Portal:Museums

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, along the Nervión Estuary in central Bilbao

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spain, with an exhibition of 250 contemporary works of art. Built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Cantabrian Sea, it is one of several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists. It is one of the largest museums in Spain.

One of the most admired works of contemporary architecture, the building has been hailed as a "signal moment in the architectural culture", because it represents "one of those rare moments when critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something", according to architectural critic Paul Goldberger. The museum was the building most frequently named as one of the most important works completed since 1980 in the 2010 World Architecture Survey among architecture experts. (Full article...)

A Collections Management System (CMS), sometimes called a Collections Information System, is software used by the collections staff of a collecting institution or by individual private collectors and collecting hobbyists or enthusiasts. Collecting institutions are primarily museums and archives and cover a very broad range from huge, international institutions, to very small or niche-specialty institutions such as local historical museums and preservation societies. Secondarily, libraries and galleries are also collecting institutions. Collections Management Systems (CMSs) allow individuals or collecting institutions to organize, control, and manage their collections' objects by “tracking all information related to and about” those objects. In larger institutions, the CMS may be used by collections staff such as registrars, collections managers, and curators to record information such as object locations, provenance, curatorial information, conservation reports, professional appraisals, and exhibition histories. All of this recorded information is then also accessed and used by other institutional departments such as “education, membership, accounting, and administration."

Though early Collections Management Systems were cataloging databases, essentially digital versions of card catalogs, more recent and advanced systems are being used to improve communication between museum staff and to automate and manage collections-based tasks and workflows. Collections Management Systems are also used to provide access to information about an institution's collections and objects to academic researchers, institutional volunteers, and the public, increasingly through online methods. (Full article...)

• ... that the 1932 Detroit Wolves won the pennant with an outfielder, first baseman, shortstop, and two pitchers who were all inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame?
• ... that Kolkata's Currency Building has housed the Agra Bank, an office for the issue and exchange of currency, the Reserve Bank of India, and a public art museum?
• ... that to rebuild the collection of Tāoga Niue Museum in the aftermath of Cyclone Heta, staff searched through rubbish dumps for historic items?
• ... that the 1911 benefit game for Addie Joss was an all-star game that included nine members of the Baseball Hall of Fame?
• ... that squatters in Hamburg briefly occupied the former Erotic Art Museum?
• ... that Making a New World, a concept album by Field Music about the after-effects of World War I, originated from a commission by the Imperial War Museum?

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Museums-related articles, see WikiProject Museums.

Exhibits at the Swedish Museum of Natural History

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. (Full article...)

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