Museology

The museology research at the Department of Cultural Sciences is directed above all towards the fields in which the museum and cultural heritage sectors are currently undergoing changes. Museums face many different types of challenges today. They are to attract new visitor groups and sponsors from business and industry, they are to be at the cutting edge in their choice of exhibitions, while being expected at the same time not to lose their broad popular appeal. One project which is funded within the framework of Programme K is entitled "Museums in transformation" and tackles precisely this problem. The project investigates the process of change undergone by Swedish museums over the last decade. Another project which is under development is "Museums – the interface between the physical and the digital". Digital accessibility and public communication have brought about changes in the traditional working methods within museums and have forced the setting of new priorities. Yet the results of these efforts and the challenges that have been faced have not been investigated in a thorough and critical manner. In addition to the above, the relationship linking museums and the cultural heritage sector to their collections is also being studied in an ongoing thesis (within the subject of ethnology). The subject is so far only represented by one person. But when the Faculties of Humanities and Theology created the cultural sciences department, good conditions were established for the development of museology research. The above-mentioned thesis is an example of the way in which museology and ethnology can complement one another. The fact that museology is connected to the same division as archival science and library and information science is also an advantage. This has, among other things, benefited the development of research issues related to the problems of the digitisation of museums. The future investments that the faculty will hopefully make to promote and reinforce traverse research environments for the humanities will definitely strengthen museological research.