A university museum is a repository of collections run by a university, typically founded to aid teaching and research within the institution of higher learning. The Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford in England is an early example, originally housed in the building that is now the Museum of the History of Science. A more recent example is the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath, originally constructed as a hotel in 1796 it is now the official museum of the University of Bath.
Historically, the focus of university museums and galleries included curatorial research into, as well as the display of, commemorative, ceremonial, decorative and didactic collections. [1] For academics, these collections served as a valuable research resource. For students, museums performed both a leisure and learning function, developing their visual literacy, critical thinking, and creative skills. Aside from campus, museums served their perspective city and town's communities, spreading museological literacy among the different target audiences. [2]
With decades, the role of the university museums changed as they started to become more open and receptive to the cultural needs of the public. [3] Public educational outreach is considered now by many university museums as an integral part of their mission, some even adopt a market approach. [4] Changes and decentralization of the institutional values coinciding with budgeting shortfalls in some cases "gave rise to tensions and a lack of cohesive identity among a demoralized staff". [5] Many campus museums "have critical needs for facilities, staff, and support". [6] In the 21st century, despite the challenges brought by transition, [7] the university museums not only continue to play important role in object-based learning [8] (tradition that reaches beyond the record of the founding of the University of Bologna [9] ) but also perform important civic and cultural functions for the larger society. [10]
Organizationally, university museums are represented by a variety of historical, traditional and novel entities, such as anatomical theaters and archeology museums, natural science and art museums, history museums, planetariums, arboretums and aquariums, archives and house-museums, science and arts centers, ecomuseums, hospital museums, and contemporary art galleries, as well as discipline-specific collections hosted by academic departments and institutes; some special collections are hosted by the university libraries. [11] In general, university museums and collections are classified based on disciplinary criteria or the nature of the artifacts. [12] In Europe the number of the university museums and collections is estimated as 12,914. [13]
The first university museums can be traced to the medieval universities and their teaching collections to support medical education — the physic, or botanical, garden (hortus medicus) and the anatomical theatre (theatrum anatomicum). The first hortus medicus was established in Italy in either Padua or Pisa in the 1540s and the first theatrum anatomicum in Padua in 1594 for the purpose of educating both the apothecaries and doctors. [14] In the beginning of the 17th century, anatomical theaters were established at the universities of Bologna, Ferrara, Leiden and Montpellier. [12] There are records that document the use of Pisa's hortus medicus opened in the 1590s as a teaching museum. [15] Soon, the teaching museum model was adopted by painters, sculptors, and architects. The cabinets of physics and chemistry followed the suit. [12] At the University of Oxford, the picture gallery of Christ Church College was founded in 1546. In 1671, the University of Basel granted public access to the Basilius Amerbach's cabinet, which was donated by the city of Basel.
A botanical garden or botanic garden is a garden with a documented collection of living plants for the purpose of scientific research, conservation, display, and education. Typically plants are labelled with their botanical names. It may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and other succulent plants, herb gardens, plants from particular parts of the world, and so on; there may be greenhouses, shadehouses, again with special collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants, or other exotic plants.
Frederik Ruysch was a Dutch botanist and anatomist. He is known for developing techniques for preserving anatomical specimens, which he used to create dioramas or scenes incorporating human parts. His anatomical preparations included over 2,000 anatomical, pathological, zoological, and botanical specimens, which were preserved by either drying or embalming. Ruysch is also known for his proof of valves in the lymphatic system, the vomeronasal organ in snakes, and arteria centralis oculi. He was the first to describe the disease that is today known as Hirschsprung's disease, as well as several pathological conditions, including intracranial teratoma, enchondromatosis, and Majewski syndrome.
The University of Padua is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, thus, it is the second-oldest university in Italy, as well as the world's fifth-oldest surviving university.
Gaspard Bauhin or Caspar Bauhin, was a Swiss botanist whose Pinax theatri botanici (1623) described thousands of plants and classified them in a manner that draws comparisons to the later binomial nomenclature of Linnaeus. He was a disciple of the famous Italian physician Girolamo Mercuriale and he also worked on human anatomical nomenclature.
Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link was a German naturalist and botanist. The standard author abbreviation Link is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
An anatomical theatre was a specialised building or room, resembling a theatre, used in teaching anatomy at early modern universities. They were typically constructed with a tiered structure surrounding a central table, allowing a larger audience to see the dissection of cadavers more closely than would have been possible in a non-specialized setting.
Rijksmuseum Boerhaave is a museum of the history of science and medicine, based in Leiden, Netherlands. The museum hosts a collection of historical scientific instruments from all disciplines, but mainly from medicine, physics, and astronomy.
Gustavianum is the oldest standing building of Uppsala University. It was built between 1622 and 1625, and was used as the main building of the university between 1778 and 1887. Since 1997, it has been used as the university's museum.
The Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa, located in the city of Pisa in Tuscany, Italy, is a renowned institution dedicated to the study and display of natural history. The museum is home to one of the largest collections of cetacean skeletons in Europe, showcasing an impressive array of marine mammal specimens. In addition to its extensive cetacean holdings, the museum's oldest collections include seashells amassed by the Italian invertebrate scientist, Niccolò Gualtieri. Serving as both an educational and research institution, the museum invites visitors and scholars to explore the diversity and complexity of the natural world.
A physic garden is a type of herb garden with medicinal plants. Botanical gardens developed from them.
The Yager Museum of Art & Culture is located on the campus of Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York and is open to the public during the academic year; summer hours vary.
Meg Linton is an American curator of contemporary art and a writer. Her curatorial efforts have ranged from historical investigations such as "Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman’s Building", "The Los Angeles School: Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley, June Harwood, Helen Lundeberg, John McLaughlin", and "In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor" to showcasing the work of single artists who are stylistically different such as "Alison Saar: STILL.. .", "Robert Williams: Through Prehensile Eye," and "Joan Tanner: On Tenderhook" to group exhibitions such as "Mexicali Biennial 2010," "Do It Now: Live Green!" and "Tapping the Third Realm."
The Fralin Museum of Art is an art museum at the University of Virginia. Before 2012, it was known as the University of Virginia Art Museum. It occupies the historic Thomas H. Bayly Building on Rugby Road in Charlottesville, Virginia, a short distance from the Rotunda. The museum's permanent collection consists of nearly 14,000 works; African art, American Indian art, and European and American painting, photography, and works on paper are particularly well represented. The Fralin serves as a teaching museum for academic departments in the university, and serves the community at large with several outreach programs. Admission is free of charge and open to the public.
The University Engagement Programme of the Ashmolean Museum was established at the University of Oxford in 2012 with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Its purpose is to explore new avenues for the use of the Museum’s collections in the teaching of the University.
The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery is a part of Skidmore College and located in Saratoga Springs, New York.
The Goldstein Museum of Design (GMD) is a museum on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota. It is part of the university's College of Design. GMD was founded in 1976 and is the only museum in the Upper Midwest specializing in designed objects.
Pieter Pauw, was a Dutch botanist and anatomist. He was a student of Hieronymus Fabricius. He was the first Anatomy Professor at University of Leiden.
The Theatrum Anatomicum or Leiden anatomical theatre was an anatomical theatre and cabinet of curiosities of Leiden University that opened in Leiden in the Netherlands in 1594. It was one of the first anatomical theatres in Europe.
Theatrum Pictorium, or Theatre of Painting, is a short-hand name of a book published in the 1660s by David Teniers the Younger for his employer, the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. It catalogs 243 Italian paintings in the Archduke's collection of over 1300 paintings. The paintings are reproduced by engravings made by various engravers after reduced-size copies (modelli) created by Teniers. David Teniers' brother Abraham Teniers was involved in organizing the publication of the work. A second edition with page numbers was published in 1673.
The Chau Chak Wing Museum is a museum at the University of Sydney, Australia.