Museology as a university discipline has been cultivated for almost sixty years.
During that time, it has taken a great step forward, not least in quantitative terms.
There are hundreds of university departments named museology or museum
studies all over the world. The book, magazine and internet output dealing with
museology is enormous. However, we are witnessing a certain loosening up
of the whole discipline. There is therefore a need to examine its theoretical basis,
the terminology it uses and its research methods, to examine how and in what
direction museology is developing and to subject its development to critical
analysis. This book seeks to critically summarize the current trends in theoretical
research in the field of museology, including the latest trends, to take from
both older and newer approaches that which is truly alive and to say goodbye
to development dead ends. The book reacts to both earlier and contemporary
philosophy and could not therefore avoid many concepts from philosophy,
sociology, culture studies, etc.; its aim however is not to explain, or directly define
them. We attempt to clarify individual concepts only where it is essential in order to
explain museological approaches. The work tries to capture perhaps all the decisive
directions in contemporary museological thinking and has the ambition to become
a guide to current methodology in the field. At the general level the monograph
is based on the thinking in central European museology of the 1970s and 1980s,
represented primarily by the theoretical system of Czech associate professor
Zbyn?k Zbyslav Stránský.