Portal:Museums
The Museums Portal
A museum (/mjuːˈziːəm/ mew-ZEE-əm) 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. Compared to a library, a museum hosts a much wider range of objects and usually focus around a specific theme such as the arts, science, natural history, local history, and other topics. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often considered to be tourist attractions, and many museums attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world regularly 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...)
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The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year, making it the most-visited museum in Canada. It is north of Queen's Park, in the University of Toronto district, with its main entrance on Bloor Street West. Museum subway station is named after it and, since a 2008 renovation, is decorated to resemble the ROM's collection at the platform level.
Established on April 16, 1912, and opened on March 19, 1914, the ROM has maintained close relations with the University of Toronto throughout its history, often sharing expertise and resources. It was under direct control and management of the University of Toronto until 1968, when it became an independent Crown agency of the Government of Ontario. It is Canada's largest field-research institution, with research and conservation activities worldwide.
With more than 18 million items and 40 galleries, the museum's diverse collections of world culture and natural history contribute to its international reputation. It contains a collection of dinosaurs, minerals and meteorites; Canadian and European historical artifacts; as well as African, Near Eastern, and East Asian art. It houses the world's largest collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia with more than 150,000 specimens. The museum also contains an extensive collection of design and fine art, including clothing, interior, and product design, especially Art Deco. (Full article...)
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Museum education is a specialized field devoted to developing and strengthening the education role of informal education spaces and institutions such as museums.
In a critical report called Excellence and Equity published in 1992 by the American Association of Museums, the educational role of museums was identified as the core to museums' service to the public. As museum education has developed as a field of study and interest in its own right, efforts have been made to record its history and to establish a research agenda to strengthen its position as a discipline in the wider work of museums. (Full article...)
Did you know...
- ... that the firm of Israel Sack supplied American antiques to leading private collectors and museums, including the Winterthur Museum, The Henry Ford, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
- ... that a vampire killing kit was donated to the Mercer Museum in the 1980s?
- ... that the Land of Lost Content contains bluebirds from the Blue Bird Toffee factory gates, tickets from the first National Lottery draw and a Sinclair C5?
- ... 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 world's only museum devoted to American actor Phil Silvers is located in Coventry, England?
- ... that Daniel Sickles's leg is a popular museum display?
Get involved
For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Museums-related articles, see WikiProject Museums.
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A ceramics museum is a museum wholly or largely devoted to ceramics, usually ceramic art. Its collections may also include glass and enamel, but typically concentrate on pottery, including porcelain. Most national collections are in a more general museum covering all of the arts, or just the decorative arts. However, there are a number of specialized ceramics museums, with some focusing on the ceramics of just one country, region or manufacturer. Others have international collections, which may be centered on ceramics from Europe or East Asia or have a more global emphasis.
Outstanding major ceramics collections in general museums include The Palace Museum, Beijing, with 340,000 pieces, and the National Palace Museum in Taipei city, Taiwan (25,000 pieces); both are mostly derived from the Chinese Imperial collection, and are almost entirely of pieces from China. In London, the Victoria and Albert Museum (over 75,000 pieces, mostly after 1400 CE) and British Museum (mostly before 1400 CE) have very strong international collections. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC (12,000, all East Asian) have perhaps the best of the many fine collections in the large city museums of the United States. The Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, New York, has more than 45,000 glass objects. (Full article...)
In the news
- 31 May 2024 – Israel–Hamas war protests
- Pro-Palestinian protesters occupy parts of the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, New York, U.S. (Reuters)
- 12 May 2024 –
- Forty-nine Vatican Museums employees start an unprecedented labor dispute over unfair and poor working conditions against the Vatican's Pontifical Commission. (Reuters)
- 6 May 2024 –
- The 2024 Met Gala takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with the theme "The Garden of Time", celebrating the Met's exhibit Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion. (Vanity Fair)
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- Museums
- Most visited museums (by region)
- Art museums: most visited, largest
Types
- Art museum
- Agricultural museum
- Archaeology museum
- Architecture museum
- Artillery museum
- Aviation museum
- Biographical museum
- Cabinet of curiosities
- Ceramics museum
- Children's museum
- Community museum
- Computer museum
- Design museum
- Dime museum
- Ecomuseum
- Economuseum
- Ethnographic village
- Farm museum
- Fashion museum
- Folk museum
- Food museum
- Green museum
- Hair museum
- Hall of Memory
- Heritage centre
- Historic house museum
- Human rights museum
- Imaginarium
- Interpretation centre
- Jewish museum
- Lapidarium
- Lighthouse museum
- Living museum
- Local museum
- Maritime museum
- Migration museum
- Mobile museum
- Museum ship
- National history museum
- Natural history museum
- Open-air museum
- Palace museum
- Postal museum
- Prefectural museum
- Print room
- Private museum
- Regimental museum
- Schatzkammer
- Science fiction libraries and museums
- Science museum
- Sex museum
- Sculpture garden
- Technology museum
- Textile museum
- Torture museum
- Toy museum
- Transport museum (list)
- University museum
- Virtual museum
- Wax museum
- Writer's home
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