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The Museums Portal

The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago, Chile

A museum (/mjuːˈziːəm/ mew-ZEE-əm) is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Compared to a library, a museum hosts a much wider range of objects and usually focus around a specific theme such as the arts, science, natural history, local history, and other topics. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often considered to be tourist attractions, and many museums attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world regularly 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

National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan

The National Palace Museum (Chinese: 國立故宮博物院; pinyin: Guólì Gùgōng Bówùyuàn) is a museum in Taipei, Taiwan. It has a permanent collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of Chinese artifacts and artworks, the majority of which were moved from the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City as well as five other institutions in mainland China during the ROC retreat. These collections had been transferred to several locations before finally being established in 1965 at its present location in Shilin, Taipei. The museum building itself was built between March 1964 and August 1965, with many subsequent expansions making it one of the largest of its type in the world, including a southern branch located in Taibao, Chiayi.

The museum's collection encompasses items spanning 8,000 years of Chinese history from the neolithic age to the modern period. The National Palace Museum shares its roots with the Palace Museum of Beijing, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

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

Selected general article

Collections management involves the development, storage, and preservation of cultural property, as well as objects of contemporary culture (including contemporary art, literature, technology, and documents) in museums, libraries, archives and private collections. The primary goal of collections management is to meet the needs of the individual collector or collecting institution's mission statement , while also ensuring the long-term safety and sustainability of the cultural objects within the collector's care. Collections management, which consists primarily of the administrative responsibilities associated with collection development, is closely related to collections care, which is the physical preservation of cultural heritage. The professionals most influenced by collections management include collection managers, registrars, and archivists. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that a pair of sealskin-covered high heels by Inuk designer Nicole Camphaug are held in the Bata Shoe Museum of Toronto?
... that the Jersey Maritime Museum displays a 7.5-million-stitch tapestry depicting life under Nazi occupation that was worked on by thousands of islanders?
... that the Paul Delvaux Museum exhibits not only Paul Delvaux's paintings, but also a collection of model trains?
... that the lobby of Wenzhou Museum includes Kuafu chasing the sun and Chang'e flying to the moon?
... that State Auto Mutual's life-size nativity scene was donated to the Museum of Catholic Art and History in 2023 for display at St. Joseph Cathedral?
... that one of the buildings that house the Safe House Museum was where Martin Luther King Jr. hid from the Ku Klux Klan on 21 March 1968, just weeks before he was assassinated?

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 1The Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, has a permanent collection of murals and hosts an architecture museum.
Image 2The 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 3Aerial 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
Image 4The State Historical Museum, Moscow
Image 5The 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 6The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, a modern art museum designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 1997
Image 7The Deutsches Museum, Munich, one of the world's largest science and technology museums
Image 8Paifang 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 9The Cambodian National Museum, Phnom Penh, showing its vernacular architectural style
Image 10Now closed, the California Aerospace Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, formerly displayed a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Image 11The National Art Center, Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa, is an "empty museum", lacking its own collection, which hosts temporary exhibitions from other organisations.
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 Palazzo Vecchio Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the most-visited museum in Italy
Image 14A 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 15The Museo del Prado, Madrid, established in 1785
Image 16The Peristylia hall in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, the largest museum in Indonesia and one of that country's oldest
Image 17The 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 18The British Museum, London
Image 19National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
Image 20São 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 21Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda of the Getty Center, Los Angeles, an art museum
Image 22The Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia, has an extensive collection of Armenian manuscripts.
Image 23Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, an architecture museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that focuses on the Ponce Creole architectural style
Image 24Shanghai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art, was rebuilt in 1996 to a design inspired by the ding, an ancient bronze cooking vessel.
Image 25The Museum Island, Berlin
Image 26Indonesia Museum, in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an ethnology museum exemplifying Balinese architecture
Image 27The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Image 28Entrance to Auschwitz I, part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a Holocaust museum on the site of the former Nazi concentration camps

Selected type of museum

Children's museums are institutions that provide exhibits and programs to stimulate informal learning experiences for children. In contrast with traditional museums that typically have a hands-off policy regarding exhibits, children's museums feature interactive exhibits that are designed to be manipulated by children. The theory behind such exhibits is that activity can be as educational as instruction, especially in early childhood. Most children's museums are nonprofit organizations, and many are run by volunteers or by very small professional staffs.

International professional organizations of children's museums include the Association of Children's Museums (ACM), which was formed in 1962 as the American Association of Youth Museums (AAYM) and in 2007 counted 341 member institutions in 23 countries, and The Hands On! Europe Association of Children's Museum (HO!E), established in 1994, with member institutions in 34 countries as of 2007. Many museums that are members of ACM offer reciprocal memberships, allowing members of one museum to visit all the others for free or for a discounted fee. (Full article...)