ABSTRACT
Most formal definitions of ‘museums’ stress the functional aspects of museum provision. Few are invested with any form of ideal or vision: the ‘doing’ predominates. Such definitions help us define the activities of museums yet rarely their perceived social, cultural or political purposes. Individual museums have redressed this by devising ‘mission statements’, that is, short summaries of their ultimate goals. In these, philosophy dominates over function, dreaming over doing, thinking over reacting. This is an important task. Arguably, there has to be space in museum work for vision and hope; moreover there has to be opportunity for the contemplation of horizons broader than the next acquisition or the reorganization of the stores.
