Museum presentation and new trends in exhibition displays from a museological perspective using the example of selected European university museums and collections

Abstract

Against the background of museological theory, this paper questions new trends in current museum exhibition displays, focusing on universities as institutions of higher education and as preservers of cultural heritage. The first part of this paper provides an overview of university heritage, its scale and scope and the labels of heritagisation that can be linked to it. In the second part of the paper, select examples of university exhibitions are introduced – each of which dealing with a specific university heritage. These examples are all part of the Coimbra Group network of universities, which includes some of the oldest universities in Europe. The exhibitions are analysed in terms of their forms of presentation, the way in which they deal with objects as evidence for university history and the communication modes they use.