ABSTRACT
When I was a curator, some people (though sincere enough) would ask me: ‘What on earth are you doing all day long in your museum?’ Most of them have learned that we do exhibitions, although they wonder why it takes so long to do one. That was misunderstanding on the part of our users. Recently I have put myself in a situation that I have to say: ‘I am a museologist and I lecture on it at the University.’ It is a happy circumstance if they catch ‘musicology’ instead, and they just think that I am not good enough as a musician to play an instrument correctly. Most museum professionals do know, however, that museology has nothing to do with music, but they think museology is some kind of fiddling anyhow. That misunderstanding certainly comes from sections of our profession.
