Do we need university museums?

In the present era of unprecedented world musealisation, university museums also play a significant part in the process. Great possibilities offered by the digital technologies tempt us to build exhibitions with nothing else. The author of this paper points out the canonical foundations of the concept of museum, where the original object – a musealium – serves as a basic ‘text’ of the exhibitions held by the institution and indicates that musealia are not only about form and function, but mostly about their semantic and symbolic content which evokes various feelings and emotions. It is crucial to reach them by building a collection consisted of objects. This art of building a collection is a complex process, hence its main principles have been discussed in this paper. Moreover, the author claims that specific museums should underpin the purpose of their existence by carrying out activities in such fields as marketing, the university, identity formation, university cultural heritage management, as well as giving the space for a debate about the university’s history and future. 

In the present era of unprecedented world musealisation, university museums also play a significant part in the process. Great possibilities offered by the digital technologies tempt us to build exhibitions with nothing else. The author of this paper points out the canonical foundations of the concept of museum, where the original object – a musealium – serves as a basic ‘text’ of the exhibitions held by the institution and indicates that musealia are not only about form and function, but mostly about their semantic and symbolic content which evokes various feelings and emotions. It is crucial to reach them by building a collection consisted of objects. This art of building a collection is a complex process, hence its main principles have been discussed in this paper. Moreover, the author claims that specific museums should underpin the purpose of their existence by carrying out activities in such fields as marketing, the university, identity formation, university cultural heritage management, as well as giving the space for a debate about the university’s history and future.