ENSIKLOPEDIA

A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying and preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have non-exhibited collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Museums hold a wide range of objects and often focus on a particular theme, such as the arts, science, natural history, or local history. Museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often tourist attractions, and many draw large numbers of visitors from outside of their host country, with the most visited museums in the world attracting millions of visitors annually.

Since the establishment of the earliest known museum in ancient times, museums have been associated with academia and the preservation of rare items. Museums originated as private collections of interesting items, and not until much later did the emphasis on educating the public take root. (Full article...)

Selected museum

Shaanxi History Museum, which is located to the northwest of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in the ancient city Xi'an, in the Shaanxi province of China, is one of the first huge state museums with modern facilities in China and one of the largest. The museum houses over 370,000 items, including murals, paintings, pottery, coins, as well as bronze, gold, and silver objects. The modern museum was built between 1983 and 2001 and its appearance recalls the architectural style of the Tang dynasty. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

Image 1Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, an archaeology and anthropology museum
Image 2The queen's chamber of the Petit Trianon, Versailles, the former residence of Marie Antoinette
Image 3The Industrial Gallery, housed in the original part of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, designed by Yeoville Thomason and opened in 1885
Image 4Triangular prism-shaped display cases in the Red Dot Design Museum, Essen
Image 5A museum in Verkhniye Mandrogi, Leningrad Oblast, specialising in vodka
Image 6Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale
Image 7Old Dutch display case in Branderszaal Lange Haven 97, Schiedam
Image 8Panoramic view of the library of the Guimet Museum, Paris, an art museum specialising in Asian art
Image 9Display cases in Altena Castle
Image 10The Dinosaur Hall of the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin, showing the skeleton of Giraffatitan brancai, among the largest mounted skeletons in the world
Image 11Storage gallery of the Larco Museum, Lima, Peru, a museum of pre-Columbian art
Image 12An early 18th-century German Schrank with a traditional display of corals, from the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin
Image 13Antique cuckoo clocks displayed at Cuckooland Museum, Tabley, an example of a specialised museum
Image 14The South Hall of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, an aerospace museum, showing the Enola Gay bomber and other aeroplanes
Image 15The Tower of Faces at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
Image 16Entrance hall of the Vienna Technical Museum, one of the largest technology museums in Europe
Image 17Floating Heads by Sophie Cave (2006), installed in the East Court of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Image 18The Galerie des Glaces of the Palace of Versailles
Image 19Iron bed in torture room at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh
Image 20The Egyptian Museum, Cairo, showing some of its collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities
Image 21The Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, has the world's largest stained-glass ceiling, designed by Leonard French.
Image 22Exhibit in Indonesia Museum, Jakarta, displaying the traditional costumes of Indonesian ethnic groups

Selected general article

National Bureau of Standards preserving the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1951

In conservation, library and archival science, preservation is a set of preventive conservation activities aimed at prolonging the life of a record, book, or object while making as few changes as possible. Preservation activities vary widely and may include monitoring the condition of items, maintaining the temperature and humidity in collection storage areas, writing a plan in case of emergencies, digitizing items, writing relevant metadata, and increasing accessibility. Preservation, in this definition, is practiced in a library or an archive by a conservator, librarian, archivist, or other professional when they perceive a collection or record is in need of maintenance.

Preservation should be distinguished from interventive conservation and restoration, which refers to the treatment and repair of individual items to slow the process of decay, or restore them to a usable state. "Preventive conservation" is used interchangeably with "preservation". (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that Martin Robertson kept his job at the British Museum only because he did not clean the exhibits?
... that an Indonesian museum that receives c. 100,000 visitors a year was built in a graveyard parking lot?
... that the Three Rivers Museum holds an annual event titled "Polar Express Pajama Party"?
... that Boston's World's Museum was a theatre, an aquarium, a menagerie, and a freak show?
... that the only known copies of the oyster dress designed by Alexander McQueen for his collection Irere are owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Kim Kardashian?
... that 99% of the collection of the National Museum of Ecuador is not on public display?

Get involved

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Museums-related articles, see WikiProject Museums.

Selected exterior image

Image 1National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
Image 2The Palazzo Vecchio Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the most-visited museum in Italy
Image 3The Lower Castle of Ambras Castle, Innsbruck, one of the earliest buildings constructed specifically for use as a museum; it remains a museum displaying its original collections
Image 4The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Image 5Indonesia Museum, in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an ethnology museum exemplifying Balinese architecture
Image 6The Dalí Theatre and Museum, commemorating Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres, Catalonia, has a geodesic dome and is decorated with giant eggs.
Image 7The Museo del Prado, Madrid, established in 1785
Image 8Now closed, the California Aerospace Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, formerly displayed a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Image 9The British Museum, London
Image 10The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, a modern art museum designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 1997
Image 11The Deutsches Museum, Munich, one of the world's largest science and technology museums
Image 12Small cloister of the charterhouse of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, built on the site of the Baths of Diocletian; part of the National Roman Museum of Rome
Image 13The Peristylia hall in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, the largest museum in Indonesia and one of that country's oldest
Image 14Paifang or arched entrance of the Northern Branch of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, whose collection covers 8,000 years of the history of Chinese art
Image 15The National Art Center, Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa, is an "empty museum", lacking its own collection, which hosts temporary exhibitions from other organisations.
Image 16The Louvre, Paris, showing the glass-and-metal Pyramid, designed by I. M. Pei to act as the museum's main entrance, and completed in 1989
Image 17The State Historical Museum, Moscow
Image 18The Museum Island, Berlin
Image 19Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda of the Getty Center, Los Angeles, an art museum
Image 20The Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, has a permanent collection of murals and hosts an architecture museum.
Image 21A maritime museum located in the village of Bolungarvík, Vestfirðir, Iceland, showing a 19th-century fishing base with a typical boat of the period and associated industrial buildings: an example of a very small museum
Image 22The Cambodian National Museum, Phnom Penh, showing its vernacular architectural style
Image 23Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, an architecture museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that focuses on the Ponce Creole architectural style
Image 24Entrance to Auschwitz I, part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a Holocaust museum on the site of the former Nazi concentration camps
Image 25Shanghai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art, was rebuilt in 1996 to a design inspired by the ding, an ancient bronze cooking vessel.
Image 26The Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia, has an extensive collection of Armenian manuscripts.
Image 27São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, a 1968 concrete-and-glass structure designed by Lina Bo Bardi, considered a landmark of the city and a major example of modern Brazilian architecture
Image 28Aerial view of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel's Holocaust memorial; the museum, designed by Moshe Safdie, opened in 2005 and tells the personal stories of ninety Holocaust victims and survivors

Selected type of museum

An art museum, or art gallery, is an organization, usually with buildings or spaces for the display of art from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although primarily concerned with visual art, art museums are often used as a venue for other cultural exchanges and artistic activities, such as lectures, jewelry, performance arts, music concerts, or poetry readings. Art museums also frequently host themed temporary exhibitions, which often include items on loan from other collections. (Full article...)