A Museum Glossary

Like other fields of study or businesses, museums use some words that have definitions peculiar to them. You will want your students to become familiar with the words in this list before their museum visit. Use these words in games and for spelling lists before you come.

• Archaeologist - A person who studies the way people lived a long time ago by digging up and examining bones, fossils, and artifacts found in the earth or under its waters.
• Archives - A place where documents and photographs that have historical value are organized and stored.
• Artifact - An object made by people.
• Collection - A group of objects that have been gathered together because they have something in common, such as use, style, where they were found or when they were made.
• Curator - A person who is in charge of the collections, exhibits, research activities or educational programs of a museum, zoo or other place with exhibits.
• Docent - A volunteer trained to share information with visitors in a museum.
• Document - A written or printed paper that gives official proof and information about something such as a birth certificate, a diploma or citizenship papers.
• Era - A period of time or of history, especially one that includes or begins or ends with an important event such as the "Civil War era."
• Exhibit - The display of a collection that has been organized according to a theme (also called an "exhibition"). To exhibit is to show objects by putting them on display.
• Gallery - A room or building where a collection is exhibited.
• Historian - A person who works at studying and writing or teaching about history.
• Museum - A place where objects of art, science or history are stored and exhibited.
• Preservation - The work of keeping artifacts, buildings or things in nature from being lost, damaged or destroyed so that they can continue into the future.
• Primary source - A firsthand document such as a diary or a letter or an official record such as a birth certificate.
• Secondary source - A document that is written based on a primary source such as a biography, a textbook or a magazine article.
• Time line - A list of events or things placed in such a way as to show the order in which they occurred in history.

Updated 12/23/2003

Michigan Historical Center, Department of History, Arts and Libraries
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