A museum is basically a building set aside for the acquisition, management, inquiry, presentation and educational interpretation in the aim of having scientific or traditional value.
The main objective of such museums is to enable the modern generation to appreciate their respective culture as well as history. Just like many other educational institutions, a museum is divided into various departments such as agriculture, science and arts.
This plays a significant role when locating a certain item in the museum. Apart from the internal layout in a museum, there are some which tend to favor conservation over education and the reverse. This is mainly affected by national governing policies.
There are others which are more specialized to the type of information stored in them. They include, church museum, and historical museums, among others (Miller, 1989).
Some of the oldest museums include, Capitoline Museums which ranges from as back as 1471. The second oldest museum is museum which was established back in 1506. Various amendments have been made so as to enable both the scholars and the public to access these resources.
Museum management is conducted under the governance of board of directors with respect to the National Governing Policies. There are both private and those that are considered as public museums.
Private museums are established and managed by individuals or a group of investors while public are managed by either the government or various educational institutions (Findlen, 1989).
Exhibition history is generally an outline of the history of the exhibit. “It includes the name of the host institution, the title and the opening and closing of the exhibition” (Forgey, 2004, p.1). This allows easy access to these facilities from all quotas.
Exhibit design is the form used to display substantial exhibits. Apart from traditional 2-D and 3-D designs and architects, audio-visual, software designs and editors supplements the display of information (Miller, 1989).
However, these exhibit designs tend to vary with the type and the governance of museum. Immediately after arriving at the museum, a brief introduction of the history of the museum is given out. This may be accompanied by handouts and pamphlets for further clarification.
If it is a large group, the number is divided and assigned to various tutors who in turn take the students to various locations in the museum. Each exhibition is usually accompanied by a brief history and origin.
This may be orally presented by the tutor or written at the background of the showcase. Slide presentation and video presentations are also offered to enhance embark on theory from the portraits (Forgey, 2004).
When it comes to the value, there are some exhibits that tend to be more valuable than others. Historic portraits tend to be more preferred, as compared to other valuables in a museum. This is because they are limited and cannot be retrieved once they are destroyed.
Over generations, people tend to treasure old items. The same principles are applied in the museum management where ancient portraits are treasured more than probably gold. Apart from portraits, museum also harbors some living things, depending on the type of museum.
Such living things are usually rare and face threats to become extinct. There are also precious stones which are found in museums. Such stones are also valuable and hence are treasured in any given museum.
References
Findlen, P. (1989). The Museum: its classical etymology and renaissance genealogy. Journal of the History of Collections, 1(1), 59–78.
Forgey, B. (2004, June 19). At the Building Museum, Concrete Exemplars: FINAL Edition. The Washington Post, p. C.01
Miller, D. (1989, September 13). New museum mixes art, commerce: 2 STAR Edition. Houston Chronicle (pre-1997 Fulltext), p. 5.