Museums

What is Museum ? The word museum comes from the Greek word mouseion. In ancient Greece the mousein was the temple of the Muses, the goddesses of arts and sciences Museum is an institution  where artistic and education materials are exhibited to the public, The materials available for observation and study are called a collection. A collection may include scientific specimens, works of art and exhibits and information on history or tech nology.

     Kinds of Museums. There are five main kinds of museums.

1.       Art Museums. Art museums preserve and exhibit paintings, sculpture and other works of art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Newyork  city and the National Gallery in London are Art Museums. The Famous Louvre Museum displays Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and the Greck stature Venus de Milo.

2.       History Museums. History museums illustrate  the life and events of the past. Museums commemorating. Mahtama Gandhi are in New Delhi, Bombay and Ahmadabad.

3.       Applied Science Museums. These are also called science and technology museums. They help people understand the world of machines. They demonstrate scientific principles and show their application in tools, machinery and industrial processes. The museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, is good example of this kind of museum.

4.       Natural Science Museums. They exhibit displays of animals, fossils, plats, rocks. And other objects and organisms founds in nature. The Natural History Museum in London has good specimens of animals and plats.

5.       General Museums. They exhibit materials from several fields of study. The British museum in London contains displays of art , archaeology and ancient documents and manuscripts.

Other Museums. Other kinds of museums exhibit  materials only on one subject . The Rail Museum Delhi exhibits displays  on Indian Railways.

Functions of museums. Museums perform the followings functions :

1.       Acquisition Material. Every new object that a museum adds to its collection is called an acquisition. Museums acquire abject in several ways, of which field collection is one of the most useful. The scientists and technicians go outside to gather specimens and data on a particular subject which are within the scope of the museum.

2.       Recording of materials. Each acquisition is listed carefully by specialist staff. AAs soon as objects are received, the data, the source , the method of acquisition and other available information are entered  in the record register.

3.       Preservation of Materials. The primary purpose  of museums is to preserve selected object Curators know that no specimens will last forever. What museums undertake to do is to prolog the life time of the objects. Preservation in a museums consist of two stapes. Specimens must be put into a condition that checks detritions. The specimens must protected.

4.        Research. One important use of museum is to extract as much knowledge as possible from the specimens. Many museums publish scholarly journals, series of papers and books to make available the results of research on their collection.

5.       Exhibition of Materials. Various members of the museum staff prepare the acquisitions for exhibition. The specimens selected for exhibition are put on view in numerous ways. The choice of approach and technique depends largely on the purpose of exhibit.

6.       Education. A number of universities conduct some courses in certain subjects at museums in order to take advantage of the collection. Thus museums help in spreading education.