For those in the U.S. following this thread, from
http://www.aam-us.org/tis4d.htm:

AAM’s Accreditation program defines a museum as: "An organized and
permanent nonprofit institution, essentially educational or aesthetic in
purpose, with professional staff, that owns or uses tangible objects,
cares for them and exhibits them to the public on some regular
schedule."

which is not what you learned in grad school a few years ago. In
general, I believe even Burcaw tended to yield to the whims of AAM. So
in his revised edition, look for the ever revised definition of what a
museum is in the USA.
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Terry Vidal
Collections Manager
University Museum
University Of Northern Iowa

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