter-
natively, as entertainment parks. These efforts have also been here from the early museum
forms and pre-museum times.
One of the main reasons is the attribute of truth which is integrated in the basic con-
cept of museums as institutions which society perceives them and currently seeks them to
define. This proves that the value of the museum concept is highly valued by society. Therefore,
there exist pressures that try to exploit the outward purposes of museum (as mentioned
above), but also inwardly attack the attribute of truth. Umberto Eco noted this fact as follows:
Historical cabinets of curiosities have preserved for us above all pictorial likenesses and engravings
in their catalogs. Some of them consisted of hundreds of small shelves with stones, muscles, bones
of exotic animals and masterpieces of taxidermists who were able to create non-existent creatures.4
The question is why? What was the reasons for falsifying reality and creating non-existent
creatures is quite obvious. Man, traveler, adventurer, charlatan or a pseudo-scientist needed
to make himself visible, prove his theories with factual “catching“ arguments. Whether these
people were deceived or were deliberately deceiving others is not important. Important is
that these objects were created to physically substantiate the facts they claimed. But why was
it necessary to put them in museums or display them in wonder shows or curiosity cabinets?
The reason was legitimization. Museums and their predecessors presented their collections
in their time as genuine (true) artifacts as a certain guarantee of veracity. For the given man,
getting a false or ludicrous object into such an institution was to have yet another trustworthy
argument of veracity for the facts he claimed. Moreover, if he managed to sell it to the insti-
tution, the matter gained an economic aspect, and it did not matter, whether the institution
was private or public.
Analogous legitimization of objects more or less deliberately pretending to be true
witnesses of reality can also be found in other areas of society. As an example of the cult
of relics, Umberto Eco mentions again: Relics were the most revered gems of medieval treasure.
The cult of relics is not exclusively Christian. For instance, Plinius talked about relics that were pre-
cious to the Greco-Roman world: e.g., Orpheus’ lyre, Helen’s sandal or the bones of a monster that
attacked Andromeda...5 The trend continues and culminates with Christian collection of relics,
as Umberto Eco mentions in connection with the St Vitus Cathedral in Prague: In the St. Vitus
Cathedral in Prague are the skulls of St. Adalbert and St. Wenceslas, St. Stephen’s sword, a fragment
of Christ’s cross, a tablecloth used at the Last Supper, St. Margaret’s tooth, fragment of the tibia of St
Vital, St. Sophia’s rib, St. Eoban’s chin, Moses’ cane, Virgin Mary’s dress.6 The authenticity of at least
4 ECO, Umberto. Zpověď mladého romanopisce. Prague: Argo. 2013, p. 129, ISBN 978-80-257-1028-9.
5 ECO, Umberto. Bludiště seznamů. Prague Argo. 2009, p. 173. ISBN 978-80-257-0164-5.
6 ECO, Umberto. Bludiště seznamů, p. 173.
f-Museum 47
some of these objects can be doubted, but the author gives an example of even more obvious
absurdities: Old chronicles state that in the 12th century one German cathedral kept the skull
of a twelve-year-old St. John the Baptist...7 Many more analogous examples could certainly
be found. The Church at the time represented a supreme credible authority in the society and
therefore, if the Church considered an object authentic, so did all the believers. No substan-
tial questions were ever raised—just like in the case of the skull of the 12-year-old St. John
the Baptist. Regardless of the authenticity of the objects, they were presumed physically
genuine in their time. If the Church and later the museums had not displayed such presum-
ably true attributes, nobody would have produced false relics or mythical creatures, which
eventually became part of the given institutions’ collections. Perhaps, it is a bit paradoxical
that these objects are deemed in the light of the attribute of truth today, despite the fact that
they usually are genuine witnesses of falsification in the past. Truth attributes are present
also in other forms of collecting activities, but the form and manifestation of it are adapted
to the specific objective of this activity. For example, a collector—numismatist does not need
a special physical proof of reality, because the items he collects, i.e., coins, bear all the nec-
essary attributes and the context of the reality does not interest him. But the authenticity of
the coins is very important to collector.
It is also possible to describe as a paradox the fact that the forging, deceitful, or force-
fully sensational activity is seemingly the most visible part of the truth attribute, which in
reality is not present at all. The meaning or purpose of the existence of the abovementioned
institutions is based on the presentation and confirmation of facts. Their collections, or objects
they concentrate for this purpose must have a proven coherent connection to the given real-
ity8 and that cannot be achieved without the attribute of truth. Legitimization of fraudulent
objects is based wither on a false coherent link or on a non-existent link with other links or
on the inability to verify the veracity of the given coherent reference link.
Further development led to the creation of internal ties within the collections and their
relationship and response to society. The truth attribute became more and more important.
Efforts were made to “clean up” collections from counterfeits and nonsense. Especially at
a time when museum collections were considered databases of information of relevance to
applicable sciences, it was important to make sure that the information reflected the original
reality as closely as possible. The truth attribute begins to correlate with authenticity and
forms the basis for museality. In the subsequent stages of development, the museum phenom-
enon detached itself from the concept of collection as a scientific database of applied sciences.
The internal structure of collections has also changed—from systematized collections struc-
tured according to hierarchic classifiers to documentation of reality in the form of selected
authentic representatives of the reality. The truth attribute in authenticity becomes a sine
qua non of the whole musealization process. The shift from primary/original collections to
the creation of documented collections in the context with the phenomenon of the attribute
of truth has become a concept of unavoidable importance.
However, development has not stopped and mankind entered the digital era and virtual
world. Museums cannot stagnate and new reality must adapt. The new space brings pitfalls,
but also new possibilities. However, the new museum phenomenon was also evolving and has
reached the point of systematized musealization and defined its mission on the principles
of authentic reconstruction of documented reality. What are the options for cooperation of
the classical museum in the real world with a virtual environment? Can a virtual museum
exist, at least on a theoretical level? Cooperation is possible, of course. Museums use the new
space in multiple ways. They communicate on the Internet, create websites, digitalize and
present their collections, mediate information and makes it globally available. From this
point of view, museums have extraordinary opportunities to reach the public to an unprec-
edented extent. By analogy, real museums use modern technologies that allow better access
to information and more attractive appearance for the visitor. It is a natural development,
a progress. Problems arise only when these modern technologies begin to replace the ideo-
logical basis, or which museums exist.
The use of virtual space is quite natural in terms of the evaluation of collections, as it
is part of the third phase of the musealization process. Digitalized exhibits on the Internet,
clear digital databases or other forms of mediation are analogous to catalogues, books, expo-
sitions and other forms of presentation. It is just another form of presenting existing exhib-
its in a real museum. Thus, the designation of the website must be perceived in the given
context. It is not about the specific museum, it is about its outputs in digital form. Ján Dolák
takes a similar view on this issue: Museums publish their collections in printed catalogues, which
have had a certain impact for decades, especially among researchers. Digitalization projects are
quasi ”catalogues of collections“, but their impact is much greater, thanks to remote accessibility,
and should be evaluated as such. In fact, it is a technological revolution, which only real specialists
could imagine some thirty years ago, far less than some kind of a museological revolution.9 Physical
exhibits constitute a bottomless source of information, characteristics and stages that can-
not be replaced by digitalization and it is unlikely that the future will bring the means to do
so. Such a virtual space which could be called a real museum does not exist, except for its
existence as a presentation or, at best, research facility. This applies to all similar analogies
in the virtual space as well as to “museums“ that do not have a real physical facility or, in
9 DOLÁK, Jan. Teoretická podstata muzeologie. Brno: Technical Museum in Brno, 2019, p. 96,
ISBN 978-80-87896-67-9.
f-Museum 49
short, where the “virtual museum“ does not have its real counterpart built in stone.10 In all
such cases, it is a fictitious museum.
Thus, if these facilities are to be designated as fictitious museums, we have to ask
ourselves, whether such museums can exist at all and be considered analogous to real phys-
ical museums and function in this context as ad hoc “real” museums. After all, digitalized
exhibits are no authentic witnesses of the give reality, i.e., they do not have the attribute of
museality. An analogous situation is, for instance, a photograph of a museological exhibit
in a secondary documentation. In order to be able to speak of a “real“ virtual museum, it is
necessary for this museum in virtual space to undergo the complete process of musealiza-
tion and constantly enhance its museality. This is conditioned by the fact that such objects
that are authentic witnesses of the musealized reality, from which the best specimen are
selected, also exist. Virtual space does actually offer such objects. A classic example is dig-
ital photography. If a photograph depicts an event that is the subject of musealization and
the photograph is the best representative of the event, it most probably will be the bearer of
museality. The virtual world has created a great number of entire systems of purely virtual
character that do not have a direct equivalent in reality. Apart from websites, e-mails, videos,
music, computer games, databases, specific virtual arts, programs, and many other forms
that should be musealized, they can only be musealized in their own, i.e., digitalized form.
Provided that a correct and complete process of musealization is observed, it is possible to
create a genuine “true” virtual museum, i.e., a futuristic museum of the future.11
Source code
The problem seems to have been solved. Digital objects will be musealized to become digital
collections bearing genuine museological value, for which museums exist. However, virtual
space is an artificial space and therefore is subject to different principles than real space. Every
digital object is just a long list of ones and zeros in the source code. The code is not derived in
any way from the character of the material it is bearing. Thus, it does not matter whether it is
recorded on a hard disc or hypothetically printed out on paper. However, such digital record
can be liberally copied without any loss, whereby each copy is not a copy but a new original,
which is not possible ion the real world. From an axiological point of view, however, this cre-
ates a fundamental problem. Id there exist two or more originals, which one is the potential
museological exhibit, i.e., the actual bearer of museality? At some point, it will be impossible
to differentiate and prove which of the records is the genuine and authentic witness. What
happens to the exhibit in this case? Will it be lost or can museality be attributed to all originals?
10 On the Internet, practically anything may be called a museum. The situation is similar to the past when
the museum concept was still being formulated. This chaos makes the meaning of the term museum even
more generalized ad ambiguous.
11 It is reasonable to assume that the development in the given context is still in its infancy.
f-Museum 50
The question remains open. In the virtual world, there are no copies. Perhaps, in cer-
tain cases, we may speak of imperfect copying, but it does not solve the given problem anyway,
nor does it have effect on it. Moreover, there is no point in contemplating how to distinguish
any given virtual originals in the future (were it possible at all), as the very nature of does
not make it possible. Therefore, it is questionable, whether it is possible to solve the given
problem factually and methodically or arbitrarily.
Virtual space is a dynamically evolving phenomenon that offers an endless number of pos-
sibilities from today’s point of view. New products and forms are constantly being created.
Mediation and presentation options are also being improved and offer more and more options.
No wonder that the digital worlds increasingly penetrates reality. Likewise, the new space
generates pros and cons. The whole digital world is a space that was created by man, so it is
an artificial world, yet it adapts to man’s needs with positive or negative consequences for
society. As stated above, creating a “genuine” virtual museum is quite complex and requires
a conditional acceptance of this idea in the contemporary stage of cognition.
Recently, a new trend can be observed. Pseudo-museums are being created in the vir-
tual space, which claims to be “real” museums, while not only ignoring the musealization
process and museality, but also collections per se. These institutions (websites) do not seek
authentic witnesses of reality or the most suitable selected representatives—instead, they
model pseudo-reality according to their own criteria. In this way, they can depict virtual
reality, for example, prehistoric fauna and flora, or present life in various communities and
nations, historical events or personages and practically everything in this virtualized manner.
All the programmer needs is some information to be able to create an illusion or imagination,
respectively, which he then animates to create a similitude of life. Thus, he presents something
that does not exist, but it is recognizable merely by mediation. He creates hyperreality, which
at first sight is beautiful (more beautiful and attractive than reality), but it is false. In essence,
these creations are fabrications that are supposed to substitute for non-existent collections.
Regardless of the trustworthiness of the information to the programmer, to some extent, they
always are products of fabrication that is not substantiated by authentic testimony.
However, such illusion can be beneficial in the educational process and other simi-
lar activities. Moreover, it can be used by museums as a visual supplement, but it can never
replace the authentic testimony of a real collection. Whenever such a fact is presented
as a museological exhibit, i.e., when it is presented as a bearer of museality, it is a fraud.
It is a case of hyperreality that changes, distorts and falsifies reality. It is a simulacrum of
the 3rd degree. Such an illusion does not have the attribute of truth, nor is it an authentic
witness of a musealized fact. Thus, it cannot be a representative selected in the process of
musealization. These illusions, virtual images or reconstructions do not physically confirm
any facts, because they only create it ex post. Particularly absurd is these objects were directly
produced to become part of a pseudo-museum and the creation of a real collection is not even
f-Museum 51
considered. Can this be a museum? No, illusion is an illusion and fabrication is a fabrication.
The main problem is that these objects are fabrications throughout their entire existence, i.e.,
from the initial idea to create them. A genuine virtual museum cannot be created this way,
because a museum comprised of fabrications is a museum of deceptions.
We now have to ask, why this vehemence to make illusions and fabrications part of
a proper museum? Would it not be easier to create an institution comprised of won intentions
and based on own rules of presentation? History is revolving. Once again, it is about legitimi-
zation, analogy of deceptive mythical creatures or the skull of 12-year-old St. John the Baptist.
In order to confirm the authenticity of these illusions and their imperfect veracity, they
would have to the umbrella of a trustworthy institution, as a museum certainly is. By anal-
ogy, it is as if Disneyland wanted to be classified as a scientific technological park. Of course,
Disneyland does not have to do so, because it mediates its own reality and presents it to its
visitors. Visitors know what to expect and they get it, they are not deceived. In the museum
context, man relies on obtaining knowledge and experience based on truth.
As stated above, even a “proper” museum can use virtual means, i.e., reconstructions,
3D presentations, etc. What is the difference then? Well, there is a difference, as long as muse-
ums support the musealized reality by authentic witnesses. Virtual elements must always be
in a supplementary position, not in the position of authenticity bearers. Moreover, virtual
reality must be presented as one of the possibilities, not a certainty or even a final and con-
clusive one. Rather, it have to be presented as a physical confirmation of the given collection,
which must be presented as well, so that the visitor could verify this physical confirmation
himself. Such a presentation can be produced in virtual space and even on the basis of sev-
eral museological collections, whereby the physical confirmation is an indispensable condi-
tion. After all, museums aim above all to mediate verifiable and authentic knowledge to build
a cognition system, as Jan Dolák points out: Information about the shards or flowers displayed in
a museum is more than own visualization, because such information is unique, no one else has it.12
Conclusion
Museums are established cultural institutions that have a well-defined role and space in soci-
ety. At the same time, society has to respond to changes and trends. In the positive sense, it is
necessary to implement new aspects of life, new forms of communication and other elements
of reality in their portfolio, so that their activities correlate with developments in the soci-
ety. If they did not do so, they would fall behind and eventually cease to be useful to society.
On the other hand, this does not mean that museums should accept all novelties without con-
sideration and resign on their primary substance. There exists a certain base that no museum
can afford to lose, if it wants to retain the status of a museum. Museums are irreplaceable in
12 DOLÁK, Jan. Sběratelství a sbírkotvorná činnost muzeí. Bratislava: Comenius University in Bratislava, 2018,
p. 123. ISBN 978-80-223-4553-8.
f-Museum 52
society. And they may vanish, such as would be the case, if the extracurricular tasks, educa-
tional or entertainment activities they adopt supersede their original purpose and substitute
other institutions,13 whereby they lose their fundamental mission, namely reconstruction of
a certain documented reality. This is only possible through musealization, i.e., collecting and
preserving documents. In other words, museums do not necessarily have to exhibit, educate,
conduct extracurricular activities to justify their existence. However, museums that do not
preserve authentic witnesses and constantly physically confirm the authenticity (veracity)
of documented phenomena, will eventually vanish. A museum without authentic exhibits
(musealia) is a museum without truth. It is like metallurgy without metal, a library without
words in books. A museum without collections is not a museum!
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DOLÁK, Jan. Teoretická podstata muzeologie. Brno: Technické múzeum v Brně, 2019, 178 pp.
ISBN 978-80-87896-67-9.
ECO, Umbeto. Bludiště seznamů. Praha: Argo. 2009, 412 pp. ISBN 978-80-257-0164-5.
ECO, Umberto. Zpověď mladého romanopisce. Praha: Argo. 2013, 182 pp. ISBN 978-80-257-1028-9.
GLUZIŃSKI, Wojciech. U podstaw muzeologii. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1980, 454 pp.
ISBN 83-01-02103-9.
LÉVI-STRAUSS, Claude. Myšlení přírodních národů. Praha: Dauphin, 1996370 pp. ISBN 80-901842-9-4.
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STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk Z. Úvod do studia muzeologie. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. 2000, 172 pp. 2. vydanie.
ISBN 80-210-1272-2.
13 GLUZIŃSKI, Wojciech. U podstaw muzeologii. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1980, p. 167.
ISBN 83-01-02103-9.
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 53
If we look at the strategic goals of the German Museums Association for 2022, and com-
pare these with the four-year strategy of the Czech Association of Museums and Galleries
(AMG) for 2022 to 2024, it is immediately evident that both museum associations are taking
a markedly different path.1 Considering the reality of today’s globalised world, European
co-operation, information and institutional interconnectedness, this might seem somewhat
of a paradox. Nevertheless, developments in recent years have clearly demonstrated a cer-
tain diverging trend in the development of museums in the Czech Republic and in Western
Europe. In the AMG’s vision, growing collections, scientific work and “increasing the prestige of
museology and the perception of the role of museums and galleries as guardians of a large part of our
country’s cultural heritage,” remains crucial to museums.2 In contrast, the German Museums
Association emphasises greater community engagement from museums as cultural herit-
age institutions in matters of climate protection, a sustainable development programme,
transnational crossovers and social inclusion. Thus, in this sense museums do not represent
“guardians of cultural heritage”, or “memory guardians”, but rather are places of education
and meeting up (Ort der Bildung und der Begegnung).
This study aims to provide an in-depth reflection on the term Ort der Begegnung, which
in recent years has been at the heart of the idea of museums’ social role within the German-
speaking area, and it also strives to present possible inspirational ideas for Czech museums
on their journey to the 21st century, with reference to a number of selected examples.
Right from the outset, we need to emphasise that it is difficult to talk of a special cultural
focus for a particular region, as was probably the case still at the start of the 20th century,
when the cultural hegemony of the Western world was marked by the mutual contact and
contests between French, German and Anglo-Saxon influences. In the 21st century, the uni-
versal dominance of the English language comes alongside a continental tradition following
in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon world in particular. This is also the case for museums, and
this is only strengthened through the resolution of challenges and problems on the basis of
shared platforms, such as the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the Network
of European Museum Organisations (NEMO). It is no less the case in debates on the future
of museums, in which greater emphasis is generally placed on democratisation, and finally
also inclusion and greater openness to different social groups.3 If, however, we peer under
the surface of all debates on the New Museum, the Museum of the 21st century (musée
du XXIe siècle) or the Museum of the Future (Museum der Zukunft), we do nevertheless
see a certain particularity, comprising intellectual diversity and also giving space to mutual
enrichment. Today’s understanding of the accompanying concept which has established
itself in recent years in German-language discourse as a core reference framework of not
just cultural institutions, but also most public institutions, i.e. “meeting place”, also has
international roots.
While today Michael Wimmer and Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, for example, speak
of the necessity of transforming museums from a “place of artefacts” to a “meeting place”,4
a few decades ago this term was very rarely encountered in regard to public institutions.
When museums were perceived as a sort of special “place”, this was mainly in regard to their
3 LEHMANNOVÁ, Martina. Definice muzea [online]. ICOM Česká republika. 2020 [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://icom-czech.mini.icom.museum/icom/definice-muzea/
4 A debate took place in early 2021 on the transformation of museum institutions in Austria’s Der Standard.
Cultural theorist and teacher from Vienna’s University of Applied Arts, Michael Wimmer, and Director
of Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, agreed on the necessity to
transform the role of museums in the social agora. Director of Vienna’s Belvedere, Stella Rollig, argued
against, and she stressed the unique nature of museums as “places of artefacts”, providing testimony to
their periods and creators, meaning that museums are formative as public social institutions. Her criticism,
however, was mainly focused on the question of how new ideas of museums are making museums
more accessible and more connected to local communities, and generally to the general public.
HILPOLD, Stephan. Mak-Direktor: “Müssen wir unbedingt die Originale zeigen?” [online]. Derstandard.de,
Interview, 3. 3. 2021. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000124594325/
mak-direktor-muessen-wir-unbedingt-die-originale-zeigen, HITPOLD, Stephan. Alles neu? Über
die Zukunft der Museen [online]. Derstandard.de, Diskussion, 20. 2. 2021. [cit. 14. 2. 2022] Available at:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000124333026/alles-neu-ueber-die-zukunft-der-museen ROLLIG,
Stella. Zukunft der Museen: Sündenfall Blockbuster-Ausstellung? [online]. Derstandard.de, Diskussion,
24. 2. 2021. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000124420055/
zukunft-der-museen-suendenfall-blockbuster-ausstellung.
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 55
collection activities (Ort des Sammelns und Bewahrens). The 1960s was a turning point, with
the arrival of a new generation of intellectuals who criticised public institutions in their
traditional forms, including museums. During the 1970s and 1980s, the idea of museums in
particular as a place for meeting the past and a particular place and art grew in importance.
The objective was to criticise the idea of a passive consuming audience within mausoleums
of artwork, and instead to open museums to the public and turn them into a places of social
experiences.5 In 1970, Günther Uebecker spoke of his desire to turn museums into “places of
variability” providing free space to people. In the same year, Gerhard Bott’s collective mon-
ograph, Museum der Zukunft, was published and this also become a constitutive element for
today’s critical ideas on the concept and operation of museums not just within the German-
speaking community.6 We cannot neglect to mention Bezon Brok, who divided museums into
“places of reception”, “places of education” and “workplaces”, or “places of play” or “cult”.7
To the present day, Joseph Beuys’ definition of the idea of a museum as a “place of perma-
nent conference” is often quoted, which emphasises that they do not just preserve artefacts
from the past, but also provide a comprehensive understanding of the present and its rela-
tionship to the past, which also ties to the condition of museums as “places of permanent
tolerance”.8
Coming to terms with Germany’s tragic history in the 20th century and the significance of
the critical examination of its legacy undoubtedly played a large role in establishing this
concept in Germany. Pierre Nora’s great work, Realms of Memory (published in German
as “Erinnerungsorten”) also had a crucial influence. The term Erinnerungsort has a mark-
edly pessimistic tone in Germany, as it is linked to the trauma of remembering its Nazi past,
the Holocaust, the horrors of war, and in recent years also increasingly to places connected
to the communist dictatorship of the former German Democratic Republic.9 Since the 1990s,
the concept of places of memory and meeting the past has become an integral component of
the concept of memorials and museums of modern and contemporary history.10 This culture
5 ADORNO, Theodor. Valéry Proust Museum. In: Prisms. London: Neville Spearman, 1967, p. 175.
6 ULLRICH, Wlfganf. Die Idee des offenen MUseums: geschichte und Problematik [online]. [cit. 14. 2. 2022].
Available at: https://ideenfreiheit.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/das-offene-museum.pdf.
7 BROCK, Bazon. Ästhetik als Vermittlung. Köln: DuMont, 1977. ISBN 3-7701-0671-7.
8 BEUYS, Joseph. Das Museum—ein Ort der permanenten Konferenz. In: KURNITZKY, Horst. Notizbuch 3.
Kunst. Gesellschaft. Museum, Berlin 1980. pp. 47–74.
9 SABROW, Martin. Erinnerungorten der DDR. München: Beck, 2009. p. 22. ISBN 9783406590450.
10 In addition to Pierre Nora, this applies to the work of the Assmanns and the earlier work of Maurice
Halbwachs. ASSMANN, Aleida. Prostory vzpomínání: podoby a proměny kulturní paměti. Praha: Univerzita
Karlova, nakladatelství Karolinum, 2018. 482 pages. Limes. ISBN 978-80-246-3433-3., NORA, Pierre.
Erinnerungsorte Frankreichs. München: Beck, 2005. ISBN 978-3-406-52207-9., HALBWACHS, Maurice.
Das kollektive Gedächtnis. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1991. ISBN 3-596-27359-5.
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 56
11 ASSMANN, Aleida. Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. München:
Beck, 2010. ISBN 9783406601569.
12 „Bildungs- und Vermittlungsarbeit ist Kernaufgabe des Museums. Sie ist der treibende Motor, die Institution
Museum für ein diverses Publikum zu öffnen und zu demokratisieren.“ Leitfaden: Bildung und Vermittlung
im Museum gestalten. Erstausgabe Dezember 2020. Deutscher Museumsbund e.V. und Bundesverband
Museumspädagogik e.V., 2020. p. 4. ISBN 9783981986679.
13 These surveys, however, should be considered more of a general subject for further discussion. In their own
research, participation of members of ICOM’s German committee was fairly low, while the subsequent
three-hour debate on 24 March 2021 held via Zoom with over 350 participants, was rather problematic and
had disputed results considering the organisational complications. For more, see: ICOM Germany Museums
Definition Report on ICOM Define Consultation 2 [online]. ICOM Germany. 17 April 2021 [cit. 14. 2. 2022].
Available at https://icom-deutschland.de/images/Museumsdefinition/ICOM_Deutschland_-_Defining_the_
museum.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0JbK45J6YzJ6sfPVkXeZv6R391AmQOrMYmWKTRiBleYKIXLvq8p8HsNmg
14 HENKEL, Matthias. Das Museum als Ort der Langsamkeit. In: Das Moderne Museum. München:
Müller-Straten, 2001. p. 31. ISBN 3-932704-70-3.
15 SPIELMANN, Petr, SPIELMANN, Marek a KROPP, Peter. Museum als Ort der Begegnung: am Beispiel
des Museum Bochum 1972-1997. Brno: VUTIUM, 2010. ISBN 978-80-214-4082-1.
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 57
With the start of the new millennium, we can see another major shift, with a gradual move-
ment towards a change in understanding of not just the role of museums and monuments, but
also a broad range of public institutions. Naturally a huge number of internal and external
influences were involved, including political developments around the world, but the pub-
lication of the work of American sociologist Ray Oldenburg entitled Third Place was of par-
ticular influence. This characterised two core spaces which were “the home” (first place)
and “work” (second place), and finally there was a so-called third place, which incorporated
a broad spectrum of commercial and non-commercial institutions which help to eliminate
stress, loneliness and alienation, while strengthening social bonds. Over time, various cultural
institutions were gradually added to the original typical examples of third places such as cafés
and bars, these including libraries in particular, and with the turn of the millennium a broad
spectrum of public institutions adopted the term, including schools, for example. Within
German public debate, the concept began to expand in around 2010.16 Similarly, museums
also began to be perceived as a “third place”, although it should be stressed that this popular
term still entails many problems, in particular an insufficient definition of what the term
actually means, with it often being used in a very shallow way.17
In the last decade, the idea of cultural institutions as a meeting place has become
an increasing element in the operation of German cultural institutions. In regard to muse-
ums, this has led to an increasingly more radical move away from the primacy of thinking
about the audience’s relationship to physical collections and exhibited objects, and there has
even been discussion on the so-called immaterial turnover of museum work and the under-
standing of objects in collections:
16 SPRUNG, Norbert. Kultureinrichtungen als „Dritter Ort“. Begriffsklärung und Analyse von Beispielen aus
der Praxis [online]. Excerpt. Munich: GRIN Verlag, 2020. [cit. 14. 2. 2022] Available at: https://www.grin.com/
document/540604/540604
17 HOINS, Katharina. Das Museum als Dritter Ort. Schlagwort oder Leitbegriff? In: Museen der Zkunuft.
Bielefeld: transkript, 2022. pp.274–294. ISBN 2703-1470.
18 „Das Ding ist nicht mehr im heideggerschen Sinn als in sich geschlossener Gegenstand zu sehen, sondern
als ein über sich hinausweisendes ‚offenes Objekt‘, als Kreuzungspunkt von Beziehungen, Meinungen und
Erfahrungen. In diesem Licht betrachtet, rücken die symbolischen und diskursiven Qualitäten des Objekts
in den Vordergrund.“ GERCHOW, Jan et al. Nicht von gestern! Das historische museum frankfurt wird zum
Stadtmuseum für das 21. Jahrhundert. In: GESSER, Susanne et al. (Hg.). Das Partizipative Museum. Bielefeld:
transkript, 2012. p. 30. ISBN 978-3-8376-1726-9.
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 58
Instead, the idea of the idea of a place of mutual communication between different people and
social groups in general has become more important. From a theoretical perspective, James
Clifford’s idea of museums as contact zones had a marked influence.19 These theoretical ideas
have found practical application in the context of the large social challenges of recent years
seen in dealing with the so-called migrant crisis in Europe, and in the influence of emancipa-
tion movements for human rights and against the discrimination of various population groups
(e.g. Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+). This has led to a strengthening of museums’ active role
within a social inclusion programme, that is to say in ensuring a sense of belonging for various
individuals and social groups, and their equal involvement in the activities of the particular
institution, and finally also in the shaping of society as a whole. Museums should stop being
elitist meeting places for the educated middle class within the majority community, and instead
become a place of diversity dialogue. This has naturally given museum education a difficult
challenge in finding a path of mutual understanding. The Multaka (from the Arabic word
for “meeting place”) project received a particularly strong response. This involved Iraqi and
Syrian refugees being trained in special educational courses to be museum guides, offering
guided tours in the Arabic language through co-operation with the Museum of Islamic Art,
the Museum of the Middle East, the Bode Museum and the German Historical Museum. This
project won a number of awards for promoting transcultural dialogue, and it continues to oper-
ate successfully today, and also includes workshops in English, German and Arabic.20
Nor can we ignore the great global issue of reconciliation with one’s colonial past, some-
thing which casts museums in particular in a critical light, which become themselves a kind
of “artefact” for society. Just as an exhibited artefact comes with a large number of stories,
so buildings and institutions cannot be understood without the complete range of contexts
that they comprise. Critical reflection of the postcolonial aspect is a particularly sensitive area,
19 KRULL, Wilhelm. Sammeln, bewahren, erschließen, vermitteln. Museen und Sammlungen als Orte
des Erkenntnisgewinns [online]. Vortrag im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung „Wissensort Museum“ am
9. Februar 2016. Volkswagenstiftung.de. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: Grußwort des Generalsekretärs
der VolkswagenStiftung, Dr
20 Multaka. Trefpunkt Museum [online]. Multaka.de. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://multaka.de/projekt/
21 Postcolonialism describes the historical period following the collapse of colonial empires in the second
half of the 20th century. Since the 1970s, so-called post-colonial studies began to develop under
the influence of post-structural philosophy and the works, e.g., of Frantz Fanon and Edward Said, this
being a methodological area focused on a critical investigation of modern society and its development in
the context of the shaping of Western colonialism and its impacts on culture, economics and society, and
not just in the former colonial empires and their colonies, but also overall within the modern world.
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 59
with broad debate currently underway within the American and European space. One sym-
bol for this debate within the museum world was the issue of the so-called Benin Bronzes.22
The vision of a museum as a place of self-reflection on the institution in regard to
the colonial context of European museums is one that has found particular resonance in
Germany. As well as declarations that all relevant objects will be returned to their countries
of origin, a number of projects are also ongoing which aim to reconcile with the legacy of
their own past and Europe’s past while also finding new ways to educate people on colonial
issues. In this regard the German government has set up, for example, the German Contact
Point for Collections from Colonial Contexts23 and also notable is the German Digital Library
project entitled Collections from Colonial Contexts, in which digitalised artefacts in German
collections which are linked in some way to colonialism are digitally presented. Since 2020,
the German Federal Cultural Foundation has run the four-year project, Dekoloniale: Memory
Culture in the City, which aims to implement research, exhibitions and events on the topic
of colonialism, the postcolonialism of the present day and to use the example of Berlin—
an administrative and economic centre of Wilhelmine imperial politics—to highlight the leg-
acy of colonialism in the urban space.24 Finally, the German Museums Association published
specialist guidelines for the care of collections from colonial contexts in 2021.25
A particularly sensitive subject is the controversial opening of the Humboldt
Forum—a copy of a Berlin palace, which had been destroyed during the war, built in 2021.
While it is designed to house a leading German museum institution—a place of democratic
global dialogue—on the other hand it is continuing to make use of collections often with a sig-
nificantly problematic context, furthermore to a large extent a symbol of the Prussian state,
and bearing the name of a privileged Prussian intellectual.26 This is symptomatic of the gen-
eral trend to eschew narrow national or ethnocentric foci for museums, and to strengthen
the global context and international co-operation. This is also a key component of the German
Museums Association’s strategic focus, which in past years, for example, has been focused on
22 This is a large collection of bronze artefacts from the Royal Palace in the former Kingdom of Benin, which
is today located within the territory of today’s Nigeria. These objects were the spoils of a British retaliatory
military expedition in 1897 which the Kingdom of Benin fell victim to. Over the subsequent century,
individual artefacts ended up in a number of museums and private collections. Navracení afrických
artefaktů a projekt Digital Benin [online]. Emuzeum.cz, publikováno 25. 11. 2021. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://emuzeum.cz/aktuality/navraceni-africkych-artefaktu-a-projekt-digital-benin
23 Kontaktstelle für Sammlungsgut aus kolonialen Kontexten in Deutschland [online]. cp3c.de. [cit. 14. 2. 2022].
Available at: https://www.cp3c.de
24 Dekoloniale: Erinnerungskultur in der Stadt [online]. Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Erbe und Vermittlung.
[cit. 14. 2. 2022] Available at: https://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/de/projekte/erbe_und_
vermittlung/detail/dekoloniale.html
25 Care of Collections from Colonial Contexts [online]. E-reader for guidelines. Berlin: Deutscher Museumsbund,
2021. ISBN 978-3-9822232-0-9. [cit 14. 2. 2022] Available at: https://www.museumsbund.de/wp-content/
uploads/2021/02/e-reader-care-of-collections-from-colonial-contexts.pdf
26 E.g.: Ausstellungen im Humboldt Forum öffnen: Take it easy, altes Haus - taz.de
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 60
Polish-German, and in 2022 on French-German, museum dialogue.27 Thus the dispute over
the Humboldt Forum is more than exemplary in this case for events within German museums.
Within Czech academic debate, the issue of colonialism has remained marginal, mainly
because it is considered a problem of the former colonial empires.28 Furthermore, as quoted in
the introduction, Czech museums are considered to be guardians of the country’s wealth, and
not international institutions of mutual cultural dialogue and meeting places. This assump-
tion, however, would mean that colonialism would also remain a topic of little interest in
Austria and Switzerland. This is not the case, of course. Back in 2015-2017, a project was run at
the Weltmuseum Wien entitled Sharing stories. Speaking Objects which aimed to allow visitors
to see objects with problematic contexts from a number of perspectives, thus revealing the dif-
ficulties of presenting and creating difference and the very method of looking at “the oth-
er”.29 Considering its role as a place of meeting and multicultural exchange, the Weltmuseum
is a particular topic of discussion in the context of so-called decolonisation, including in
regard to the Benin Bronzes, as the museum has a large collection of Berlin Bronze artefacts.
Additionally, the Austrian Ministry of Culture, supported by leading Viennese museums,
has also undertaken a project entitled “Colonial Objects in Austrian Federal Museums”, and
Vienna’s Natural History Museum also has its own expert team, known as Colonial Context
of Acquisitions (KolText).30 In Switzerland, an ethnographic collections critical reflection
project was run, for example, at the Museum der Kulturen Basel, and at the University of
27 A museum co-operation project was launched at the end of 2022 between a number of German and Polish
museums, entitled Deutsch-Polnischer Museumsdialog. Its main objective was to strengthen the sharing
of experience of experts from both countries. The German Museums Association and Poland’s National
Institute for Museums and Public Collections also wanted to pave the way for future cross-border projects
and a generally hitherto lacking platform for permanent sustainable co-operation. The strategy for 2022
includes an expansion of this cross-border co-operation to include French museums. German-Polish
Museum Dialogue [online]. Museumsbund.de. [cit. 14. 2. 2022] Available at: https://www.museumsbund.
de/aktuelles/projekte/deutsch-polnischer-museumsdialog/, Nachhaltigkeit, Relevanz und transnationale
Zusammenarbeit: Der Deutsche Museumsbund setzt Schwerpunkte für 2022 [online]. Museumbund.de,
16 December 2021. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://www.museumsbund.de/nachhaltigkeit-relevanz-
und-transnationale-zusammenarbeit-der-deutsche-museumsbund-setzt-schwerpunkte-fuer-2022/
28 An example of one exception is the student project Decolonisation. Manifest dekolonizace [online].
Dekolonizace.cz. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://dekolonizace.cz
29 Sharing Stories. Dinge sprechen [online]. Weltmuseumwien.at, Wissenschaft & Forschung. [cit. 14. 2. 2022].
Available at: https://www.weltmuseumwien.at/wissenschaft-forschung/sharingstories/
30 Kolonialer Erwerbskontext im Naturhistorischen Museum Wien [online]. Nhm-wien.ac.at. [cit. 14. 2. 2022].
Available at: https://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/forschung/projekt_koltext; WEISS, Stefan. Koloniale
Kulturgüter: Österreich richtet Expertengremium ein [online]. Derstandard.at, Kulturpolitik,
20. ledna 2022. [cit. 14. 2. 2022] Available at: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000132682271/
koloniale-kulturgueter-oesterreich-richtet-expertengremium-ein
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 61
Zurich’s Ethnographic Museum.31 Thus, the use of the word “context” is linked to a broad
spectrum of narratives which together form the overall significance of a particular object in
a particular period. Besides, in German-speaking countries this issue continues to be linked
to critical reflections on artworks and objects stolen during the Second World War—e.g. in
regard to the Kunsthaus Zürich’s controversial Emil Bührl Collection.32
The topic of colonialism, then, is a natural aspect of museums as places of critical reflec-
tion and self-reflection and last year’s on-line exhibition, Staged Otherness from the Polish
Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology on shows of otherness, human
zoos and ethnographical exhibitions in Central Europe is good evidence of this.33 This exhi-
bition demonstrates the essence of reflections on colonialism in the countries of Central
Europe, and as a result also the need for a general shift in the perception of collections and in
the understanding of their value as testimony. Ultimately, this does not just apply to the ori-
gins of art and ethnography collections in regard to their colonial past, but also the so-called
environmental postcolonial context in the case of natural history collections. Last year
also saw the completion of a large interdisciplinary project of the Zoological Garden and
Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, entitled Animals as Objects, which looked at the question
of the past, present and future of animals as a component of the exhibitions of institutions
of entertainment, culture and education.34 Finally, the idea of museums without collections,
based more on the tradition of kunsthalles, but taking inspiration in the history, for example,
of Dresden’s Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, is today generally accepted, and in fact for many
this concept represents the future of museums as an institution.35
Museum 4.0
This trend of revising the concept of collections has been further boosted in recent years by
the huge growth in new digital technologies and the related expansion of the third space into
the virtual world. This also relates to the phenomenon of the technical labelling of museums.
While the term “virtual museum” was found back in the 1990s, for example, the first decade
of the new millennium saw very lively debate on, for example, the today largely forgotten
31 Umgang mit Sammlungsgut aus kolonialen Kontexten [online]. Leitfaden. Berlin: Deutscher Museumsbund,
2021. p. 35. [cit. 14. 02. 2022]. Available at: https://www.museumsbund.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/
e-reader-zum-leitfaden-umgang-mit-sammlungsgut-aus-kolonialen-kontexten-de.pdf
32 Sbírka Emila Bührla stále vyvolává kontroverze [online]. Emuzeum.cz, published 25. 1. 2022. [cit. 14. 2. 2022].
Available at: https://emuzeum.cz/aktuality/sbirka-emila-buhrla-stale-vyvolava-kontroverze
33 Staged Otherness [online]. Exhibition. Stagedotherness. eu. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://stagedotherness.eu
34 Tiere als Objekte [online]. Museumfuernaturkunde.berlin.de. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/de/wissenschaft/tiere-als-objekte
35 BAUR, Joachim. Was ist ein Museum? Vier Umkreisungen eines wiederspenstigen Gegendstand. In: BAUR,
Joachim (hg.). Museumsanalyse Methoden und Konturen eines neuen Forschungsfeldes. Bielefeld: transcript,
2010. p. 18. ISBN 978-3-8394-0814-8.
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 62
Museum 2.0.36 This was a response to the development of the new form of websites, so-called
Web 2.0, and the related opportunities to share and store, and generally the production of cre-
ative content within the virtual space.37 In museums in Western Europe, this came alongside
debate on museums as places of participation and social changes. Internet platforms were to
become tools for closer connectivity not just of experts, but also of the museum audience.38
Nor should we forget the influence of the concept of so-called Culture 3.0 as presented by
cultural economist, Pier Luigi Sacco.39 Nevertheless, the events of the first half of the 1990s
then became a great impetus when in 2011 an expert working group presented the German
government’s plans for their strategic vision of a fourth industrial revolution under the title
Industry 4.0, which was then presented in 2015 at the World Economic Forum, igniting furi-
ous debate.40
The characteristic of museums considering the stage of industrial revolutions subse-
quently also affected the division of museums and other cultural institutions. This applies
to, or perhaps rather applied to German academic debate in particular, as the actual concept
was accepted only with reservations in other countries, and a number of years following
the phenomenon of debate on Industry 4.0, the term was no longer as dominant in the pub-
lic space as it had been a few years beforehand.41 The term Museum 4.0 was first used by
Mark Walheimer in the context of the so-called semantic museum adapting to the needs of
the audience and making use of digital technologies in addition to traditional technologies.42
Within the German-language debate, the term Museum 4.0 came directly out of debates on
the Industrial Revolution, and so relates to the strategies which museums use to deal with
technological progress and develop their competencies in the use of digital technologies.
36 MILLER, Gavin et al. The virtual museum: Interactive 3D navigation of a multimedia database. The Journal of
Visualization and Computer Animation, Vol. 3, Is. 3, 1992, pp. 183–197.
37 The separation of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 was first made by Darcy DiNucci in 1999 in her article, Fragmented
Future DINUCCI, Darcy. Fragmented Future [online]. Print Magazine, 53 (4), April 1999. pp. 221–222.
[cit. 14. 2. 2022] Available at: darcyd.com/fragmented_future.pdf
38 GESSER, Susanne et al. (Hg.). Das Partizipative Museum. Bielefeld: transcript, 2012. ISBN 978-3-8376-1726-9,
Museumskunde. Museen in der Informationsgesellschaft. Band 73, 2/08, Berlin: Deutscher Museumsbund,
2009.
39 SACCO, Pier Luigi. Culture 3.0: A new perspective for the EU 2014-2020 structural funds programming
[online]. EENC Paper, April 2011. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: www.interarts.net/descargas/
interarts2577.pdf
40 Umsetzungsempfehlungen für das ZukunftsprojektIndustrie 4.0: Abschlussbericht des Arbeitskreises
Industrie 4.0 [online]. Promotorengruppe Kommunikation der Forschungsunion Wirtschaft—Wissenschaft,
April 2013. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: Umsetzungsempfehlungen für das Zukunftsprojekt Industrie 4.0.
Abschlussbericht des Arbeitskreises Industrie 4.0—acatech
41 CULOT, Giovanna et al. Behind the Definition of Industry 4.0: Analysis and open questions [online].
International Journal of Production Economics, Volume 226, August 2020. [cit. 14. 2. 2022] Available at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527320300050?via%3Dihub
42 WALHIMER, Mark. Museum 4.0 as the Future of STEAM in Museums [online]. The STEAM Journal, Vol. 2, Iss. 2,
Article 14, 2016. [cit. 14. 2. 2022] Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/steam/vol2/iss2/14
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 63
In 2016, the innovative project Museum 4.0 began under the auspices of the Prussian Cultural
Heritage Foundation, and today comprises the principal shared innovative platform for
German cultural institutions called museum4punkt0.43 Within the virtual space and making
use of digital technologies, not only can we add a new dimension to museum education and
free ourselves from physical collections, but we can also strengthen the role of museums in
dealing with current social concerns, and bring their activities to a much wider audience.
It should be stressed, however, that the Museum 4.0 discourse remains at the level of tech-
nological innovations, and the question of to what extent a digital museum can also be a ful-
ly-fledged meeting place remains extremely debatable—the term Museum 4.0 is thus not
usually put within the context of the otherwise core leitmotif, “meeting place”.44 In contrast,
it is important to note the criticism levelled in this case, in that through digitalisation and
implementing new technologies, instead of shaping a participative space for dealing with
current social issues, museums may find themselves falling in line behind the products and
interests of large technology corporations.45 It should also be added that during the Covid
pandemic, many German museums struggled with the reality of poor funding and a lack of
digital compensation, as elsewhere in Europe.46
Green museum
There is one agenda which resonates the most within the European cultural sector, and
German and especially Austrian museums and galleries want to some degree to be its flag-
ship, and that is the challenge of protecting the climate and ensuring sustainable development.
Following on from adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change (2016) and the conclu-
sions of the United Nations’ Climate Change conferences (2018 and 2019), a special museums
sustainability resolution was adopted at a General Meeting of the International Council of
Museums in Kyoto, and then in September 2020 there was another meeting in Bremerhaven,
Germany, where a declaration of the same name was adopted on museums taking an active
role in solving the climate crisis.47 Practically all German-language periodicals have focused
on this issue, e.g. Museums.ch, Museumskunde and Neues Museum, with the term Green Museum
(Grünes Museum) as an engaged place for dealing with environmental problems being par-
ticularly well-received in Austria.48
A more detailed search finds that the term “green museum” was established earlier
in the German-language discourse on museums’ future development, when it was related
to experts’ thoughts on the reconstruction and renovation of museums in regard to run-
ning them in a greener way, with the term das grüne Museum being used.49 In 2011, a new
Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien depot became a prime example and model for this vision.50
Since 2018 so-called eco-labels (österreichische Umweltzeichen) have been awarded to “green
museums”, with the first museum to receive the label being Kunst Haus Wien, and by February
2022 12 Austrian museums and gallery had received the award.51 In the end, people around
Vienna’s Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art, Museum of Applied Arts and Technical
Museum formed the Museums for Future movement in late 2019, inspired by the global
Fridays for Future movement fighting climate change. Their call for the maximum possi-
ble involvement of museums in the fight against climate change soon found broad support
amongst first Austrian, and then also German, cultural institutions. The movement’s activi-
ties are now spreading to other European countries, with the Museums for Future’s declara-
tion also adopted by the Network of European Museum Organisations, of whom the Czech
AMG is also a member.52 Finally, in Switzerland an extensive project was launched last year
on the initiative of the Swiss sustainability network in art and culture, 2N2K, which in col-
laboration with the International Council of Museums’ Swiss committee and the Mercator
Foundation is funding the Happy Museums project, which aims to ensure greater involvement
of museum institutions and their activities in sustainable development programmes.53 Thus,
the idea of a green museum is more than purely a technical solution, but rather a matter of
48 Museumskunde. Diesoziale Dimension der nachhaltigkeit. Band 86/2021, Heft 1, Berlin: Deutscher
Museumsbund, 2021.; Museums.ch. Die schweizer Museumszeitschrift. 13/2018, Zürich: HIER UND JETZT,
2018.; Neues Museum. Die österreichische Museumszeitschrift. 21/4, Oktober 2021, Wien: Museumsbund
Österreich.
49 The meetings have been taking place since 2010 under the auspices of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft/
Forschungsallianz Kulturerbe and Deutsche Kongress. Nachricht - Das grüne Museum 2010 [online].
Deutsche Kongress, Das grüne Museum. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://p200206.mittwaldserver.info/
nachbericht2010.html
50 Freierliche Eröffnung des neuen KHM-Depots [online]. Kunsthistorisches
Museum, 2 July 2011. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://www.khm.at/de/blog/
detailansicht/?newsID=632&cHash=35af0edd2998005c7a41c082889b7a30
51 As well as eight museums in Vienna, including the most renowned such as MAK—the Museum of Applied
Arts and Austria’s Belevedere Gallery, the label has also been received by Joanneum and Kunsthaus
Graz, the monument to the Roman city of Carnuntum and the Lower Austria Museum. Museen mit dem
Österreichischen Umweltzeichen [online]. Österreichisches Umweltzeichen. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://www.umweltzeichen.at/de/tourismus/museen
52 Museums For Future [online]. Museums For Future. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: museumsforfuture.org
53 Happy Museums [online]. Happymuseums.ch. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://www.happymuseums.ch/
was-wir-tun
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 65
overall museum activities. As the mentioned Kunst Haus example shows, green museums
are a “place of lively debate”, bringing together art and environmentalism, looking at envi-
ronmental matters and sustainability within art discourse, and finally as public institutions
they are active creators and mediators of socio-political values.54
As has already been mentioned, the term used in German-language academic debate
on the future of museums is museum of the future. Gerhardt Bott’s contemporary successors
endorse the tradition of his collective monograph of 1970, such as Das Museum der Zukunft
written a team of authors in Vienna headed by Joachim Baur, and the latest Museen der Zukunft
by Henning Mohr and Diana Modarressi-Tehrani. However, if there is one shared character-
istic aspect of museums’ future direction in general debate, it is undoubtedly the need for sus-
tainable development, which also forms the strategic basis for another focus for German and
Austrian museums. As such, the International Council of Museums’ Austrian committee has
launched the project 17 MUSEEN x 17 SDGs in collaboration with the Austrian Federal Ministry
for Art, Culture, Civil Service and Sport in order to ensure that Agenda 2030 for Sustainable
Development goals are met.55 The German Museums Association included the issue of sus-
tainability and climate protection top of its list of strategic goals for 2022, with the vision of
creating a museum code of sustainability, and the subsequent establishment of its own model
of certification for museums and their sponsors. The association then declares:
“As places of education and meeting, museums bear a large responsibility in the field
of sustainability. They look after a large part of our cultural heritage, transfer knowl-
edge, spark social discourse and create creative impulses. They can spread a vision
of a better future, they can be a model example and their activities can significantly
contribute towards greater sustainability and climate protection.” 56
The final project mentioned here is in regard to the perception of museums as places of
democratic co-operation, inclusion and openness to a broad spectrum of social groups.
The idea of museums as places open to the general public would appear to be quite an old
one, and the opening of Hans Sloane’s collection as establishing the beginnings of the British
Museum in 1753 is often mentioned in this regard. Long into the 19th century, however, modern
54 Das grüne Museum [online]. Kunst Haus Wien. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://www.kunsthauswien.com/de/uber-uns/grunes-museum/
55 17 MUSEEN x 17 SDGs—Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung [online]. ICOM ÖSterreich. [cit. 14. 2. 2022].
Available at: http://icom-oesterreich.at/page/17-museen-x-17-sdgs-ziele-fuer-nachhaltige-entwicklung
56 Nachhaltigkeit, Relevanz und transnationale Zusammenarbeit: Der Deutsche Museumsbund setzt
Schwerpunkte für 2022 [online]. Museumbund.de, 16 December 2021. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://www.museumsbund.de/nachhaltigkeit-relevanz-und-transnationale-zusammenarbeit-der-
deutsche-museumsbund-setzt-schwerpunkte-fuer-2022/
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 66
museums were still marked by belonging to a narrow group of the elite and male enlightened
scholars.57 Furthermore, to the present day and despite all attempts at inclusion and open-
ing museums up to those with disabilities, museums are still to a large extent a phenomenon
within the cultural life of the educated middle class. Opening museums to the broader public
and ensuring global overlap while also linking them to their location and local community
represents a challenge which, for example, the research project Right to the Museum? led by
cultural scientist Luise Reitstätter is currently looking at. Its main objective is the system-
atic elaboration of the accessibility of museums and museum studies in general, with lead-
ing Vienna museums taking part: the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art, the House
of Austrian History, the Austrian Gallery Belvedere, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien and
the Museum of Applied Arts.
When discussion took place as part of the project with the civil advisory council on
the topic of what remained relevant of the original founding ideas of museums, the conclu-
sions they then drew were that this was an emphasis on the openness and accessibility of
museums.58 This idea is based on a shift in perception of the role of museums over the course
of the 19th century, in Central Europe in particular, when museums no longer aimed to be
institutions for the elite, and became instead one of many tools for educating and “civilising”
the broad masses. This element is certainly double-edged—it shows signs of emancipation in
the form of allowing the broader masses access to education, but also of the discipline of state
power. It increased pressure on adapting opening hours to accommodate labourers, and gen-
erally adapting museums’ functions to the needs of educating the lower classes.59 The Vienna
project’s team debate looked at the founding statutes of Vienna’s Museum of Art and Industry
(today’s MAK—Museum of Applied Arts), when the motto that the museum should be “as
assessable as possible” (möglichst zugänglich zu machen), was considered an enduring one,
and one still relevant today.60 A similar emphasis on the public nature of the institution
can also be found in the regulations of Frederick William II (1797) and Frederick William III
57 BAUR, Joachim. Was ist ein Museum? Vier Umkreisungen eines wiederspenstigen Gegendstand. In: BAUR,
Joachim (hg.). Museumsanalyse Methoden und Konturen eines neuen Forschungsfeldes. Bielefeld: transcript,
2010. p. 28. ISBN 978-3-8394-0814-8.
58 REITSTÄTTER et al. Museum und Öffentlichkeit Von historischen Konzepten bis zu heutigen
Kommentaren [online]. VöKK Journal, 3/2021. p. 13 [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://jimdo-storage.
global.ssl.fastly.net/file/3f8bfb14-312b-4435-a7c2-4f3aaba0662a/2021-10_Museum%20und%20
Öffentlichkeit_VöKK_3_2021.pdf
59 BAUR, Joachim. Was ist ein Museum? Vier Umkreisungen eines wiederspenstigen Gegendstand. In: BAUR,
Joachim (hg.). Museumsanalyse Methoden und Konturen eines neuen Forschungsfeldes. Bielefeld: transcript,
2010. pp. 28–29. ISBN 978-3-8394-0814-8.
60 „C. Benützung. § 9. Die im Museum aufgestellten Gegenstände, welcher Art sie sein mögen, sind
der Besichtigung, der Benützung und dem Studium möglichst zugänglich zu machen, soweit es sich mit
der SIcherheit und Erhaltung derselben vereinigen lässt.“ Mittheilungen des k. k. Österreichischen Museums
für Kunst und Industrie. I. Heft. Wien: Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1864. p. 6.
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 67
(1810), which stood behind the establishment of Berlin’s Museum Island (Museumsinsel).61
It is worth noting here that Moravian enlightened aristocrats, headed by Governor Antonín
Bedřich Mitrovský, who stood behind the establishment of the Francis Museum (1817),
today’s Moravian Museum, also had a similar idea. Nevertheless, in the oft-mentioned deed
of 1818, signed by the Supreme Burgrave, Count František Libstějnský of Kolovraty, which is
customarily considered the founding charter of the National Museum, we do not find such
an emphasis—the museum is instead designed for “patriotic friends of science” and the deed
does not emphasise the maximum possible accessibility and openness, but rather scientific
work and preserving the Czechs’ national treasures.62
This dispute should not be taken dramatically at all. However, in the 17th century, as we can
read in John Amos Comenius’s Orbis pictus, museums were more like places to study for
researchers and art lovers,63 although by around 1800 the term could be used for a broad
spectrum of exhibitions, libraries, and even for cafés, dance halls and rooms designed for
learned disputation.64 If, for example, the Director of the National Gallery in Berlin says that
the museum of today is a place for posing questions, lively dialogue, a place of creative poten-
tial for a particular period, this does not mean that one can no longer think of a museum as
a place of scientific investigation, looking after collections or cultural heritage.65 Which is why,
like museum discussion in the Czech Republic and elsewhere around the world, we cannot
limit ourselves to one particular hegemonic focus, but we should rather perceive museums as
61 Aloys Hirt’s original plan involved the idea of an institution for an educated audience, while in the 1820s
the concept of museums, this time as perceived by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Gustav Friedrich Waagen,
influenced by the so-called Berlin Enlightenment, expanded the concept to the inclusive idea of
the “universal audience”. For more, see: BUCKERMANN, Paul. Autonome Kunst und frühe Kunstmuseen
in Europa [online]. In: Autonomie der Kunst? Zur Aktualität eines gesellscahftlichen Leitbildes. Leipzig:
SpringerVS, 2017. pp. 167–190 [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: (PDF) Autonome Kunst und frühe Kunstmuseen
in Europa (researchgate.net)
62 KOLOWRAT, Franz. An die Vaterländischen Freunde der Wissenschaften [online]. Archiv Národního muzea,
inv. č. ANM, RNM A/I/4, Provolání An die vaterländischen Freunde der Wissenschaften, 15. 4. 1818. Available
at: https://www.esbirky.cz/predmet/76571; BÄUERLE, Adolf. Was verdankt Oesterreich der beglückenden
Regierung Sr. Majestät Kaiser Franz des Ersten? Wien: A. V. Haykul, 1834. pp. 187–188.
63 KOMENSKÝ, Jan Amos. Capitulum XCVIII. Museum [online]. In: Orbis sensualium pictus, Noribergae,
1658. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost17/Comenius/
com_o098.html
64 BAUR, Joachim. Was ist ein Museum? Vier Umkreisungen eines wiederspenstigen Gegendstand. In: BAUR,
Joachim (hg.). Museumsanalyse Methoden und Konturen eines neuen Forschungsfeldes. Bielefeld: transcript,
2010. p. 23. ISBN 978-3-8394-0814-8.
65 Ein neuer Ort des Austausches über Kunst [online]. Nationalgalerie20.de. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://www.nationalgalerie20.de/der-museumsneubau/ort-der-begegnung/
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 68
many-voiced discourses, in which various cultural and intellectual schools in the globalised
world are interwoven.
This also applies to the situation for museums within the German-speaking world,
where there are museums and cultural institutions with a very diverse range of foci and
concepts. We have presented here a kind of ethos of method of discussion on the long-term
focus of museums, in the centre of which are the core issues of sustainable development,
dealing with our colonial heritage, transnationality and the global aspect, and also social
inclusion, participation and finally digital technology and effective education opportunities.
On the other hand, we need to once more emphasise the wide range of opinions and ideas,
since even the traditional concept of museums as mainly scientific and collection-forming
institutions are not completely dead. This is evidenced, for example, in Swiss discussions
regarding a new definition for museums from the International Council of Museums, where
terms referring to scientific activities and care for collections won out in French-language
questionnaires in particular, with a similar emphasis only seen on accessibility to the public.66
Similarly, the idea that “without a collection there is no museum” (Ohne Sammlung, kein
Museum!) is also a familiar one. It is clear, however, that demands on the ethical dimension
of collection activities are increasing, and pressure is being put on reviewing the purpose
of collections in the 21st century towards museum artefacts’ various relations to contempo-
rary society, and in regard to their non-material nature (e.g. sounds or smells). Collection
activities, however, remain a crucial element of museums.67 The fact that they are receding
from the main aspects of debate on museums of the future is mainly because in contrast to
collections, creating ideas is a vital part of museums’ essence. Since individual objects with-
out context, without a specific discursive relationship to the community and the individual,
have no meaning—they do not hold value of themselves.
In conclusion, we can highlight one general core principle, specifically that from
the time of the Neo-Kantian philosophers at the latest, it is true that while problems of nature
can be dealt with through devising generally applicable laws, this is not the case for issues
within humanities and social sciences. These are always created by unique phenomena which
66 „Les trois mots-clés les plus fréquemment cités en français sont : conserver, ouvert au public, recherche
des collections / en allemand : vermitteln, öffentlich zugänglich, sammeln.“ Mots et concepts clés
pour une définition du musée [online]. ICOM Suisse, Zurich, 16 avril 2021. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at:
https://www.museums.ch/assets/files/dossiers_f/Mots_concepts_cles_definition%20du%20musee_
Suisse_20210416.pdf
67 In December last year, the City Museum Berlin Foundation hosted an international workshop entitled
“Malodours as Cultural Heritage?”, in which the Odeuropa research network, founded in 2020 in order to
recognise, protect, present and support olfactory heritage as an integral component of Europe’s tangible
and intangible cultural heritage, was also involved. EHRICH, Sofia. Workshop: Malodours as Cultural
Heritage? [online]. Odeuropa, 19. listopad 2021. [cit. 14. 2. 2022]. Available at: https://odeuropa.eu/2021/11/
workshop-malodours-as-cultural-heritage/; The importance of collection activities in the 21st century
was also looked at in Museumskunde. Sammellust und Sammellast. Chancen und Herausforderungen
von Museumssammlungen. Band 78, 2/13, Berlin: Deutscher Museumsbund, 2013.
The museum as a meeting place—inspiration from the German-speaking area 69
appear to each of us differently, forming natural worlds for each person as an individual.
This is also the case in definitions of museums, which can never be fully generalisable to all
museum institutions, and similarly no museum can ever fully correspond to all the demands
which present society places on museums. It is here that we can see the greatest inspiration
in the perception of museums as “meeting places”. Post-war development of German phi-
losophy gave rise to the characteristic concept of communicative ethics, as formulated by
Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas in particular, and which could be seen in practical use,
for example, in the so-called Historikerstreit.
As a result of the dynamics of technological development, modern society is confronted
with increasing fragmentation, alienation and social conflicts. Re-finding social consensus
relies on public institutions as necessary conditions for rational social organisation.68 Such
institutions include museums. Museums are places which create a rational framework for
the community to communicate shared topics, spaces of deliberation, a certain debating com-
monality, unlimited traditions and political powers, and finally they are a platform which sets
a theoretical distance as an integral prerequisite for comprehensible dialogue and the res-
olution of current problems while maintaining respect between individual groups without
and within the museum—as a highly distinctive deliberative public institution.
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New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 73
MUSEUMS WITHOUT
COLLECTIONS?! MUSEUMS’
NEW ROLE AND DISCUSSION
OF THEIR DEFINITION
Jakub Jareš, Karolína Bukovská
MUSEum+
The global museum community is discussing a new definition of a museum. This debate is also
extremely lively in the Czech Republic, and not just because the wording of the new definition
is to be approved in August 2022 in Prague. In our contribution to the discussion, we want to
note a certain dichotomy in considerations of the position of museum institutions without
collections, and call for a more inclusive approach which instead of defining strict borders
rather seeks out opportunities for mutual inspiration and co-operation.
Our thoughts are first based on a questionnaire survey undertaken on the definition of
a museum by the Czech Association of Museums and Galleries and the ICOM’s Czech commit-
tee in February and March 2021.1 The results of this showed that emphasis on a collection as
the core defining hallmark of museums is not a homogeneous position in the Czech Republic.
In terms of frequency, the term “heritage” was in top place, a term encompassing collections,
but which is more universal and emphasises a relationship to that which is handed down from
generation to generation. The Czech terms vzdělávání and edukace, both referring to education,
were in second and third place, while collections were only in fourth place.
From our perspective, these results demonstrate that the survey was open to a broader
group of respondents than just museum workers. Within the Czech museum context, we con-
tinue to encounter a definite emphasis on collections, with their presence tending to define
whether an institution is a museum or not. We shall present here a number of examples of
this dichotomous thinking. In the second step, we shall show examples of institutions which
are not primarily collections-focused but fulfil other museum functions to a high degree.
Finally, we shall provide our own summary and generalisations.
1 JAGOŠOVÁ, Lucie—KIRSCH, Otakar. Dotazníkové šetření v ČR k definici muzea podle ICOM. In: Asociace
muzeí a galerií v České republice [online]. Available at: https://www.cz-museums.cz/news/amg/
titulni/57259-dotaznikove-setreni-v-cr-k-definici-muzea-podle-icom [cit. 3. 3. 2022].
Museums without collections?! Museums’ new role and discussion of their definition 74
Dichotomy examples
1. We cannot begin this summary anywhere else than museum legislation. Within
the Czech context, the relevant law is aptly entitled “Act on the Protection of Collections
of Museum Character”, and in line with this title it focuses on the collection, storage,
recording, processing and opening up of collections. The degree to which this emphasis
is a dominant one in the Czech Republic is seen in a comparison with other countries.
Swiss federal museums, for example, according to the law there should look after
the physical and intangible memory of the country, develop collection concepts, and
research and present to the public themes related to Swiss society, cultures and iden-
tity.2 Instead of collections of physical objects, the focus here is on society’s memory.
This might seem a mere detail, but words really matter here. Memory is not necessarily
contained in just physical records of the past alone.
2. A second example. The local Czech Association of Museums and Galleries has strived for
a long time to introduce a process of museum registration and accreditation. According to
the association’s writings, their motivation is an attempt to differentiate “real” muse-
ums from institutions which the AMG terms “non-museums”. Here again, their crite-
rion is the existence or lack of a collection.3 In the relevant writings, we do not see any
clear justification for this differentiation mechanism except for references to the pres-
tige of registered museums. Instead, we see an almost complete absence of consider-
ations of whether museums without collections might not also fulfil a fundamental
social role and might not therefore also deserve public support, including funding.
3. Money plays an important role, of course. Currently, the Czech Ministry of
Culture’s subsidies and grants are almost exclusively designed for institutions with
collections recorded in the Central Registry of Collections, For museums without col-
lections, which are primarily focused on the educational aspect, this may mean facing
fairly clear limits. We can also note that the current system is leading—in rare cases,
certainly—to the deliberate recording of collections in the CRC. We ourselves have
witnessed an unnamed town, as owner of a small natural history collection, asking
that this be registered in the CRC so that they could apply for a grant for a purely social
science exhibition. We therefore wonder whether rather than attempt to exclude
institutions without collections it might be worth diversifying grant programmes.
In this matter, it is evident that the operating costs are much higher for institutions
2 Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft. Bundesgesetz über die Museen und Sammlungen des Bundes vom 12.
Juni 2009. Available at: https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2009/598/de [cit. 3. 3. 2022].
3 BENEŠ, Luděk. Podíl Svazu československých muzeí a Asociace muzeí a galerií ČR na přípravách obecné
zákonné normy pro oblast muzejnictví. Museologica Brunensia, 2020, 9(1), 54–68. See also AMG ČR.
Registrace a akreditace muzeí. Dosavadní výsledky činnosti Pracovní skupiny AMG pro přípravu registrace/
akreditace muzeí a muzejní standardy. Available at: https://www.cz-museums.cz/UserFiles/file/2018/AMG/
SNEM%20AMG%202018/REGISTRACE+AKREDITACE_material%20AMG_WEB.pdf [cit. 3. 3. 2022].
Museums without collections?! Museums’ new role and discussion of their definition 75
with collections than for institutions without them. The grants system currently takes
account of this fact, and it should continue to take account of it—increasing funds
provided where needed.
4. We believe that the collections-centric nature of Czech museums is also evidenced in
the approach of their exhibitions. In research into the presentation of contemporary
history undertaken by Jakub Jareš at 24 Czech regional museums in 2017–2018, it was
clearly shown that exhibitions are highly dependent on the state and nature of collec-
tions. Highly relevant issues (such as the expulsion of Germans and the Communist
persecution of various groups of citizens) very rarely appear in exhibitions, because
there is a lack of specific artefacts in collections. In contrast, images of the communist
powers, which there are plenty of in collections thanks to museums’ collection work
prior to 1989, are reproduced.4
This fundamental emphasis on objects is also seen in the newly opened National Museum exhi-
bitions. As many reviewers have noticed, the History of the 20th century exhibition, for example,
contains thousands of objects, but just a minimum of understandable narratives informing
visitors of the story of Czechoslovak and Czech history.5 Similarly, other National Museum
exhibition projects demonstrate a fixation on physical objects. For the 200th anniversary of
its founding, the museum put together the 2x100 exhibition, comprising 200 exhibits from
its collections. Since 2021, there has been an exhibition, which is meant to reflect the history
of the institution, displayed in its historic building, but again it is above all a presentation of
selected objects from its collections. Even its name, Museum from the Cellar to the Attic, evokes
an evident focus on physical objects.
We think it is extraordinary that this emphasis on collections and artefacts is so strong
in a country whose museological tradition warns against over-adherence to the physical
nature of objects. Zbyněk Zbyslav Stránský and his successors have clearly formulated that
it is not the object itself, but rather its “museality” that museums should actually be inter-
ested in.6
Paradoxically, within the Czech museum context no significant expert debate is taking
place or has taken place on the issue we are only briefly outlining here. The thorough research
of museological and specialist journals which Michal Kurz undertook when he investigated
articles published from the 1990s to the present day in the AMG bulletin, MUZEUM: Muzejní
a vlastivědná práce, the Museologica Brunensia journal, the Silesian Museum journal and
4 JAREŠ, Jakub. Soudobé dějiny v místních muzeích. In: J. Jareš—Č. Pýcha—V. Sixta: Jak vystavujeme soudobé
dějiny. Muzeum v diskusi. ÚSTR a NLN, Praha 2020, pp. 39–42.
5 BUKOVSKÁ, Karolína. (Re)construction of Czech History: The National Museum and its New
Permanent Exhibition on the Twentieth Century. In: Cultures of History Forum [online]. 25.11.2021
[cit. 12. 3. 2022]. Available at: https://www.cultures-of-history.uni-jena.de/exhibitions/
reconstruction-of-the-czech-twentieth-century.
6 STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk Zbyslav. Archeologie a muzeologie. Brno 2005, p. 120.
Museums without collections?! Museums’ new role and discussion of their definition 76
Acta historica et museologica shows that the only serious discussion on the role of collec-
tions in defining the role of museums took place in 2002 in the pages of the AMG bulletin.
In this micro-debate7 between Jiří Žalman, Petr Kozák and Zdeněk Gába, the first two named
noted the necessity of contextualising objects and shifting museums’ attention to other than
purely collection activities, while Zdeněk Gába stressed that, “museums are irreplaceable
in regard to the permanent storage of collections”, and he equated exhibition activities to
the presentation of collections alone (“if I want to exhibit them, I have to have them first”).
We now, therefore, want to give examples of museums which deviate from this dichot-
omous thinking.
Museum examples
The New Generation Museum at Žďár nad Sázavou castle was opened in 2015. The museum is run
by the SE.S.TA association, which secures cultural activities at the castle, owned by the Kinský
family. The institution does not have its own collections, and its exhibits are loaned from
Czech museums. It is focused solely on museum presentation, and partially also on education.
Its exhibition looks at the Middle Ages and Baroque periods, whose height is represented by
the local UNESCO site here, the Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk at Zelená Hora.
The exhibition rooms, which visitors walk through with an audio guide, comprise scenographic
features, animations and illustrations (such as a virtual mediaeval chronicle), with only a lim-
ited number of artefacts on loan. The immersive and experiential elements used are meant to
serve as a “key to understanding” the entire former Cistercian monastery site.8 In the words of
American museologist, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblatt, this represents a theatrical approach
to presenting history. The museum is extremely popular amongst visitors, and it can be said
to be fulfilling its role excellently.9 As well as this, the New Generation Museum has received
a Živa award for the most creative museum in Central Europe, and also the title of Vysočina
Building of the Year 2016. Some museum workers are rather critical, however. A review was
printed in the AMG bulletin whose main point was that in fact it is not a museum, but rather
an “exhibition space in operation”, or an “interpretation centre”.10 In our view, this fear of
using the word “museum” for an institution which, while not working with a collection, does
focus on high quality museum presentation, is at the very least mysterious.
Another similar example is the National Film Museum in Prague, abridged as NaFilM.
This is a project launched 10 years ago by three film science students. The initial impulse for
7 ŽALMAN, Jiří. Muzea a globalizace. Věstník AMG. 2002, 3, 15–17.; KOZÁK, Petr: Muzeum a společnost. Věstník
AMG. 2002, 3, 17–19; GÁBA, Zdeněk: Muzea jsou především sbírky. Věstník AMG. 2002, 4–5, 21–22.; KOZÁK,
Petr: Ano, muzea jsou i sbírky. Věstník AMG, 2003, 3, 21–22.
8 Muzeum nové generace Zámek Žďár nad Sázavou. [online]. Available at: https://www.zamekzdar.cz/
muzeum-nove-generace/ [cit. 12. 3. 2022].
9 JAREŠ, Jakub. Muzeum nové generace. Dějiny a současnost, 2016, 6, 30–31.
10 MIKULE, Stanislav. Je Muzeum nové generace muzeem? Věstník AMG, 2016, 2, 17.
Museums without collections?! Museums’ new role and discussion of their definition 77
setting up the museum was the fact that there hadn’t been a similar museum in the Czech
Republic before.11 Following unsuccessful attempts at receiving support from established
institutions, the project was finally implemented through crowdfunding campaigns and
grants. Since 2019, NaFilM is based in the centre of the capital city and features a permanent
exhibition. Until the pandemic broke out, it was a popular Prague attraction, and was even
the highest-rated Czech museum on Tripadvisor.12 In 2021, this originally student project won
the Czech Lion Award for Exceptional Feat in the Area of Audio-Visual Arts.
Yet NaFilM, an officially registered association, does not own or create any museum
collection. Its exhibits, such as a replica of the Laterna magika (Magician’s Lantern), were
produced to order according to historical designs. Other exhibits, which in contrast to other
museums visitors can try out for themselves, were modified for the needs of museum oper-
ations. A 1960s projector, for example, which was originally powered by a motor, was given
a handle for educational purposes—so that visitors could try out the role of projection oper-
ator. Other interactive features, such as virtual reality, are based on historical conditions, but
make use of modern technology. Most of these objects are replaceable and to some degree can
be repaired. Thus, NaFilM does not present original artefacts and film archives: “If we used
old archival objects, then nobody would allow us to touch them,” says museum co-founder,
Adéla Mrázová.13 Thus the priority at NaFilM is understanding what film is and the princi-
ples by which the medium works. The exhibited objects and interacting with these objects
are designed to facilitate this understanding.
The final example of a museum for which the existence and amount of collection
artefacts does not play a central role is POLIN—Museum of the History of Polish Jews in
Warsaw. This institution was set up in 2005 on the initiative of the Association of the Jewish
Historical Institute, and with the support of the Polish Ministry of Culture and the capital
city. Its permanent exhibition was opened in 2014. Over its period of operation, the museum
has received a lot of positive feedback and awards, including the title European Museum of
the Year (2016).14 Polin’s collection, built up since 2006, numbers over 3000 artefacts15 (for
11 Muzeum NaFilm: Kdo je hravý a rád objevuje nové věci, ten si to u nás užije. In: Český rozhlas Vltava [online].
Available at: https://vltava.rozhlas.cz/muzeum-nafilm-kdo-je-hravy-a-rad-objevuje-nove-veci-ten-si-u-
nas-uzije-7757259 [cit. 12. 3. 2022].
12 JAREŠ, Jakub, National Film Museum in Prague: The bottom-up museum. Curator: The Museum Journal
[online]. 2021, 64(4) [cit. 3. 3. 2022]. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cura.12402
13 Muzeum NaFilm: Kdo je hravý a rád objevuje nové věci, ten si to u nás užije. In: Český rozhlas Vltava [online].
Available at: https://vltava.rozhlas.cz/muzeum-nafilm-kdo-je-hravy-a-rad-objevuje-nove-veci-ten-si-u-
nas-uzije-7757259 [cit. 12. 3. 2022].
14 European Museum of the Year Award 2016 goes to POLIN Museum! In: Polin [online]. Available at:
https://polin.pl/en/news/2015/12/22/european-museum-of-the-year-award-2016-goes-to-polin-
museum [cit. 3. 3. 2022].
15 Collections. In: Polin [online]. Available at: https://www.polin.pl/en/research-collections/collections
[3. 3. 2022].
Museums without collections?! Museums’ new role and discussion of their definition 78
comparison, the Jewish Museum in Berlin manages over 53 000 artefacts,16 and the already
mentioned Czech National Museum has 20 million artefacts17).
But it is not primarily through these artefacts that a thousand years of Jewish history
within the territory of Poland is told. The exhibition comprises eight galleries containing
reconstructions and models, interactive installations and audio and film projections. The story
of the Polish Jews is then notionally narrated by their own voices through quotations posi-
tioned across the entire exhibition space. Again, we encounter a theatrical form of museum
presentation here—in fact the author of the exhibition concept is the above-mentioned
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Thus, Polin demonstrates that an attractive exhibition need
not necessarily be based on presenting physical objects. According to the American museol-
ogist, the main artefacts are the actual quotations of the Polish Jews.18 This fact may provide
inspiration for creating exhibitions about other population groups which were marginalised
in the past, and whose history is therefore systematically created by museum collections.
Within the Czech context, this applies, as has been noted, to the expelled Germans and the vic-
tims of the Communist persecutions, while in the global context it applies in particular to
the populations of former colonies.
The museum which we work for—the new state-subsidised organisation MUSEum+—
does not yet have any collection either. While the museum will gradually create one, it is not
meant to be one of its primary activities. The principal emphasis will be placed on presenta-
tion, education and participation as activities which form the essence of the museum, just
as a collection does.
The museum is still far from ready to open to the public. First of all, blast furnaces 4 and
6, part of a national cultural monument, must be purchased, their architectural and monument
conversion must be secured, and support must be acquired for the project from the European
grant programme, the Just Transformation Fund. Despite this, the museum is already operat-
ing not just as a project office, but also in preparing the first exhibition and discussions.
Our first exhibition will be on the 20th anniversary of the declaration of the Hlubina
mine and Vítkovice Ironworks cultural monuments. Using this example, we can very briefly
suggest what a museum which considers participation just as important, or more important,
than its collection can involve.
Besides information about the transforming the Dolní Vítkovice site into a protected
site, we also plan for the exhibition to include a section reflecting on people’s relationship to
the site. We will be showing photographs from family albums and from social networks—i.e.
situations in which people express their relationship to the site, while also unintentionally
16 Unsere Sammlungen. In: Jüdisches Museum Berlin [online]. Available at: https://www.jmberlin.de/sammlung
[cit. 3. 3. 2022].
17 Odborná činnost. In: Národní muzeum [online]. Available at: https://www.nm.cz/o-nas/odborna-
cinnost#sbirky [cit. 3. 3. 2022].
18 POLIN: Jak pokazać 1000 lat historii? / Our way of showing 1000 years of history. In: YouTube [online].
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlc8ZD1lj9E [cit. 12. 3. 2022].
Museums without collections?! Museums’ new role and discussion of their definition 79
documenting it. We also want to show, for example, that one person so appreciates Dolní
Vítkovice that they have had the dominating Bold Tower tattooed on their shoulder. Pictures
from Instagram, family albums and the image of that tattoo can become parts of our collec-
tion. If we assess their museality, then they undoubtedly have great value as documents of
people’s relationship to this national cultural monument.
At the same time—and this is most important to us—they are of great value in terms
of involving people in creating the exhibition. As curators, we are actually directly dependent
on their involvement, and this interdependency can result in interesting outcomes. In this
case is it the collection, or the participation, which is most important?
Conclusion
We are deliberately leaving this question open. This is because—as we have endeavoured to
demonstrate—we do not identify with the effort at defining a museum purely on the basis
of a single criterion. Examples of successful museums in the Czech Republic and abroad
demonstrate that institutions without collections or with just a small collection can perform
presentation, education, participation and research roles.
In contributions at conferences and subsequent discussions, we often hear the idea that
we need to define a clear border between “real” museums with a collection and “non-museums”
without collections, or even “fake” or “abnormal” museums. Mentions have been made of
limits, demarcation and clear dividing lines. Understanding museums merely as institutions
owning collections in the Czech context leads to the exclusion or sidelining of those which do
not have collections, even though they are excellent in their execution of other museum func-
tions. In this interpretation, museums with collections are like fortresses which for various
reasons—practical and ideological—need to separate themselves from their surroundings.
Instead of this, we offer a different picture which is not dichotomous: we perceive
the museum environment more like a city, which has its historic centre and its suburbs and
outskirts. Museums with collections are undoubtedly to be found in its centre, but there is
plenty of life in other districts too. The non-collection institutions in the suburbs include
innovative museums, galleries and other museum projects which can be partners to museums
in the historic centre through collaboration or as sources of inspiration. Thus our question is
whether it is possible or reasonable to build a wall around the centre. Or whether we should
instead strive to come up with a museum definition which will encompass the richness and
diversity of the museum environment? Not just in the Czech Republic, but around the world.
Literature
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a akreditace muzeí. Dosavadní výsledky činnosti Pracovní skupiny AMG pro přípravu registrace/akreditace
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BUKOVSKÁ, Karolína. (Re)construction of Czech History: The National Museum and its New Permanent Exhibition on
the Twentieth Century. In: Cultures of History Forum [online]. 25. 11. 2021 [cit. 12. 3. 2022]. Available at: https://
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New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 81
The position of museum education in today’s museum culture allows us to view the defini-
tion of a museum from the perspective of education.1 Before we look at the bases for museum
education and their application in defining the essence of a museum, we should first posit
the crucial question of what museum we are thinking about when we formulate a new descrip-
tion. Is it the museum of today, an institution operating in the current globalised world,
and in some areas necessarily taking on the global function of culture? Or are we thinking
about the museum of the past, the creation of modern institutions influenced by the boom
in sciences from the time of the Enlightenment? Are we also acknowledging the fact that
the museum phenomenon is much older, and we can encounter it in our culture from the time
of Ancient Greece, and we have extensive documentation of it over the entirety of the Middle
Ages? The final timescale to look at is the future. Should the definition of a museum also char-
acterise this institution in the future, to postulate our vision and desires as the now tangible
reality to which we are obliged to aim? We are convinced that we cannot define the future,
and so it is not even possible to create a credible comprehensive definition of the museum of
the future, not even if we have the most noble and well-reasoned intentions. Thus, the justified
1 An important trend in today’s museology is to take account of visitors’ educational needs, and so most
innovations in today’s museum culture are more or less “museum education” related. ŠOBÁŇOVÁ, Petra.
Edukační koncepce a strategie muzea v kontextu současné muzejní pedagogiky. In DROBNÝ, Tomáš
a Pavla VYKOUPILOVÁ (eds.). Muzejní edukátor: Studijní materiál. Brno: Moravské zemské muzeum, 2020.
pp. 149–174. ISBN 978-80-7028-553-4, p. 66.
The educational function of museum culture and its reflection in the definition of a museum 82
desires of today cannot predict which cultural needs will arise in future times, and how
museum culture should appropriately respond to these.2 Producing a definition of a museum
under these circumstances as a vision of the institute in future would also mean that we are
convinced that all museums have, or should have, the same programme. These observations
suggest that the tendency towards an activist approach to formulating a new definition of
a museum is not appropriate.
We understand the definition of a museum to require a succinct statement which
describes museums and expressions of museum culture today. Although today’s museums
operate within a globalised world as an integral component of it, they were undoubtedly one
of the manifestations of globalisation and exist in many different political systems. Advanced
countries within the sphere of the Euro-Atlantic civilisation do not share the same values as
countries where public life is organised in a totalitarian manner. Thus, finding a new definition
will certainly place great demands on the spiritual anchoring of the essence of the museum
phenomenon so that it is expressed in an acceptable manner. While we are convinced that
we should not abandon our own understanding of museums’ link to the spiritual and cul-
tural basis of the European West, we also realise that the need for collecting in history is
a phenomenon so generally human that museums already operating outside the territory
of the Judeo-Christian world should not be neglected. The definition of a museum should
essentially be formulated in an inclusive way exactly because the global trend of setting up
museums in the 20th century is considered a cultural import from the West. Our perspec-
tive, which is based on a conviction that the definition of a museum should correspond to
the current status of museums in the world and their importance for culture in all cultural
fields, aims to preserve and open up humanity’s cultural heritage to all people regardless, and
not just today, but also in future.
We have tried to show that a relevant definition of a museum is one which corresponds to
museums of the present day. A museum is a highly structured phenomenon. Here, we mean
that a museum is an institution which performs a number of specialist functions in a managed
way, and also that a museum’s relationships with society are woven thickly and with varied
2 The community role of museums which we see today and take for granted was hardly conceivable during
the late and fading Enlightenment period up until the mid-19th century. Although a large number of
museums today undertake scientific activities and some of our museums have the status of scientific
research institutions, they do not fulfil the role of exclusive scientific associations as they did in the early
19th century, for example in regard to the Association for Plough Improvement, which was involved in
establishing the Francis Museum (Moravian Museum).
The educational function of museum culture and its reflection in the definition of a museum 83
fibres. A prosperous museum sustains mutually intensive relations.3 The essence of these rela-
tions is collection management. We characterise collections as the highest structured material
documents of facts by humans, while the natural world surrounding us is arranged accord-
ing to natural relationships, which we consider laws, but which are disordered for humans.4
The preservation of collections representing an image of an ordered world requires an insti-
tution marked by its persistence. The musealisation of reality is a cultural phenomenon which
in line with the investigation of history is one of the methods promoted in the 20th century
which we can call “longue durée”, or long-lasting. In terms of the definition of a museum,
this suggests that we cannot consider only the categories of today’s perception of the world,
but we should consider its essence, that is to say that in order to fulfil its primary purpose,
which is the preservation of a tangible memory thesaurus, the contemporary museum is
an institution which persists and has persisted from the past. The definition of a museum
needs to incorporate this essence. A criterion for a valid contemporary definition is its due
application to past museums, but also to current museums as they appeared in the past. This
presents us with a “definition minimum” for museums and museum culture in general which
is fundamentally unchanging, because it captures the method by which the human need to
collect is grasped, something that has been part of our culture since the period of Greek think-
ing to the present day. It is marked by opportunities to find out about the world and reveal
its meaning through tangible representations as established by the separation of physics
and metaphysics in Ancient Greek philosophy.5 The definition minimum for a museum also
remains valid in future if it is to characterise an institution which will be a museum within
the meaning of the term which we have been using for a number of centuries.
It isn’t just preservation which relates to museum collections, but also their mediation
and interpretation. The attraction of major worldwide museums and the value of unique col-
lections of cultural heritage are increasingly frequently leading to educational or entertain-
ment projects being set up which use exhibitions or virtual media products to connect with
the general public, and which make use of the name “museum” or “gallery” for their presenta-
tion. Some of these may have an evident commercial character, and serve to support the sale
of certain products. There are increasing numbers of such products, which communicate
3 Museum collections represented both representatives of the society which built and maintained them, and
also the complexity of community relationships. In the past, we more commonly encountered physical
representatives of society in the role of founders, such as monarchy, while today they are non-personal legal
entities, e.g. public bodies such as municipalities, regions or states, and also companies. In ancient times
and in the Middle Ages, collections were kept and exhibited by ecclesiastical institutions, which provided
a spiritual interpretation of man and society’s relationship to reality. Since the 18th century, this ambition has
been taken on by representatives of science and political ideology and nations.
4 STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk. Archeologie a muzeologie. Brno: Masarykova univerzita v Brně, 2005.
ISBN 80-210-3861-6, p. 113.
5 DROBNÝ, Tomáš. Na návštěvě - zprostředkování komunikace v prostoru a čase. Kultura, umění
a výchova. 3/2, 2015, [cit. 2015-11-02]. ISSN 2336-1824. Available at: http://www.kuv.upol.cz/
index.php?seo_url=aktualni-cislo&casopis=9&clanek=122.
The educational function of museum culture and its reflection in the definition of a museum 84
various topics and so follow a broad range of aims and objectives. Current technical means
and economic opportunities allow for a boom in traditional and new communication tools.
If they are not based on the use of museum collections which manage and secure their pres-
ervation for the future in order to ensure further knowledge, they cannot meet the essence
of the museum phenomenon and correspond to the definition of a museum. The method by
which we acquire knowledge is based on tangible evidence, actual objects which allow us to
find a true relation to reality. Museums and galleries represent the entire world, the universe
which surrounds us in our perception and understanding. Museum collections constitute
a tangible representation of the world as it appears to us. The tendency to create “museums”
without collections can never lead to the fulfilment of the human need to anchor our knowl-
edge in the real world context and transfer this to future generations. Visitors’ encounters
with museums and galleries create a specific relationship which produces knowledge and
learning as a result of the process of revealing transferred meanings and creating new mean-
ings, encouraged by creativity. The function of a museum which is based on managing col-
lections of a museum nature is also vital in today’s world, and not just in the field of culture.
Museums and museum culture help us to acquire knowledge and education. The instrument
for acquiring knowledge, which in museums comes from collections, is not just the application
of mathematics and methods based on other sciences, as it is for academic scientific insti-
tutions, but rather culture. In no way do we wish to reject scientific methods in making this
claim, but rather we are noting the different method of the process of acquiring knowledge
and learning within museum culture. Museums mediate knowledge to us through culture.
They show that all of our knowledge is dependent on culture, that it represents a culturally
conditional phenomenon. Education in a museum and through a museum nevertheless
requires an understanding of the essence of museum culture. As in all other fields of cul-
ture, cultural education represents the targeted education of a person in order to acquire
a method for understanding cultural expressions and the related understanding of cultural
representations such as works of arts. In music and art education, we take this approach for
granted, which is why both these fields of education are included as subjects within the cur-
ricula for primary and secondary school education. When a visitor enters a museum, they
find themselves in an inspiring cultural environment whose method of expression and cul-
tural language they learn to understand. Museum audiences are similar to visitors to opera
performances and concerts. If we reduce the opportunity for a sufficient understanding of
cultural expression to an emotional response from the listener, audience or reader, it is like
considering mere gesture a sufficient tool of human communication, without the need to
know languages.
The educational work of museums is today increasingly valued, and this is also
expressed in looking for and implementing innovations in museum culture. The preva-
lent opinion is that all innovations take place within the museum’s educational role. Today,
The educational function of museum culture and its reflection in the definition of a museum 85
in the tradition of critical thinking, we also posit existential questions, and culture is an essen-
tial component of life, because it mediates the seeking of answers to these. Museum culture
is specific, and in the field of human cultural expressions it is irreplaceable for one’s own
cognitive and evaluating relationship to reality.6 Museums’ educational work is a subject of
scientific investigation within museology. Thus, the definition of a museum cannot ignore
the educational and knowledge-acquisition basis of the institution.
From a museum education perspective, we view the museum as an educational insti-
tution which aims to fulfil the current needs of contemporary society. It is not primarily
a memorial to the past and past generations. While museums in the 19th century repre-
sented the broadly shared faith in progress, and also the rise of the ambitions of individual
national interests, and the creation of the images of the past which they distributed and pop-
ularised adapted to this, museum monuments documenting the history of the 20th century
should serve as a visible memento of how far unrestricted human ambition supported by
the opportunities of advanced technology can take humanity.7 Not all groups in society will
ever express an interest in museum culture to the same degree. Over the course of their life,
almost everyone living in advanced countries repeatedly encounters products of museum
culture. The requirement for openness and accessibility as core characteristics of the mod-
ern museum represents a broader concept of museum work based on principles of equality,
rather than applying principles derived from the definition of democratisation. These and
other demands on a museum can be suggested implicitly in a definition which should be
succinct. Another question which remains unanswered here is whether it fulfils its activi-
ties, or whether it should fulfil other societal goals, which we would include in the category
of supporting social justice or equality, or economic and community development. We can
understand the significance of these terms in various cultural and geographical and polit-
ical contexts in various ways, and this should encourage us to take a measured approach in
attempting to use them in the definition of a museum.
The field of education and schools has been a subject of public interest and a broadly discussed
topic for politicians in Europe since the second half of the 19th century. As soon as we hear
the word education, we think of the word “reform”. We can say that this never ending dis-
cussion and all concepts of education look at the involvement of museums in the education
process. The current concept of fulfilling one’s educational needs is based on the concept of
life-long learning, in which informal education is broadly applied. In this field, libraries and
6 STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk. Archeologie a muzeologie. Brno: Masarykova univerzita v Brně, 2005. ISBN 80-210-
3861-6, pp. 111–112.
7 ARNDT, Tereza, Tomáš DROBNÝ, Jakub JAREŠ, Čeněk PÝCHA a Václav SIXTA. Metodika edukace soudobých
dějin v muzeu. [Brno]: Moravské zemské muzeum, 2021. ISBN 978 80 7028 546-6, pp. 11, 13.
The educational function of museum culture and its reflection in the definition of a museum 86
museums can hardly compete with other educational institutions. Education is considered
a common-pool resource, which is why many countries do not fully fund higher education
from the government budget. The supply of educational products outside public education
requires the partial or complete payment of the costs of its providers. Considering their
character, museums are open to the public, and nonprofit institutions have a significant
competitive advantage in the informal education institution environment. In discussions
on the definition of a museum, the issue of the nonprofit character of providing these public
cultural services is a sensitive affair, not just due to the establishment of commercial projects,
e.g. on the basis of company holdings, but also due to the supply of education. School curric-
ula include museum education, which supplements aesthetic education, while programmes
for the leisure time activities of children and young people, e.g. in leisure centres, provide
another opportunity.8 It is worth noting here that in some countries, museums allow visitors
to view permanent exhibitions entirely free of charge, as an aspect of their public service.
Discussions on the definition of museums have attracted the attention of ICOM’s
Committee for Education and Cultural Action (CECA). On the one hand, it was suggested that
the current definition, adopted in 2007, is outdated and conservative, while on the other hand
the proposed definition was criticised as long-winded and confusing. A definition should
be clear and understandable for both experts and the general public. A definition should be
a “faithful reflection of contemporary museum institutions and their expanded missions”,
and should be universal, precise and succinct.9 Through research of the opinions of commit-
tee members from various parts of the world, the author has differentiated four conceptual
levels: 1) the property by which we can identify a museum, 2) the mission intended for it, 3)
what aims it should follow, and 4) what means it should use to achieve these aims.10 While
the first two points included responses which are similar for most respondents, the aims
and means which the definition of a museum should contain differed more frequently in
responses. We do not intend to overestimate or underestimate the importance of museums in
today’s globalised world. The non-adoption of the new definition, which was submitted three
years ago at the General Conference in Kyoto, testifies to one thing. Museums are an integral
component of our world, and such an important actor within culture, which impacts on other
areas of our lives, that it is not easy to find agreement around the world on a new definition.
Participants in the research which the CECA president reflected upon agreed that museums
8 Marie-Clarté O’Neil sees how museum structures, managers, etc., have developed with consideration of
the public and, “… importance given to education through the strengthening of relations with the national
education system and the academic world…” The network of members of the Committee for Education
and Cultural Action and the ICOM definition of the museum. Crossed glances. O’NEILL, Marie-Clarté.
The network of members of the Committee for Education and Cultural Action and the ICOM definition of
the museum—Crossed glances. In WINTZERITH, Stéphanie (ed.). ICOM Education 29. Paris: ICOM—CECA,
2020, pp. 337–349. ISBN 978-3-7526-9113-9. ISSN 0253-9004, p. 338.
9 Ibid., p. 340.
10 Ibid.
The educational function of museum culture and its reflection in the definition of a museum 87
are places of community dialogue. The need for critical dialogue, which professional museum
workers have been calling for, is now being undertaken within ICOM, and the diversity of
today’s cultural, historical and socio-politically diverse world is being reflected in discus-
sion on the definition of a museum. Finding agreement is not easy with the current dispar-
ities. We would like some of our thoughts from the perspective of the educational potential
and function of the museum to contribute towards the discussion, helping to produce a new
definition of a museum.
Literature
ARNDT, Tereza, Tomáš DROBNÝ, Jakub JAREŠ, Čeněk PÝCHA a Václav SIXTA. Metodika edukace soudobých dějin
v muzeu. Brno: Moravské zemské muzeum, 2021. ISBN 978-80-7028-546-6.
DROBNÝ, Tomáš. Na návštěvě—zprostředkování komunikace v prostoru a čase. Kultura, umění
a výchova. 3/2, 2015, [cit. 2. 11. 2015]. ISSN 2336-1824. Available at: http://www.kuv.upol.cz/
index.php?seo_url=aktualni-cislo&casopis=9&clanek=122.
O’NEILL, Marie-Clarté. The network of members of the Committee for Education and Cultural Action and the ICOM
definition of the museum—Crossed glances. In WINTZERITH, Stéphanie (ed.). ICOM Education 29. Paris:
ICOM—CECA, 2020, s. 337–349. ISBN 978-3-7526-9113-9. ISSN 0253-9004.
STRÁNSKÝ, Zbyněk. Archeologie a muzeologie. Brno: Masarykova univerzita v Brně, 2005. ISBN 80-210-3861-6.
ŠOBÁŇOVÁ, Petra. Edukační koncepce a strategie muzea v kontextu současné muzejní pedagogiky. In DROBNÝ,
Tomáš a Pavla VYKOUPILOVÁ (eds.). Muzejní edukátor: Studijní materiál. Brno: Moravské zemské muzeum,
2020. ISBN 978-80-7028-553-4.
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 88
EXPERIENCE OF
THE MUSEALISATION
OF THE INTANGIBLE HERITAGE
OF THE BRNO WOOL INDUSTRY
Petra Mertová
Technical Museum in Brno
The subject of interest for technical museums is science and technology in its many forms.
In the past, the wool industry was very important in the Brno region, and it has left behind
it a cultural heritage of tangible and intangible form. Today, we are faced with the question
of how to musealise our intangible heritage and how to present it to the public. We see that
capturing the genius loci of places which are changing (being demolished) or are losing their
original use with the demise of industrial manufacturing should be a topic of contemporary
museology. This is not a new situation from a European perspective, but it is one little debated
within Czech museology. This study presents the experience of the Technical Museum in
Brno, which it has gained in endeavouring to capture (musealise) this intangible heritage
in working in the field and with witnesses in recent years. This study aims to contribute
towards discussion on opportunities for the existence of museums without collections, and
the musealisation of intangible heritage.
Current attempts at finding a new definition of what a museum is or should be at the very
least in the 21st century represent an opportunity for debate within the international museum
community represented by ICOM, which can help us to understand the attitudes and experi-
ences of our colleagues from around the entire world. Those who are endeavouring to sum-
marise all the different perspectives on the nature of museums for the 21st century, with all
the nuances of the word “museum”, have a difficult task ahead of them. They have already
succeeded in stimulating debate, however, and have sown amongst museographers the ques-
tion of how they personally perceive the museum of today and for future generations.
Museographers living in different social and economic regions, often face diamet-
rically opposed life challenges and may be witnesses to social events arising from ideolog-
ical, military, religious or other conflicts. It is thus evident that each of us places different
requirements on the definition of a museum, and we each have a different experience of how
museums operate and certainly a different idea of what a museum should be. The countries
Experience of the musealisation of the intangible heritage of the Brno wool industry 89
of the North American continent, Asian countries and countries currently dealing with wars
or climate change already underway have different experiences or perspectives of museum
development.
Museums in the so-called post-communist regions, where their activities have changed
significantly, expanding and innovating following the transition to their country’s democratic
regime, could provide a great contribution to the debate. In the Czech Republic, museums
are no longer mere exhibition cabinets displaying the successes of industrial manufacturing,
demonstrating the military forces of the socialist people’s democratic army or demonstrating
the working class struggle for a “fairer society”, etc. Certainly many museums did not use to
operate in this way, but these activities continue to leave a bitter taste within society still today.
In the period prior to the so-called Velvet Revolution, museums were part of the official
political or economic structure, and their work had to correspond ideologically to the attitudes
of the ruling class. Museums were institutions which did not posit troubling questions, did
not make statements on current problems and did not have or seek out new ways of inter-
preting and presenting collections. As a citizen of a post-communist region, I bore witness
to the transformation in the form of museums, as a museum employee I have taken part in
this transformation, and as a consumer of museum programmes and products I can actively
use or reject this museum transformation. Based on this reference point, I would like to add
some of my own comments to the debate, which are based on my professional experience of
researching the cultural heritage of the Brno wool industry.
Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, and during the 18th and 19th cen-
tury it became a major wool centre for the Austrian monarchy, and so for the entire Central
European region. Over time, mechanical engineering became a second dominant manufac-
turing sector in addition to the wool industry.
During the 20th century, the wool industry was no longer the region’s largest employer,
but it was still one of its largest sectors and it was traditionally perceived as the region’s typ-
ical manufacturing sector. Wool was also linked to the social and cultural activities of major
business families (the Stiassni, Löw-Beer, Essler, Schöller families and others), who were
involved in setting up and running, e.g., today’s Museum of Applied Arts, and they funded
buildings which led to the current interest of the worldwide audience in Brno’s architec-
tural heritage, e.g. in the form of the Tugendhat family villa in Brno-Černá Pole, which is on
UNESCO’s cultural heritage list.
Unfortunately, global changes in the textile industry during the 1990s led to the indus-
try gradually leaving its traditional manufacturing locations near today’s city centre, moving
to the outskirts (Brno-Černovice), changing ownership and becoming an almost invisible
sector employing a fraction of the sector’s original workforce. A few years ago, we began to
focus on researching this sector from a new perspective. It was evident that this was the last
opportunity to research witnesses who were active participants in the industrial manufac-
ture of woollen fabrics during the second half of the 20th century, and across the whole of
the technology. In Brno, fabrics were designed and produced from scratch to the final step of
production, and it was also here that decisions were made on their sale or promotion. This is
Experience of the musealisation of the intangible heritage of the Brno wool industry 90
no longer the case. However, the history of the wool industry still resonates within Brno, and
since the Brno-Moravian Manchester exhibition held in the Moravian Gallery at the turn of
2014/2015, the topic has taken greater form with many researchers and cultural popularisers
looking into the sector. The public is thirsty for information, which they receive in erudite
and less erudite forms.
From the perspective of the Technical Museum in Brno, it was evident that some his-
torians or guides of factories and the villas of industrialists are not experts on manufactur-
ing, and there is a gradual mythicising of the importance of factories and manufacturing
conditions. As such, we began researching this manufacturing sector, and in our research
of witnesses, we focused on their attitudes and experience, which are unique and untrans-
ferable. Here, we are touching on what the new definition of a museum described in words:
(museums) safeguard diverse memories for future generations. I must say that this idea resonates
with the approach of our research—to record memories and preserve them for the future.
We see, however, that not only memories, but also professional experience and knowledge,
needs to be preserved, as these essentially become intangible cultural heritage which will
disappear if we do not preserve it. That’s why I believe that this part of the definition is not
fully comprehensive. For me, it evokes a certain limitation and also responsibility which
museums take upon themselves. After more than two years doing interviews, I can see that
the role of the interviewer here comes into play, in our case the museum worker. Furthermore,
the issue of preparing, leading and recording interviews is a precise skill which sociology,
anthropology and history have things to say about, and within the Czech Republic, this area
is focused on, for example, by the Czech Oral History Association.
The role of the interviewer is extremely important for perceiving or interpreting
the experiences, skills and memories of former industry employees to readers, exhibition
visitors and even future generations, in the same way as the role of the person who is to inter-
pret, compare or perhaps even evaluate the memories in future is. We have experience of this
from the communist period, when only those passages which the ideology needed were taken
out of memories in order to justify the current social order, or else only memories of worker
demonstrations, the transferral of factories following nationalisation, etc. were recorded.
Descriptions of standard manufacturing processes in Brno’s textile plants between 1948 and
1990 are largely absent. At the current time, in relation to a new definition of a museum, I am
personally interested in the role of the museum which should reflect on its efforts to preserve
not just tangible artefacts, but also so-called intangible heritage.
The objective of our research was to focus on professional experiences linked to
the industrial manufacture of woollen fabrics and memories of circumstances related to
the operation of factories, from the organisation of family life to leisure activities such as
children’s fancy dress balls, family holidays spent at special company holiday cottages, etc.
Experiences and memories are always personal, emotionally charged and subject to cir-
cumstances, and unfortunately also subject to factors such as time, quality of memories and
the interviewer’s approach and knowledge of the topic. In regard to professional experiences,
we strive for the broadest possible range of descriptions of the working procedures which
Experience of the musealisation of the intangible heritage of the Brno wool industry 91
took place in factories in the past. We can see, however, how limited we are. The ideal inter-
viewer would be one who has in-depth knowledge of the particular profession and who can
also look at it anew with an awareness of the technical developments which the profession
has undergone. As a museum worker, I can only endeavour to approach this ideal. The wool
industry goes back quite a long time, and it has always needed specialists. We cannot reflect
this in our research, and so the interviewer must have a basic knowledge of the technology
and manufacturing process.
One drawback of our research into industrial manufacturing is that I am no longer
able to take videos or photos of it. The Brno factories which are the subject of our research
(Vlněna, Mosilana) are cleared and empty. Witnesses from the time do not have photographs
of the factory interiors or manufacturing processes. As such, we can only make use of official
photographs and films which were produced by the businesses’ propaganda departments,
or by media outlets.
Another drawback of our research into industrial manufacturing is the fact that expe-
rience of manufacturing cannot be verified or passed on. Since the 1990s, industrial woollen
fabric manufacturing has undergone a radical transformation, and the sole industrial man-
ufacturer in Brno today (Nová Mosilana a. s.) only makes use of more modern technologies.
These are the limits which affect the form of our research, and which we must be aware of
in interpreting and evaluating our findings in studies or at exhibitions in future. There is
an opportunity here to make use of virtual reality and other forms of modelling reality.
From my perspective, I agree that museums are a platform (I don’t want to use the word
“institution”) which should endeavour to capture memories and experiences for future gen-
erations. I would suggest for consideration whether the word experience should be included
in the definition, because I am trying to find a word capturing the fact that in researching
professions we should strive to capture and preserve professional or production knowledge
in the case of industrial manufacturing too, not just handicrafts. These are often complicated
manufacturing procedures dependent on complex technologies, chemical processes, etc.,
which are no longer around, and are unlikely to be around in future as a result of the con-
tinuous transformation of manufacturing in line with the development of science and tech-
nology, and economic and personnel changes in industry.
Museums will preserve for future generations only those memories which its workers
are able to capture for technical reasons and also for reasons of limits to their knowledge of
the period or how society worked. In regard to technologies, limits in understanding techni-
cal processes may become degradation factors which may depreciate or significantly distort
captured memories.
The study was created on the basis of institutional support of the long-term concep-
tual development of the research organization Technical Museum in Brno provided
by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 92
Voices calling for a new museum definition have been heard in ICOM for several years. In 2019,
a definition was submitted in Kyoto for approval, but it did not meet with much response
and was not approved. Since 2019, experts from the ranks of museologists have been delib-
erating the issue, so that the solution could already be known at the General Conference in
Prague 2022. Even Slovak museologists do not want to be left behind in the debate about a new
museum definition. They presented their view of the current as well as the new definition in
the form of a brief questionnaire. The result indicated that Slovak museologists are rather
conservative and do not really feel the need for a new definition.
“A museum is a permanent, non-profit institution serving the society and its development.
It is open to the public and aims to acquire, preserve, research, communicate, and exhibit
the tangible and intangible heritage of mankind and its environment for the purposes of stud-
ies, education, and personal pleasure.” Such is the current definition of museums. However,
recommendations concerning the protection and support of museums and their collections,
their diversity and role in society, published on November 20, 20151 on the website of the Slovak
Ministry of Culture, are not even mentioned anywhere. Pursuant to the Act on Museums,
Galleries and the Protection of Cultural Heritage, and museum is a “specialized legal entity
or organizational unit of a legal entity which, on the basis of surveys and scientific research,
conducted according to its respective orientation and specialization, acquires objects of cul-
tural value and these collections thereupon professionally manages and subjects to scientific
research and makes available to the public for the purposes of study, cognition, education, ad
aesthetic experience using specific means of communication.“ (Act 206/2009 Coll., Sec. 2/5).
1 Odporúčanie o ochrane a podpore múzeí a zbierok, ich rozmanitosti a úlohy v spoločnosti [cit. 17. 3. 2022].
Available at: https://www.culture.gov.sk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/UNESCO_Odporucanie_o_ochrane_
a_podpore_muzei_a_zbierok_ich_rozmanitosti_a_ulohy_v_spolocnosti.pdf
New Museum Definition 2022. What do Slovak museologists think 93
At first sight, it can be argued that the definition in the law is based on the ICOM definition,
but this similarity is not stated anywhere in writing.
The issue of the new definition of the ICOM museums has been emerging for several
year. Recently, the form of the new definition has taken clear contours. The definition pro-
posed in Kyoto in 2019 did not go through the approval process. Thus, the process of prepar-
ing and creatring a new definition has bee resumed. This time, however, the ICOM directo-
rate in Paris took a more democratic path and entrusted the creation of a new definition to
the museum realm, so that all national ICOM committees and expert museologists are now
individually involved in the process.
At the beginning of 2020, immediately after the General Conference in Kyoto, ICOM Slovakia
compiled a questionnaire into which the definition of museums presented in 2019 was inte-
grated. This was the first phase of the process of creating a new definition of the ICOM muse-
ums. The results of the questionnaire formed the basis for the selection of keywords that
should be found in the new definition of ICOM museums, such as collection object, heritage,
or open to society /public. Other national committees proceeded similarly, thus forming
the basis for the individual negotiations concerning the new definition.
The issue of the new definition of the ICOM Museum has become more acute with
the approaching date of the General Conference ICOM Prague 2022, where the new defini-
tion should be presented and undergo the approval process. As some time has passed since
the last survey in Slovakia, the Association of Museums in Slovakia (ZMS) has decided to
conduct a new survey.
The survey was joined by 64 individuals from 49 ZMS member museums (out of
a total of 72 member museums), thereof the vast majority are women and individual aged
25–50 years.
The basic question in the survey was: “Is it necessary to change the current definition
of the Museum?“ Only 21.9% of respondents answered that a change of the definition was
necessary. As many as 37.5% did not contemplate this issue at all and as many as 40.6% did
not consider a change of the current definition necessary. This result indicated two facts:
1. Slovak museologists are rather conservative. They consider the current definition
adequate. It is a question whether their way of thinking stems from the conserva-
tive attitude of individuals to the function and activities of museums or whether it is
an interpretation of their adaptation of present-day concepts.
2. In common practice, Slovak museologists do not generally come into contact with
the Museum’s definition. Another fact is that, apart from a single document, the defi-
nition is not available in the Slovak language to a regular museum employee. This is
probably the reason why there is a high occurrence of lack of interest /consideration
over the issue of the current definition of the ICOM Museum. In their practice, Slovak
New Museum Definition 2022. What do Slovak museologists think 94
museologists usually deal with the current Slovak legislation, where the definition of
the Museum is slightly different (see above).
The second question was: “If the current definition were to be slightly corrected, what would
you change in it?“ Most comments were on the part entitled “The museum is a permanent
and non-profit institution“, namely, the non-profit part of the definition. Profitability is
a long-standing issue not only in the museum sector in Slovakia, but globally. The not-for-
profit concept as one of the fundamental characteristics of museology is perceived differ-
ently in different part of the world. From an economic perspective, museums earn profit by
selling admission tickets to the museum or rent for leasing out their premises. Can museums
make a profit? From a logical point of view, they should. However, their net profit should be
applied to the “higher welfare of the society“, e.g., to further development of expositions,
presentation of their research activities, protection of collection items, etc. Museums should
not be primarily established for profit. The main priority should be tangible/intangible
cultural/natural heritage. This particular aspect of the matter was addressed as an additional
issue, namely: “Does a museum have to be a non-profit institution?“ To this part of the issue,
as many as 68.8% respondents answered negatively. This clearly indicates how profitability
and non-profitability of museums is perceived. First of all, it was necessary to define pre-
cisely whether museums are non-profit organizations or organizations functioning not for
profit. Although there is no difference from a lexicological point of view, there is a practical
difference. All the answers recorded on this issue can be summarized into one answer, as
follows: “Every institution deserves a fair amount of profit“.
According to other comments, the definition should be supplemented with informa-
tion on the scientific and educational significance of museums. An interesting complemen-
tation was the protection of tangible and intangible heritage, which is missing in the current
definition of museological activities. According to the responses in the questionnaire, pro-
tection should be one of the main activities and obligations of museums. The long-standing
situation in present-day society testifies to destruction and annihilation of cultural and
natural heritage, this indicating that the issue of protection is becoming more and more
important.
In addition to the definition of museums per se, the questionnaire also contained sev-
eral questions that were to complement the Slovak museologists’ idea of a 21st century
museum.
At present, we often encounter controversial arguments as to whether museums
should be fully accessible to the public or whether they should retain a conservative, rather
reserved character, in order to better preserve and protect the heritage concealed within.
As many as 98.4% of the respondents supported the concept of openness as the museums’ inev-
itable obligation and integral part of the activities. This only suggests that even museologists
New Museum Definition 2022. What do Slovak museologists think 95
themselves prefer keeping their institution open to society and collaborating with the public,
rather than turning them into mummy agglomerations.
It was interesting to raise the issue of communication or the presentation of collec-
tions in museums. These issues or terms were not (intentionally) accurately explained with
the aim to encourage the respondents to present their views and interpretations of these con-
cepts. It is generally understood that the presentation of collection items is but a small part of
the great quantity of communication related to the collection items. Non-defining concepts
precisely leads to results which as many as 64.1% of respondents believe to help museums to
communicate and present their collections. Mere 6.4% of respondents expressed their opin-
ion about collection-related communication and a small percentage of them addressed such
issues as accessibility of collections, thematic communication, and presentation of collec-
tions by mediating their exposition or conducting research.
With the advent of new exposition possibilities as well as new discoveries and experi-
ments, there emerged such issues as whether and when it is possible or impossible to designate
a museum as a museum. This question led to a remarkable split among the respondents address-
ing the issue of whether an archeological or natural locality is a museum or otherwise. 46.9%
believe it is, whereas a nearly equal number of 42.2% do not think so. The remaining 10.9% had
no opinion on this issue. The almost equal ratio of positive and negative views indicates that
a precise identification of what we consider to be a museum is a conceptual problem. A new
definition of the very concept could solve the problem. Slovak museologists see this existential
issue—what is and is not a museum—quite clearly. Museums CANNOT exist without collections.
It is generally understood that forming collections is the very purpose and foundation of every
museum, as 81.3% of respondents have stated. This underlying fact applies even in the digital
era of the 21st century. Moreover, it is utmost clear today that digital objects and digital herit-
age have begun to form a substantial part of society’s cultural heritage. It is however necessary
to ask ourselves what to do with digital heritage. The basic problem is not only to define what
is or what is not a digital heritage in the true sense of the word, but to define what is a genuine
object worthy of collecting, preserving, and presenting in a museum. Preservation of digital
heritage has proved to be a major dilemma. “Digital heritage needs to be preserved and made
accessible as one of the unique sources of human cognition and expression. It is however neces-
sary support the development of certain technical means as well as strategies to be able to reach
this goal.“ At the same time, in the context of digital heritage, it is very important to properly
select the objects/materials that should form digital heritage. Qualified selection process will
make it possible to develop diverse form of preservation. Let us choose one of the comments:
“Many types of the artifacts comprising our collections no longer exist in their physical form
today—their form has been digitalized. However, if museums are to document development,
they should continue collecting objects, albeit in a different form. However, it is difficult to
attach registration numbers to the data in the computer. Perhaps the new form of artifact could
become part of auxiliary documentation rather than collection items. Alternatively, a separate
status of digital collections or digital collection fund could be created, including provisions on
the preservation and professional processing or revision of the digital collection fund.“
New Museum Definition 2022. What do Slovak museologists think 96
In conclusion
After the turbulent 20th century followed by the speeding 21st century that set on a new speed,
a rapid speed of changes and a chain of behavioral changes. This speed brings new require-
ments into our everyday activities. Even museologists are not indifferent to the changes
that the modern world brings. The endeavor to change is evident in the need for an update
of the hitherto valid definition of ICOM museums. The perceptions of change vary. It is dif-
ficult to explain what is behind the fact that museologists in Slovakia do not feel the need
for a change. Maybe, it is the fear of change, maybe it is a routine to perceive the museum
concept traditionally, or maybe it is indifference, indeed, or even a sense of uselessness for
practical museological purposes.
The consensus of all museologists in our environment is that a museum without col-
lections is not a museum. We are open to the not-for-profit concept, for we all agree that
profit should not be the main reason for establishing and operating museums. Museologists
in Slovakia see museums as permanent scientific and educational institutions and organi-
zations which not only acquire, preserve, manage, and present, but above all protect their
collections. The main role of these organizations is to protect memorable objects and com-
pose of them an overall image of the society.
Whether or not a new definition of the ICOM museums will be approved remains to
be seen at the General Conference in Prague 2022. In any case, even though the definition
itself is significant, predominantly important are above all the subsequent commentaries
and presentations.
Literature
Odporúčanie o ochrane a podpore múzeí a zbierok, ich rozmanitosti a úlohy v spoločnosti [cit. 17. 3. 2022]. Available
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pore_muzei_a_zbierok_ich_rozmanitosti_a_ulohy_v_spolocnosti.pdf
New definition of the museum: its pros and cons 97
ABSTRACT
The issue of naming, of producing definitions, is one that has engaged philosophers since time
immemorial. Museum specialists around the entire world, have got into frequently fierce dis-
putes over whether their particular combination of words and sentences is the most precise
definition of the museum concept. Many museum definitions have appeared over the course
of the centuries. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has also been endeavouring
to find the right definition for the word “museum” for decades. Its International Committee
for Museology (ICOFOM) began intensive efforts focused on this issue under the presidency
of France’s François Mairesse, with the work then continuing under Brazil’s Bruno Brulon
Soarez. Some of the hundreds of studies looking at the definition of a museum include large
encyclopaedias and collective monographs, writings from the most renowned figures in
the field.
The job of the new definition is not to classify museums in some way. They have been
a part of the culture or memorial organisations since time immemorial. The job is rather to
define the museum in the true meaning of the word, that is to delimit them, to separate them
from similar establishments. This publication is a collection of contributions presented at
a conference at the Technical Museum in Brno, we hope that it will be useful for the resolu-
tion of a new definition of the museums.
Key words: museology, museum, definition, new definition, ICOM, International Council of Museums