Experience report: the treatment and organization of the Center for Museological Memory in Brazil assets, Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The museology course at the School of Museology at UNIRIO university was originated from the first course of museums in Brazil and the Americas. The idea behind it dates back to 1922, when the National History Museum (Museu Histórico Nacional - MHN), idealized by Gustavo Barroso, was founded. The opening of the museum and the advent in 1932 of the Technical Course in Museums under Rodolfo Garcia, which was later run by Barroso, were interrelated, despite the ten- year gap between them, as they were both products of the prevailing nationalism during this period of political and ideological change, which impacted on the area of culture. In 2005, the Project for the Preservation of the Memory of Museology in Brazil and the Center for Museological Memory (NUMMUS) were both established at UNIRIO with the purpose of retrieving the references, history and memory of the professionals who were active in and defended the cause of museology and museums, as well as preserving and communicating information and research on the topic. Since then, NUMMUS has been collecting documents, conserving, documenting and researching them, as well as communicating them via publications the retrieval and dissemination of the collective memory of Museology and the professionals engaged in it. This paper gives an overview of the collection held by NUMMUS and the related conservation activities, as well as presenting a brief history of the Course in Museums until the present day.