Dear Mathew,


Some thoughts:


1.So far I like Christian's distinctions the best and the one museums I have worked would adopt. However,  I must admit I have never heard the word Naturafact. 


Dear Mathew, 
the term is quite old, it probably goes back to the founder of French Museology, George Henri Rivière. 
[G. H. Rivière: La Muséologie. Paris 1989]
He influenced French and partly Belgian museology (André Gob) quite a lot, but he is not by far the most influencial thinker on European Museology. The founder of Scientific Museology and most influencial European Museologist ist the nestor of Czech Museology, Prof. Dr. Zbynek Stránsky. His influence goes to Finland, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, and many others etc. Under the Communist Era, he was sent to prison twice.

Naturafact is the contrary to two other terms, artefact and mentefact (from Latin "mens", made by human brain).  Of Course: All mentefacts are artefacts, it is a sudivision. Museums are collecting primarily artefacts and naturafacts, libraries and archives mainly mentefacts. 
[Friedrich Waidacher: Handbuch der Allgemeinen Museologie. Wien u.a. 1996, S. 166 and later editions and translations]

The term "ecofact" or "oecofact" [other contributor] I did not hear of before. Does it come from ecology? From economy? As it is blurring, misleading and needs explanation (What is an object of "ecology"?), I would avoid it. With the three terms I mentioned it does not to be needed anyway.




(I like it) We would more commonly use the word "specimen" in America, but the definition would be the same, I'd bet.

To my personal opinion and language feeling, "specimen" is about the same as "example of". That means, f.e. for a Natural history Museum, an example of a species. So it refers to the specific system(atics) like Botanics, Geology etc. So far outside the museum, it is only an object, a naturafact. Inside the museum it is also a specimen, but also a museum object or museum specimen. Everything stays the same, but only the semiotics of it have changed.

The term "fragment" (f.e. a single ceramic shard, a whale bone, a page of a book) refers to a piece of a artefact, naturafact or mentefact. So, (whole) object and fragment belong together. 


...

I think we can all think of examples where a lot of acrimony and confusion on the back end of a discussion could have been saved by some explicit care and attention to  definitions on the front end


Thank you for this remark. Science starts with definitions, methods and methodoloy.
Best regards


Christian




Conversations like the one we are having here.


Good topic. 


-- 
Verlag Dr. Christian Mueller-Straten / Museums Agentur
Inh. Dr. Christian Müller-Straten
Kunzweg 23, D-81243 Muenchen Germany
T. +49-(0)89-839 690 43, Fax T. +49-(0)89-839 690 44
[log in to unmask]
www.museum-aktuell.de: The European portal to the museum world and heritage, scientists, open positions, suppliers, sponsors, with museum stock exchange and life long learning...
Hier auch weitere Firmenangaben. Treffen Sie uns auf der EXPONATEC COLOGNE 2007!

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).