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The Museums Portal

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 museum

The old building with the new wing in 2013

Museum de Oude Wolden (Dutch pronunciation: [myˈzeːjʏm də ˌʔʌudə ˈʋɔldə(n)]; English: Museum The Old Wolds), abbreviated as MOW, is a regional museum in the village of Bellingwolde in the Netherlands. The museum focuses on art and history of the regions of Oldambt and Westerwolde in the east of the province of Groningen.

The museum opened on 10 August 1973. In the first decades, it primarily exhibited historical objects documenting everyday life. In the late 1990s, the museum started to exhibit artworks of artist collective De Ploeg and magic realist painter Lodewijk Bruckman. Since 2012, it has a permanent display of paintings by Bruckman and temporary exhibitions.

The museum is an independent foundation that is mainly funded by the municipality of Bellingwedde. From 2013 to 2016, the museum had around 4,700 visitors per year. It is one of the lesser-visited museums in Groningen. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

Image 1A museum in Verkhniye Mandrogi, Leningrad Oblast, specialising in vodka
Image 2The Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, has the world's largest stained-glass ceiling, designed by Leonard French.
Image 3Old Dutch display case in Branderszaal Lange Haven 97, Schiedam
Image 4The Industrial Gallery, housed in the original part of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, designed by Yeoville Thomason and opened in 1885
Image 5Iron bed in torture room at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh
Image 6Floating Heads by Sophie Cave (2006), installed in the East Court of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Image 7An early 18th-century German Schrank with a traditional display of corals, from the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin
Image 8Antique cuckoo clocks displayed at Cuckooland Museum, Tabley, an example of a specialised museum
Image 9Entrance hall of the Vienna Technical Museum, one of the largest technology museums in Europe
Image 10Storage gallery of the Larco Museum, Lima, Peru, a museum of pre-Columbian art
Image 11Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, an archaeology and anthropology museum
Image 12The Galerie des Glaces of the Palace of Versailles
Image 13Panoramic view of the library of the Guimet Museum, Paris, an art museum specialising in Asian art
Image 14Display cases in Altena Castle
Image 15The Tower of Faces at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
Image 16The Dinosaur Hall of the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin, showing the skeleton of Giraffatitan brancai, among the largest mounted skeletons in the world
Image 17The Egyptian Museum, Cairo, showing some of its collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities
Image 18Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale
Image 19The queen's chamber of the Petit Trianon, Versailles, the former residence of Marie Antoinette
Image 20Triangular prism-shaped display cases in the Red Dot Design Museum, Essen
Image 21The South Hall of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, an aerospace museum, showing the Enola Gay bomber and other aeroplanes
Image 22Exhibit in Indonesia Museum, Jakarta, displaying the traditional costumes of Indonesian ethnic groups

Selected general article

A collection manager ensures the proper care and preservation of objects within cultural institutions such as museums, libraries, and archives. Collection managers, along with registrars, curators, and conservators, play an important role in collections care. Collection Managers and Registrars are two distinct collection roles that are often combined into one within small to mid-size cultural institutions. Collection Managers can be found in large museums and those with a history and natural history focus whose diverse collections require experienced assessment to properly sort, catalog, and store artifacts. A collection manager may oversee the registrar, archivist, curator, photographer, or other collection professionals, and may assume the responsibilities of these roles in their absence within an organization. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh from his residence in Dhaka before his arrest by the Pakistan Army?
... that after Nazi Germany placed anti-aircraft batteries on the property of the Genoa Conservatory, the school moved into the Villa Saluzzo Serra art museum to maintain the safety of its students?
... that The Citi Exhibition: Manga at the British Museum was the largest exhibition of manga ever held outside Japan?
... that State Auto Mutual's life-size nativity scene was donated to the Museum of Catholic Art and History in 2023 for display at St. Joseph Cathedral?
... that while Joseph Longworth thought that he would be remembered only as "the son of his father and the father of his son", there is today a wing of the Cincinnati Art Museum named for him?
... that the Museum of Classic Sci-Fi is located in the cellar of a house in Allendale, Northumberland?

Get involved

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

Selected exterior image

Image 1Entrance to Auschwitz I, part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a Holocaust museum on the site of the former Nazi concentration camps
Image 2The Museum Island, Berlin
Image 3The Peristylia hall in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, the largest museum in Indonesia and one of that country's oldest
Image 4Indonesia Museum, in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an ethnology museum exemplifying Balinese architecture
Image 5Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda of the Getty Center, Los Angeles, an art museum
Image 6The Deutsches Museum, Munich, one of the world's largest science and technology museums
Image 7The Cambodian National Museum, Phnom Penh, showing its vernacular architectural style
Image 8The British Museum, London
Image 9The National Art Center, Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa, is an "empty museum", lacking its own collection, which hosts temporary exhibitions from other organisations.
Image 10The Louvre, Paris, showing the glass-and-metal Pyramid, designed by I. M. Pei to act as the museum's main entrance, and completed in 1989
Image 11Paifang or arched entrance of the Northern Branch of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, whose collection covers 8,000 years of the history of Chinese art
Image 12São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, a 1968 concrete-and-glass structure designed by Lina Bo Bardi, considered a landmark of the city and a major example of modern Brazilian architecture
Image 13The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, a modern art museum designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 1997
Image 14The Museo del Prado, Madrid, established in 1785
Image 15The State Historical Museum, Moscow
Image 16The Dalí Theatre and Museum, commemorating Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres, Catalonia, has a geodesic dome and is decorated with giant eggs.
Image 17Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, an architecture museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that focuses on the Ponce Creole architectural style
Image 18Small cloister of the charterhouse of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, built on the site of the Baths of Diocletian; part of the National Roman Museum of Rome
Image 19The Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, has a permanent collection of murals and hosts an architecture museum.
Image 20The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Image 21Shanghai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art, was rebuilt in 1996 to a design inspired by the ding, an ancient bronze cooking vessel.
Image 22Aerial view of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel's Holocaust memorial; the museum, designed by Moshe Safdie, opened in 2005 and tells the personal stories of ninety Holocaust victims and survivors
Image 23The Lower Castle of Ambras Castle, Innsbruck, one of the earliest buildings constructed specifically for use as a museum; it remains a museum displaying its original collections
Image 24Now closed, the California Aerospace Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, formerly displayed a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Image 25A maritime museum located in the village of Bolungarvík, Vestfirðir, Iceland, showing a 19th-century fishing base with a typical boat of the period and associated industrial buildings: an example of a very small museum
Image 26The Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia, has an extensive collection of Armenian manuscripts.
Image 27National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
Image 28The Palazzo Vecchio Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the most-visited museum in Italy

Selected type of museum

The Russian *Aurora*, one of the few protected cruisers to be preserved, is one of the world's most visited vessels

A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small number of museum ships that are still operational and thus capable of regular movement.

Several hundred museum ships are kept around the world, with around 175 of them organised in the Historic Naval Ships Association though many are not naval museum ships, from general merchant ships to tugs and lightships. Many, if not most, museum ships are also associated with a maritime museum. (Full article...)

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