A museum is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these items available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. The largest museums are located in major cities throughout the world, while thousands of local museums exist in smaller cities, towns, and rural areas. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public. The goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public.
The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum maintains its status as a premier natural-history museum through the size and quality of its educational and scientific programs, as well as due to its extensive scientific-specimen and artifact collections. The diverse, high-quality permanent exhibitions, which attract up to two million visitors annually, range from the earliest fossils to past and current cultures from around the world to interactive programming demonstrating today's urgent conservation needs. The museum is named in honor of its first major benefactor, the department-store magnate Marshall Field. The museum and its collections originated from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and the artifacts displayed at the fair.
The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture is a natural history museum in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. Established in 1899 as the Washington State Museum, it traces its origins to a high school naturalist club formed in 1879. The museum is the oldest in Washington state and boasts a collection of more than 16 million artifacts, including the world's largest collection of spread bird wings. Located on the campus of the University of Washington, the Burke Museum is the official state museum of Washington.
The Indian Museum in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, also referred to as the Imperial Museum at Calcutta in colonial-era texts, is the ninth oldest museum in the world, the oldest museum in India, and the largest museum in India. It has rare collections of antiques, armour and ornaments, fossils, skeletons, mummies and Mughal paintings. It was founded by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, in 1814. The founder curator was Nathaniel Wallich, a Danish botanist.
The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural-history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help museum visitors learn about the natural history of Colorado, Earth, and the universe. The 716,000-square-foot (66,519 m2) building houses more than one million objects in its collections including natural history and anthropological materials, as well as archival and library resources.
The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) is a natural and human history museum located in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The museum was chartered in 1882 and opened to the public in 1884; it is a not-for-profit organization operated by the Milwaukee Public Museum, Inc. MPM has three floors of exhibits and the first Dome Theater in Wisconsin.
The William R. and Clarice V. Spurlock Museum, better known as the Spurlock Museum, is an ethnographic museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Spurlock Museum's permanent collection includes portions of collections from other museums and units on the Urbana-Champaign campus such as cultural artifacts from the Museum of Natural History and Department of Anthropology as well as historic clothing from the Bevier Collection of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. The Museum also holds objects donated by other institutions and private individuals. With approximately 51,000 objects in its artifact collection, the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign collects, preserves, documents, exhibits, and studies objects of cultural heritage. The Museum’s main galleries, highlighting the ancient Mediterranean, modern Africa, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, East Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas, celebrate the diversity of cultures through time and across the globe.
The Illinois State Museum features the life, land, people and art of the State of Illinois. The headquarters museum is located on Spring and Edwards Streets, one block southwest of the Illinois State Capitol, in Springfield. There are three satellite locations: Dickson Mounds in Lewistown, the Lockport Gallery in Lockport, and the ISM's Research and Collections Center in Springfield.
The New York State Museum is a research-backed institution in Albany, New York, United States. It is located on Madison Avenue, attached to the south side of the Empire State Plaza, facing onto the plaza and towards the New York State Capitol. The museum houses art, artifacts, and ecofacts that reflect New York’s cultural, natural, and geological development. Operated by the New York State Education Department's Office of Cultural Education, it is the oldest and largest state museum in the US. Formerly located in the State Education Building, the museum now occupies the first four floors of the Cultural Education Center, a ten-story, 1,500,000-square-foot (140,000 m2) building that also houses the New York State Archives and New York State Library.
The Arizona Museum of Natural History is the only natural history museum in the greater Phoenix area and is located in Mesa, Arizona. It exhibits the natural and cultural history of the Southwestern United States.
The University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History, commonly known as the UO Natural History Museum, is an American natural history museum at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Located near Hayward Field on the east side of the UO campus, it is the largest natural history museum between Seattle and San Francisco and a center for archaeological and paleontological research in the Pacific Northwest and the wider world. The museum headquarters and public spaces are located at 1680 East 15th Avenue in a building inspired by the design of Pacific Northwest Native longhouses.
Staten Island Museum is Staten Island’s oldest cultural institution, and the only remaining general interest museum in New York City.
Georgia Museum of Natural History is the U.S. state of Georgia's museum of natural history located in Athens. The science portion of the museum has fourteen different collections in Archaeology, Arthropods, Botany Herbarium, Economic Geology, Herpetology, Ichthyology, Invertebrate Biology, Mammalogy, Mycological Herbarium, Ornithology, Paleontology, Pollen and Plant Microspore, Rocks and Minerals, and Zooarchaeology, as well as more than 325,000 ethanol-preserved fish and other animal specimens. These alcohol-preserved tissues provide greater accessibility for evaluation of genomic diversity in these specimens. In addition, there are exhibits, archives, and entertainment for children. Its more than seven million objects makes it one of the largest museums in the Southeast. The museum's webpage is one of the most visited on the University of Georgia website.
The New Jersey State Museum is located at 205 West State Street in Trenton, New Jersey, overlooking the Delaware River, and serves a broad region between New York and Philadelphia. The museum's collections include natural history specimens, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, and cultural history and fine art objects, and exhibitions, educational programs and research provide context for the collections. The museum, a division of the New Jersey Department of State, includes a 140-seat planetarium and a 384-seat auditorium.
The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. The museum recently moved to a new location at 1105 North University Avenue, in the University of Michigan Biological Sciences Building. It will reopen in April 2019.
A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more.
An Objects conservator is a professional, working in a museum setting or private practice, that specializes in the conservation of three-dimensional works. They undergo specialized education, training, and experience that allows them to formulate and implement preventive strategies and invasive treatment protocols to preserve cultural property for the future. Objects conservators typically specialize in one type of material or class of cultural property, including metals, archaeological artifacts, ethnographic artifacts, glass, and ceramic art. Objects conservation presents many challenges due to their three-dimensional form and composite nature.
The Museum of Idaho (MOI) is a history and science museum in downtown Idaho Falls, Idaho. Its mission is to educate, inform, and create engaging experiences for the public through exhibits, events, and classes related to the natural environment and cultural history of Idaho and the Intermountain West. It has also become a tourist destination through its prominent traveling exhibits on general-interest subjects. Its tagline is “bringing the world to Idaho, and Idaho to the world”.
