Description Of Museums And The Services They Offer (Essay Sample)

Essay Writing
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Introduction
A museum is a non-profit organization that specializes in the preservation, research and collection of human heritage (both tangible and intangible heritage). Human heritage, in this case, stands for artifacts and objects such as artistic material, cultural objects, historical exhibits and even old/renowned scientific components (Porter & Alexander, 2007). Most museums are located in cities or academic institutions like the University of Iowa Campus Museum to meet their overall objective of showcasing the collected work. As a defining feature, most museums are either set up to serve researchers or the general public. Moreover, as stated before, they depend on the good will of the users or donors to conduct their work because they are non-profit organizations.
Collections or special collection items are an important part of a museum’s activity, however, collection-based activities are never a defining feature of a museum. Consider the fact that there are museums that have zero permanent collections but hold shows or exhibits from loans. Nevertheless, museums exist by the virtues of the work they do to preserve heritage. Collections are nothing but a hallmark of the work they do to distinguish themselves from other institutions and organizations (Brain, 1990).
Services offered by Museums
Museum professionals see museums as a way of educating the public about their heritage and even the missions laid out by the museums themselves. Information on civil rights, environmentalism, and even the origin of man is made possible by the artifacts/information stored in a given museum. Furthermore, the purpose of any museum depends on the user’s point of view, to a family on a Sunday afternoon, the museum is a means to entertain themselves as well as enlighten themselves. Students pursuing research also have a solid foundation for their work through the information they gather from the local museums, moreover, campus museums also promotes cultural diversity among the students. On the other hand, a community leader sees this institution as a measure of the community’s health because a good economic health will see people visit the museum regularly as they have the means and time to do so. Moreover, a museum is a simple way to increase the level of sophistication within a given community (Smithson, 2014).
In addition to this, these institutions encourage cultural diversity by promoting the continuity of traditions exhibited by the inhabitants of a given community, this includes the students of a given host institution e.g. Iowa University. Museums value cultural diversity, a concept seen through the people they employ i.e. from specialists of cultural knowledge to the links they form with different communities around the world. Furthermore, they engage in useful sociocultural functions that broadly disseminate the knowledge they have to the community for instance through exhibitions, culturally themed events among others. As they conduct these functions they help legitimize the importance and value of cultural diversity. This promotes public cohesion and even promotes cultural creativity (Kurin, 2004).
Support for Campus Museums and Special collections
Campus museums and special collection institutions specialize in scientific research which makes them a powerhouse for scientific inquiry. Furthermore, academicians, students, and researchers acquire new scientific information from the work conducted in these institutions which make them a strong voice of authority on the phenomenon’s seen in the natural world. Moreover, the scientist engaged in these institutions carry out research that tends to have a global impact, for instance, natural resources are slowly diminishing, our ecosystem is under stress and new dangerous diseases are emerging. However, through the research done in these institutions, scientists are working on ways to combat these issues (Nielsen, 2014).
Education programs that engage the society through scientific debates which then fosters a better understanding on the origin of life, biodiversity, and even evolution warrant the support given to museums. Furthermore, museums make science accessible to users through a hands-on approach, a technique that has promoted curiosity and that has also inspired the young to participate in innovative education programs. Finally, without museums the conservation and preservation of artifacts/objects of human heritage will be lost, the most basic form of human identification as well as our origin (Goa, 2016).
Challenge
Relevance is the biggest challenge facing museums, especially when you consider the different technological advancements available today. A person can simply access the information he/she needs via a handheld device. Convincing such a person to visit a museum and pay in order to see an old artifact or even an image is a daunting task. For museums to succeed in the future they must create a sense of value for the end users. Museums should have more engaging information, from the artistic installation to physical examination of old artifacts. By providing these services, unavailable through tec...