Museums in the context of "Collections management"

Public history is a broad range of activities undertaken by people with some training in the discipline of history who are generally working outside of specialized academic settings. Public history practice is deeply rooted in the areas of historic preservation, archival science, oral history, museum curatorship, and other related fields. The field has become increasingly professionalized in the United States and Canada since the late 1970s. Some of the most common settings for the practice of public history are museums, historic homes and historic sites, parks, battlefields, archives, film and television companies, new media, and all levels of government.

This is a list of the most-visited museums in the world in 2024. Primary sources include annual attendance statistics in the "Art Newspaper" (March 2025}! the TEA Museum Index for 2024, published August 2025, the annual report of the National Cultural Heritage Administration of the Chinese Government, the Smithsonian News Desk in the United States, the annual report of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions in the United Kingdom, and museum websites.

A museum/library/archival registrar is responsible for implementing policies and procedures that relate to caring for collections of cultural institutions like archives, libraries, and museums. These policies are found in the museum's collections policy, the guiding tenet of the museum explaining why the institution is in operation, dictating the museum's professional standards regarding the objects left in its care. Registrars focus on sections that include acquisitions, loans, exhibitions, deaccessions, storage, packing and shipping, security of objects in transit, insurance policies, and risk management.

As a collections care professional, they work with collection managers, conservators, and curators to balance public access to objects with the conditions needed to maintain preservation. Focusing on documentation, registrars are responsible for developing and maintaining records management systems, with individual files for each object in the collection. Smaller and mid-sized institutions may combine the role of registrar with that of collections manager, while large institutions often have multiple registrars, each overseeing a different curatorial department.

The Georgian National Museum (Georgian: საქართველოს ეროვნული მუზეუმი, romanized: sakartvelos erovnuli muzeumi) unifies several leading museums in Georgia.The museum was established within the framework of structural, institutional, and legal reforms aimed at modernizing the management of the institutions united within this network, and at coordinating research and educational activities. Since its formation on December 30, 2004, the Museum has been directed by professor David Lordkipanidze.

The Georgian National Museum integrates the management of the following museums:

A collection manager ensures the proper care and preservation of objects within cultural institutions such as museums, libraries, and archives. Collection managers, along with registrars, curators, and conservators, play an important role in collections care. Collection Managers and Registrars are two distinct collection roles that are often combined into one within small to mid-size cultural institutions. Collection Managers can be found in large museums and those with a history and natural historyfocus whose diverse collections require experienced assessment to properly sort, catalog, and store artifacts. A collection manager may oversee the registrar, archivist, curator, photographer, or other collection professionals, and may assume the responsibilities of these roles in their absence within an organization.

A town centre is the commercial or geographical centre or core area of a town. Town centres are traditionally associated with shopping or retail. They are also the centre of communications with major public transport hubs such as train or bus stations. Public buildings including town halls, museums and libraries are often found in town centres.

Town centres are symbolic to settlements as a whole and often contain the best examples of architecture, main landmark buildings, statues and public spaces associated with a place.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an independent agency of the United States federal government established in 1996. It is the main source of federal support for libraries and museums within the United States, having the mission to "advance, support, and empower America's museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development." It has provided much of the funding for interlibrary loan programs in the United States.

In 2025 President Donald Trump issued an executive order that directed that the IMLS be eliminated "to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law", along with several other agencies. An ongoing lawsuit determined that the order was probably unconstitutional and the dismantling was temporarily blocked while the case continued through the courts.

Ethnographic museums, also known as ethnological museums, conserve, display and contextualize items relevant to the field of ethnography, the systematic study of people and cultures. Such museums include: