A museum is a permanent institution and custodian of collections. It uses its collections to inform and instruct the citizens of its community and of its nation. Museums offer vast collections of various kinds of art, cultural and historic objects.
Most of the States in India have at least one important museum. They usually emphasize the archaeology of the vicinity. But in some cases, they include arts and decorative arts, and also, occasionally, some ethnology and natural history.
At the present time, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, and Mumbai may be considered the major museum centers of the country. Kolkata, in addition to the Indian Museum, a National Museum, is rich in so many other specialized museums, under departments of the Central Government or of the State, under learned societies and under private trusts.
Since the early 1950s the pace of museum development has quickened. The need for trained staff to maintain museums resulted in the establishment of courses in Museology.
The university art museums serve not only the students, but because of the excellence of their collections, are valuable to their respective communities, but even more important, have high international reputations among specialists in Indian studies in the West.
Accordingly, museums are expected to cooperate with the educational system, supplying appropriate contributions from their vast stores of knowledge in order to supplement and enrich the formal curriculum. But, in addition, museums are now called on for positive programs for the general public as an important part of the doctrine of ‘life-long learning’, advocated by UNESCO as the right of everyone today.