한국 사회와 박물관: 기능 및 역할 변화를 중심으로

Abstract

In the rapidly changing modern society, a museum is also changing. A museum collecting, preserving, and displaying important scholarly materials provides an opportunity for public to appreciate the collections. Research on the collections is one of the important roles of the museum. As a new paradigm of cultural heritage and museum emerges, the museum runs a variety of education and experience programs. The museum operation has been in line with the classical definition for a long time. Most domestic and foreign ones had operated exhibition halls and had waited for visitors. Today, in addition to its original functions and roles, diverse education-programs as well as folk games, concerts, plays, and museum for children are also added. Instead, field surveys and scholarly investigations are seriously reduced. The sociocultural change in the Korean society in the last half century was reviewed in the mirror of funeral and ancestral rite rituals. Computers and smartphones well represent a museum in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The museum became interested in the products of the contemporary society, and the operating system was changed. A multicultural family is an element and task of the modern Korean society, and the museum is not free from solving our social problems. However, the basic role of the museum should remain unchanged, and in particular, the function of the exhibition and research should be emphasized. Despite positive effects of the events recruiting visitors, a case of the tail wagging the dog is more than undesirable. The museum is transforming to the social change. Though the mission and role of the museum has been expanded, the museum must adhere to its basic mission. The museum is a museum, or it is nothing.