Museology - Why, Where, When?

NORDI S K MU S EOL O GI 1997•2 , S. 9 3- 105 MUSEOLOGY - WHY, WHERE, WHEN? Friedrich Waidacher To many people outside the museum world the term «museology» is a foreign word - and even to some people inside as well. Thus I could also have chosen other interrogati ves: «What?», or even «Who needs it?» The last one is a question I have been asked many times, certainly more often by museum professionals than lay people. My answer was and is «You need it». WHY? It would be utterly absurd to abstain from using this tool in such an important Let us assume that you are a linguist or undertaking and rely only on the theoreti mathematician, you were trained as a tea cal proceedings of the subject matter you cher of languages or mathematics, and you are assigned to communicate instead. In are working at a secondary school. It is the case of languages this might be for therefore your job to teach young people, example medieval grammar, for mathema help them find access to the respective tics the theory of numbers. subject, and impart to them a knowledge Perhaps you are already asking yourself that will enable them to deal indepen why I am telling these truisms. It is per dently with certain matters. How do you fectly obvious anyway that a theory that is proceed? the basis of one certain subject is necessa I presume that you would prepare and rily incapable of solving another's pro communicate the necessary material using blems. certain methods. You would, I think, also It is true that I can knock nails with a check, evaluate and feed back the success hammer but I cannot cut logs with it. of your work which is at the same time People have invented saws for the latter your student's success. purpose. Why these examples? For all this you would make use of the I have now already activated my first methodical know-how of a science which interrogative: WHY? - independent of content - is relevant for The answer is: because museology is a this specific teaching and instructional science capable of fulfilling a similar sum approach to certain disciplines. I am spea marizing, comprehensive and basic functi king of educational theory. on as educational theory does. Its imple- FRIEDRI C H WAIDA C H E R 94 mentation, however, is ignored by the matics and anaesthesiology. Its roots, majority of those who should be obliged however, lie much further in the past, as I to use it. will show. Often people who have served in the The first attempt to formulate a theory museum field for some years and thus gai of museums that we know of is to be ned practical experience think that theory found in Germany at the beginning of the is just a useless hobby horse and a waste of Renaissance: in a book published in time. They have apparently never learnt Munich in 1565 the Belgian physician their lessons properly and they have cer Samuel von Quiccheberg presents a com tainly not understood what my compatriot, prehensive collection of specimens and Nobel Prize laureate Ludwig Boltzmann artifacts in an ideal form as an autono had in mind when he said: «Theory is the mous educational institution. quintessence of practice». This important work had lasting influ I want to impart to you some basic ence on museum theory and the practice thoughts about museology, its develop of collecting until far into the 18th centu ment, its structure, its place in the system ry. Further major publications on museum of sciences and about what it is able to theory were published particularly in provide. Germany, some in Denmark (Ole Worm To deal with matters cultural, to treat 1655), Bohemia, France and Russia. The objects - which I shall refer to as irrepla term «museology» appeared for the first ceable because they are part of the time in the early 18th century (Neickelius museum's specific entity - in a dilettantish 1727). manner, to ignore the wealth of knowled Museology, as we understand it today, ge museology has acquired in the course was established in the second half of the of its existence (and is still acquiring more 19th century. The beginning of its current than ever) is at least negligent if not high phase is precisely dated with the founda ly irresponsible and detrimental to the tion of the German journal «Zeitschrift museum. fiir Museologie und Antiquitatenkunde Moreover, and this is really critical, sowie verwandte Wissenschaften» by museology is able to considerably upgrade Johann Theodor Graesse, director of the the quality of museum work of all levels. «Griines Gewolbe» in Dresden in 1877. After all, many years of theoretical rese Another pivotal point in the develop arch and practical application, have placed ment of modern museology at the turn of at its disposal procedures and methods the century was the publication of the which are far superior to mere unreflected periodicals «Anzeiger tschechisch-slowa empiricism or even to a mistaken employ kischer Museen und archaologischer ment of inappropriate methods. Gesellschaften» (1895), «The Museum» (USA 1902), «Museums Journal» (Great History ofMuseology Britain 1902) and «Museumskunde» Museology is a comparatively young sub (Germany 1908). The two last-named, as ject - comparable to sociology, psychology is well known, are still published. or ecology but senior to cybernetics, infor- Before and after WWI splendid and for- MUSE O LOGY - WHY, WH E R E , WHEN ward-looking ideas were formulated by and communication of the world's natural 95 the members of museology's hall of fame and cultural heritage can well be accom Alfred Lichtwark, John Cotton Dana, plished. Hans Tietze, Arthur W Melton and Otto Neurath. WHAT? Shortly afterwards in Germany, the birthplace of museology, this promising I am now posing another interrogative: research was forcibly ended not to be resu WHAT? The reason of course is not becau med until after WWII, when it was cont se I suppose that you do not know what inued on an international basis, particu museology is, but in order to tell you how larly after the foundation of ICOM fifty I see it. years ago. Fundamentally, I understand museology The first hesitant agreements about the as a collective term. It comprises the des qualification of museology as an indepen cription, classification and explanation of dent discipline can be found at the end of all theoretical principles and practical pro the fifties. The decisive approach to cedures, methods, technologies and auxili modern museological thinking, however, ary means relevant to the museum pheno comes a decade later. menon. Museology today Definition The definitive consolidation of modern Museology is the theoretical explanation museology occurred more than thirty and practical realization of a specific dis years ago when Zbynek Stransky publis tinguishing and evaluating relatio~ship of hed his outline of a system of museology man to reality which is carried out with which he had developed along epistemolo the help of philosophical tools. This rela gical principles (Predmet muzeologie. Brno tionship is called museality, a term that 1965). has been coined by Stransky. It is expres Thus he introduced a philosophical sed through objects that are selected, con approach which had so far been lacking in served, studied and communicated as tes the research. Through identifying a time timony of a particular social reality in the less object of cognition he made possible service of the respective society. museology's final emancipation from prag matic restrictions. Object ofcognition In 1971 Museology was officially Thus the question for museology's object acknowledged as a preparatory academic of cognition in the formal sense is the discipline by ICOM, and, finally, in 1977 question of which aspect of reality museo the International Committee for Museo logy is investigating. The answer is: it logy was founded. looks into the common motive for the exi Museology has now had at its disposal a stence of the museum phenomenon and well assorted set of instruments for a gene its forerunners. ration or more. With these instruments This object of cognition is therefore, as the important task of specific conservation in all theoretical science, an idealized part FRIEDRICH WAIDACHER 96 of the environment. It is the already men does not depend on the museum but on tioned relationship of man to reality, knowledge of the specific human rela which we have called museality. Museality tionship to reality. is established when people consider selec ted objects so important as evidence for Basic museum functions certain facts that they want to conserve The basic museum functions however - and to transmit them - to their contem selection, collecting, conservation, restora poraries as well as to posterity. tion, documentation, research, exhibiting, Museality thus relies on material objects interpretation, publication - can also be which have been identified as potential found in varying contexts without a bearers of this relationship and have final museum. They appear alone and in any ly been declared as such. We call these combination and for a variety of purposes. objects musealia. Their characteristics and These activities simply do not have by properties can only be conclusively percei themselves an exclusively museum quality, ved with the help of epistemological and even the knowledge linked to them is not axiological means within a definite social restricted to the museum. None of these structure, they can even only become activities therefore is museum specific in musealia at all within this frame of refe itself. rence. Museology thus does not distinguish, Objects as a centrepiece describe, study and explain things of all This approach is as important for the kinds but only those which have been selection of objects as it is for their study, methodically recognized as objectivations, documentation, conservation and presen as embodiments of museality.

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