On Wed, Jul 12, 1995, Linda Young answered my request for a definition of
"museum" with the following:

>will the ICOM definition do for you?

>A museum is a non-profit-making, permanent institution in the service of
>society and its devlopment, and open to the public, which acquires,
>conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study,
>entertainment and enjoyment, material evidence of people an their
>environment.  [ICOM Statutes, article 2, adopted by the 16th General
>Assembly, 1989]


Thank you.  Yes, this is good, but definitely open for discussion. For
instance, don't many libraries meet these criteria?  Maybe a definition is
only imperative in terms of funding (governmental in particular) ...except
that the public does seem to react strongly to the word or at least to have
strong associations?   (I, for one, can't define museum but I love going to
one.)  The platonic museum may not exist any more than the platonic chair.
 The color red cannot be defined either except that it is the color which is
no other color than red. The definition of Museum may be most interesting in
contrast to the definition of words like "Center", "House", "Society",
"Library", etc. and not because it can be particularly pinpointed.

A museum educator once told me that, during WWII, museum attendance went up.
 Her interpretation of this was that it was because people needed an escape;
they needed something beautiful, reflective, quiet, away from their troubles.



Mindy Lehrman Cameron
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