I'm currently wrestling with a question that doesn't seem to have any kind of answer. As my Thesis is about communication both in libraries and museums I've attempted to seek a common denominator for them.
I started from memory institutions as it's a rather common term for libraries, museums & archives - at least in LIS. It has been applied for discussing the issues of collecting, organising and preserving etc the documents - and this has been the main commonality of these organisations. Then I realised that if my Thesis will not be written as a LIS but rather as a communication studies Thesis I should use proper terms as well. The problem is, however, that usually communication studies haven't been particularly interested in museums, libraries or archives in one bunch. Separately, yes. But finding a common name for these organisations is rather rare. In case anyone has any information about that kind of publications, please comment about it.
Anyway, I've also looked for knowledge institutions. But this term is not so eagerly applied for museums or libraries. As the initial "googling" showed, universities and institutes are with no doubt, knowledge institutions. Any kind of educating establishments may be "knowledge institutions". There was a breeze of libraries as knowledge institutions, initiated by Redmond Kathleen Molz in 1988 but I can't access it. And looks like it has been one of the really few cases when a library has been called so - attempting to emphasise the aspect of a library as a knowledge institution, but not referring to libraries and museums etc. I also think I saw the concept of knowledge institutions in Canadian literature.
Cultural heritage institutions, cultural institutions and heritage institutions seem to be relevant concepts in Anglo-American publications (it's ok to prove I'm wrong). In this very journal where hopefully next article will be published, also one of the authors has referred to cultural institutions. So maybe there's no point in swimming upstream, and to use "cultural institutions" as well? After all, the object of the research is still the same. Only slightly in different shell.
I started from memory institutions as it's a rather common term for libraries, museums & archives - at least in LIS. It has been applied for discussing the issues of collecting, organising and preserving etc the documents - and this has been the main commonality of these organisations. Then I realised that if my Thesis will not be written as a LIS but rather as a communication studies Thesis I should use proper terms as well. The problem is, however, that usually communication studies haven't been particularly interested in museums, libraries or archives in one bunch. Separately, yes. But finding a common name for these organisations is rather rare. In case anyone has any information about that kind of publications, please comment about it.
Anyway, I've also looked for knowledge institutions. But this term is not so eagerly applied for museums or libraries. As the initial "googling" showed, universities and institutes are with no doubt, knowledge institutions. Any kind of educating establishments may be "knowledge institutions". There was a breeze of libraries as knowledge institutions, initiated by Redmond Kathleen Molz in 1988 but I can't access it. And looks like it has been one of the really few cases when a library has been called so - attempting to emphasise the aspect of a library as a knowledge institution, but not referring to libraries and museums etc. I also think I saw the concept of knowledge institutions in Canadian literature.
Cultural heritage institutions, cultural institutions and heritage institutions seem to be relevant concepts in Anglo-American publications (it's ok to prove I'm wrong). In this very journal where hopefully next article will be published, also one of the authors has referred to cultural institutions. So maybe there's no point in swimming upstream, and to use "cultural institutions" as well? After all, the object of the research is still the same. Only slightly in different shell.
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