Lecture by Léontine Meijer-van Mensch for the Museo-ja näyttelytutkimuksen forum, Helsinki (6 May 2011).

1. Is there a European concept
of the museum professional?
Léontine Meijer-van Mensch

3. museums
subject matter disciplines support disciplines

4. museums
subject matter disciplines support disciplines

5. museums
museology
museology as a science

6. Zbyňek Stránský (1926 - ) Brno

7. Handbuch Grundlagen der
Sowjetischen Museumskunde
(Moskau 1955)
Auszüge (Halle 1960)
1930: 1. Museumskongress der SU
"nicht Dinge sondern Prozesse"
1955: Handbuch
"Gegenständen als Primärquellen des
Wissens"

8. first museum revolution
• Professional organisations
1917 Deutscher Museumsbund
• Professional journals
1878 Zeitschrift für Museologie und Antiquitätenkunde (Dresden)
• Handbooks
1869 Philipp Leopold Martin, Praxis der Naturgeschichte (Weimar)
• Codes of ethics
1918 Grundsätze über das Verhalten der Mitglieder des Deutschen
Museumbundes gegenüber dem Kunsthandel und dem Publikum

10. heritage
functions
institutions
society
basic parameters

11. heritage
functions
institution
society
“old” paradigm

12. heritage
functions
institution
society
“new” paradigm

13. UNESCO Round table, Santiago (Chile) 1972
The development and the role of museums in the
contemporary world
Integrated museum

14. Integration
• Academic disciplines
• Museographic disciplines
• Museum - society

15. second museum revolution
UNESCO Recommendation on participation by the
people at large in cultural life and their contribution
to it (Nairobi 1976)

16. Georges Henri Rivière
(1897 – 1985) Paris
Musée de l´Homme
International Council of Museums
Ecole du Louvre

17. New Museology
• Community museology
• Social museology
• Popular museology
• Active museology
• Participative museology
• Ecomuseology
• Territorial museology

19. Richard Sandell 2000
• Access
• Participation
• Representation

20. social inclusion
• Inclusive museums
• Museums as agents of social regeneration
• Museums as vehicles of broad social change

22. third museum revolution
• Social curatorship
• Co-curatorship
• User generated content

24. third museum revolution
• Museum 2.0/Heritage 2.0
• The Museum Professional as
Facilitator/Mediator

25. Convention of Faro 2005
Council of Europe
On the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society
Heritage communities
a heritage community consists of people who
value specific aspects of cultural heritage
which they wish, within the framework of
public action, to sustain and transmit to future
generations

26. networking
 museums – archives – libraries
 ex situ – in situ
 professional collectors – private collectors
 professionals – “source communities”

27. Reinwardt Academie
1976 Leiden > 1992 Amsterdam

28. Collections based organisation
director
Curator 1 Curator 2 Curator 3 Curator 4 etc.

29. director
Curator 1 Curator 2 Curator 3 etc Educator
Preservation Preservation Preservation Preservation
Research Research Research Research
Exhibitions Exhibitions Exhibitions Exhibitions

30. Functions based organisation
Chart Title
director
Collections Communication
Preservation Research Exhibitions Education
Documentation Conservation

31. Chart Title
director
Collections Communication
Preservation Research Exhibitions Education
Documentation Conservation

32. Amsterdam Museum
(simplified diagram)
director
museum services resources
collections research education
management (curators)

33. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
(simplified diagram)
director
collections presentation resources
collections research exhibitions education
management (curators)
documentation conservation

34. theory
professionalism
ethics practice

38. positive
neutral
negative
loss break-even profit
contribution to revenues

39. after Kersti Krug 1992
Cost Centre Profit Centre
positive
I II
neutral
negative III IV
loss break-even profit
contribution to revenues

40. after Kersti Krug 1992
Cost Centre Profit Centre
positive
I education
II
research
exhibitions
conservation
shop
neutral
restaurant
space rental
negative III IV
loss break-even profit
contribution to revenues

41. after Kersti Krug 1992
Cost Centre Profit Centre
positive
I II
most
vulnerable
preferred
neutral
to be ethical
avoided dilemmas
negative III IV
loss break-even profit
contribution to revenues

43. contribution to
mission
contribution to
revenue

45. Stephen Weil 1995
[A museum] must be able to demonstrate that
[…] it is something more than a “federation of
self-interest” in which curators are content
simply to curate, conservators to conserve,
and registrars to document and manage
collections.

46. Stephen Weil 1995
To survive [a museum] must […] be able to
define the positive difference that it can make
to the community from which it solicits its
necessary support, and it must also be able to
show that community that it is, in actual fact,
making such a difference.

47. Stephen Weil 1995
To do so is more than just a managerial
imperative; it is also an ethical necessity.

48. basic responsibilities of the museum professional
• responsibility to the maker (and first users) of the object and his or
her society;
• responsibility to the preservation of the information value (including
the aesthetic and emotional values) of the object and its physical
and intellectual accessibility;
• responsibility to the institute with which the professional is
associated, regardless of whether this association is temporary or
permanent, paid or unpaid, or whether they are employed by the
institute or have volunteered their services;
• responsibility to those who made the activities possible by financial
support;
• responsibility to colleagues inside and outside the institute
concerned, including professionals associated with non-museum
institutes such as academic researchers;
• responsibility to the visitors of permanent and temporary
exhibitions and to participants in other activities;
• responsibility to the community as a whole, now and in the future.