Regardless of the type of administration with which it is governed and the social and cultural environment to which it corresponds, the essential thing to define a MUSEUM is the type of collection that keeps, and the audience either public what it intends to serve.
At the end of his long evolutionit is possible to define the museum current as an institution that obtains government, private or mixed financing, created with the purpose of contributing to the development of society by preserving, gathering, conserving, studying, interpreting, exhibiting and disseminating, through exhibitions and a set of activities parallels, material evidence -tangible and intangible-, cultural and natural, artistic and scientific (animated or inanimate), historical and technological, of the evolution of man and nature.
There are different ways to classify the museums, and its characterization allows us to understand its activities and establish its objectives, as well as delimit its scope and commitments. If we apply the criterion of their themes and collections, we will find general museums, science museums, anthropology museums and art museums.
In the set of Art museums We can find, more than the history of artistic creation as such, that of the prevailing tastes in each era and the cultural policies in force in each case. Definitions of art do not always relate to the characteristics of the works themselves.
Art Museums are pioneers in the development of various educational service programs and this is very important, since the exhibitions in these museums generally correspond to the most passive and traditional visits.
While the Fine Arts Museums They exhibit sets of works in chronological sequences, arranged in styles and currents, in stylistic groups or authors, or in thematic groups; Popular Arts Museums present creations linked to crafts, their production processes and their creators and, in some cases, related to ethnography; while the Museums of Applied Arts exhibit artistic works with the main function of demonstrating their uses, materials and construction techniques.
The entities that provide economic resources to museums and manage them determine the conditions of their daily functioning, from their way of operating to the way they display their themes and collections.
Therefore, due to the origin of their resources, there can be Public, Private or Independent, Mixed, University and Community Museums. Due to the type of public they serve, they can be museums for the general public, museums for children and museums for specialized audiences. Due to their area of influence, they can be National, Regional, Local, Community and Site Museums. Depending on the type of exhibition, they can be open-air museums, interactive museums or directed circulation museums. The latter usually have adapted buildings whose original uses and functions have been altered, their spaces determine the routes and possible readings, and the thematic sequences must be respected by the visitor.
The constant integration of various areas of knowledge into the analysis of objects and collections contained in a museum has led museology to redefine and limit the concept of Cultural Heritage and to categorize the spaces where cultural goods are concentrated.
The Museum is the institution responsible for ensuring the preservation of natural and cultural assets in all its senses: from their registration, management and organization, to the dissemination of the studies they are the subject of.
Today's museum must offer the possibility of examining and questioning the environment, of comparing, classifying and analyzing objects and situations, in accordance with the deduction that intellectual growth depends on the potential and referential information of the visitor, and on the stimulating nature of the half.
Our museums today are obliged to offer their public alternatives so that they can make complete and comprehensive visits. At the same time, it must seek forms of financing, promotion and marketing that allow it to obtain resources that guarantee its existence and development in the future. And above all, its administrators must be knowledgeable about the topics, methods, techniques, its history and its updates, as well as its audiences.
Museums and didactic museography; J. Santacana and N.; Barcelona, Spain, 2012.
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