The beginnings of museology

Abstract

In this paper, we deal with the beginnings of museology, trying to find the common origin of its many contemporary offspring. Rather than define museology, we aim to discuss the idea of museology. We assume that beneath the diverse manifestations of museology one can see today, there is a common root and we call this root the idea of museology. Based on examples tracing the history of other scientific disciplines, in this paper we track two developmental stages in the field of museology: the development from an idea to professional knowledge, and the development from professional knowledge to academic discipline. By these means, we aim to establish some of the crossing points in the progress of museology as a science.