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What is a Museum?

A "Museum" in the American sense of the word means a place of amusement, wherein there shall be a theatre, some wax figures, a giant and a dwarf or two, a jumble of pictures, and a few live snakes. In order that there may be some excuse for the use of the word, there is in most instances a collection of stuffed birds, a few preserved animals, and a stock of oddly assorted and very dubitable curiosities; but the mainstay of the "Museum" is the "live art" that is, the theatrical performance, the precocious mannikins [sic], or the intellectual dogs and monkeys.

(Ward 1997 n.p.)

In defining museums, several characteristics blend, but having a permanent collection of things original to a museum's subject is what makes them unique. Indeed, as far as I'm concerned, getting and keeping stuff for the long term is the only assignment that, in the final analysis, ultimately sets museums apart from any other human invention, endeavor, or function. Everything else museums do, be it teaching, hosting parties, running retail operations, organizing travel tours, presenting exhibitions, developing real estate ventures, selling art and antiques, and so forth, is also done by other organizations, institutions, agencies, and businesses. Acquiring, maintaining, and holding original physical evidence of the human and natural world in perpetuity for evidential reasons makes museums singular.

By a "permanent collection" I mean the material museums acquire in a deliberative process that results in items being accessioned (numbered) and held with every intention of being around forever - for the long haul - until death do us part - 'til the end of time - not for the moment, etc., etc., etc. The concept is odd, no? Is it any wonder that museums range from being magnets for the magical, warehouses of wow, accumulators of the actual, to packrats of property or dumping grounds for things intended for the scrapheap?

Conceiving and causing a permanent collection covers a variety of intentions, disciplines, practices, and motivations. Thus there are museums for an astonishing (some might say alarming) mix of subjects, topics, stories, and reasons. In practice it is the permanent collection that defines all. One could say: No collection, no museum.

Size and quality are not determining factors when defining a museum, at least insofar as having a permanent collection is concerned. Museums may consist of one item or zillions. The content may be considered superb or laughable. The collection may be well-cataloged, stored, understood, cared for, and used, or not. I know of highly reputable museums, even some accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, that are remiss in aspects of collection stewardship while I am also aware of little-known museums that provide excellent coverage for collections. It is the fact of a collection that counts.

I should note that in requiring a museum to have a permanent collection I am not differentiating between museum typology, magnitude, name-identity, ownership, or governance status. Whether government, private, corporate, or individually owned, be it an art, science, or history museum, or an amalgam such as a children's museum, having a permanent collection is the common thread they share in both concept and reality. Thus we see, literally, permanent collections of art, scientific specimens, and historic artifacts acquired and held by places that may call themselves museums, galleries, historical societies, collections, and foundations. We also see such titles applied to places that do not collect. Whatever the case, names do not matter when it comes to museums. To emphasize my point, it is the existence of a permanent collection that in the end differentiates real museums from those desirous of the status but not the duty deserving it.

Not incidentally, I am limiting my discussion of permanent collections to non-living things such as chairs, guns, clothes, skeletons, paintings, boats, rocks, dead bugs, radios, silverware, and so on. I am avoiding so-called living collections that are found in zoos, aquaria, and botanical gardens. There is a reason these endeavors do not refer to themselves as museums, by the way, and the idea of a permanent collection that has longevity is one of them.

So - what is the role of the permanent collection in and for a museum? Why have stuff? Museum collecting is based on an assumption that providing meaningful proof of and about some aspect or aspects of the human and natural universe we all inhabit together has merit. Psychologists are more equipped to investigate in depth the human nature of this notion but the fact that there are so many museums suggests it has credence. Museums are a (the?) designated place for us to selectively use and engage with things intellectually and emotionally for enjoyment, contemplation, celebration, enlightenment, discovery, entertainment, knowledge, and understanding. Whether or not these were motivating factors for inventing museums, they are operating realities today.

For permanent collections to have value in both the long and the short run, we must think they hold bona fide intrinsic veracity values. Most museums have a pretty good idea about what their collections mean to them, but evaluation must be ongoing, reaffirmed, and continually assessed. Generally speaking, collections must be original to a subject being explained or explored. This is why most museums usually avoid accessioning reproductions or copies. They might use them in exhibitions or for educational purposes but it is the original object that usually gets an accession number.

Thus, what is held by a museum must be content-specific. Things should not be randomly brought in. They must be acquired for their evidentiary power and meaning. Museums exist because of the belief and feeling that tangible items have informational, emotional, and psychological stature. That belief and sense is at once visceral and actual. It can be proven or implied or a little of both. In these capacities collections are the dialectic of a museum.

I liked the concept that the two opposite sides of the brain were markedly different, with the right side being visceral, intuitive, and nonverbal while the left side was logical, verbal, and rational. I could explain that initially and in the blink of an eye, the right zone might dominant as people first optically responded to whatever physical matter engaged them in museums. Then the left zone was involved as the literate side of the brain kicked in to sort things out. This cranial ping-pong game was happening at warp speed in museum visitors' minds as they navigated, absorbed, and explored what they found themselves in the midst of, which they were told was a material world of meaning. That meaning evolves out of what visitors know when they come to a museum and what museum workers try to convey via their stock in trade (the collection) through and with which they attempt explanations.

Museum employees are the interlocutors who decide what a museum will own and why, and how its possessions will be used. Museum audiences, however one defines them, are the end-users of museums. In application they are the ultimate recipients of what museums hope gives worth to being in them. Moreover, museums want a visit to have a long afterlife. The magnitude and depth of museum meaning happens in and through the orchestrated and highly concocted public information forum called an exhibition, which relies on presumed and desired connections between objects and people.

Though the public may be the ultimate beneficiary of museums, mainly through the medium of the exhibition, most visitors have little immediately direct influence on what they see, how it is presented, and why. These duties all rest with museum staff - and only a handful at that. From the outside there is an assumption that those responsible for acquiring collections, caring for them, conducting research, and enabling exhibitions and education do so with the best interests of the public at heart. For the most part I suspect this is the case as it is verified over the long term by how little changes in the collection arena of the vast majority of museums. We may hear about museum deaccessioning these days but the bulk of what museums have remains in them, at least for now. It is this retention-longevity that supports voiced arguments and assumed thoughts regarding the impact and importance of permanent collections.

Museums claim to be places of truth. Whose truth is a matter of conjecture and opinion, but whatever the circumstances, meaningful museums rely on objects original to the subject for which the institutions were established as sources of information. When an object is acquired, studied, put on display, and published, dutiful museums at least strive to present facts regarding the object itself: "The public has a right to believe what it reads in a museum label" (Thompson 2014).

How objects are used in the larger context of museum interpretations will vary and be quite subjective, but the veracity of individual collection pieces is essential regardless of their applications. That is one reason museums avoid and are quite sensitive to fakes, frauds, and phonies when it comes to collections. It is why matters of provenance, condition, behavior, and employee ethics is of paramount concern, or should be.

Collections connect us to people, places, epochs, ideas, events, theories, accomplishments, conundrums, you name it. We know George Washington was a...