Portal:Museums

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Introduction

The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago, Chile

A museum 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. Museums host a much wider range of objects than a library, and usually focus on a specific theme, such as the arts, science, natural history or local history. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often tourist attractions, and many attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world 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 general articles

An ethnographic village is a real or artificial settlement which portrays historical and ethnographic characteristics of life of a certain ethnic group. The concept is close to that of an open-air museum or "living museum." (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that the divers who found the c. 9th-century Tully Lough Cross in 1986 were convicted for trying to sell it to American museums?
... that a travelling museum exhibition in Japan displays "life-size" renditions of Pokémon skeletons alongside the fossils of actual prehistoric animals?
... that Ukrainian museum director Horpyna Vatchenko forced the Hermitage Museum to abide by its agreement and return the Kernosovskiy idol after a loan?
... that for fifteen years Joseph Henry Gest was both the director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and the president of the Rookwood Pottery Company, spending mornings at one and afternoons at the other?
... that the Deutsches Romantik-Museum in Frankfurt, the only museum dedicated to the entire era of German Romanticism, looks like three houses and features blue elements?
... that the Republican Palace Museum in Khartoum was originally a cathedral?

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Get involved

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Museums-related articles, see WikiProject Museums.

Selected images

Image 1Museum textile storage includes rolled storage racks, hanging wardrobe and garments shelving, and cabinets. (from Museum)
Image 2Exhibit planning (from Museum)
Image 3A guided tour group at the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City, Mexico (from Museum)
Image 4Archive Processing rooms provide a space for archivists to arrange and describe archival materials to make them accessible to researchers. (from Museum)
Image 5Restoration of a gilded mirror by a conservator (from Museum)
Image 6Construction of Titanic Belfast in 2010 (from Museum)
Image 7Collections storage for three-dimensional historic artifacts. (from Museum)
Image 8In museums, paintings, framed and unframed, are normally hung on sliding or fixed racking. (from Museum)
Image 9An honours board listing the directors of a museum in Auckland, New Zealand (from Museum)
Image 10Workers rallying at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (from Museum)
Image 11Classic cars displayed at an automotive museum, which could be considered both a history and technology museum (from Museum)
Image 12The old Ashmolean Museum building in Oxford, England (from Museum)
Image 13Moai figure at the British Museum (from Museum)
Image 14The Nantong Museum, the first Chinese-sponsored museum (from Museum)
Image 15Paintings arranged in groupings in the "salon style" (from Museum)
Image 16An exhibition of the remains of Native Americans at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1908 (from Museum)
Image 17A curator and exhibit designer dressing a mannequin for an exhibit (from Museum)
Image 18Officials blamed a lack of funding for a 2018 fire at the National Museum of Brazil that destroyed over 90% of its contents (from Museum)
Image 19The Louvre in 1853 (from Museum)
Image 20Visitors examining fossils displayed at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran, Iran (from Museum)

Selected museum

The Smithsonian Institution (/smɪθˈsoʊniən/ smith-SOH-nee-ən), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge." Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum, but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967.

Called "the nation's attic" for its eclectic holdings of 154 million items, the institution's 19 museums, 21 libraries, nine research centers, and zoo include historical and architectural landmarks, mostly located in Washington, D.C. Additional facilities are located in Maryland, New York, and Virginia. More than 200 institutions and museums in 47 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. (Full article...)