The Social Significance of Museums

Museums have a versatile social significance, and provide society with about as much in euros as the amount that governments invest in museums through subsidies. That is the conclusion of

the Dutch Museum Association after two independent studies. In the publication The Social Significance of Museums DSP-groep analyzes the qualitative social value of museums.

Social value

In the publication The Social Significance of Museums DSP-groep analyzes the qualitative social value of museums, which covers five different areas.

1. The collection value refers to museums as treasuries of collections and stories of (inter)national, regional and local significance.
2. Museums are our collective memory of which we are proud and derive our identity from.
3. The connecting value of museums is expressed in the meeting place that they form, where links are established between past, present and future.
4. Museums provide a learning environment for everyone. In addition to this educational value museums give visitors an experience, fun, pleasure and inspiration.
5. And last but not least, museums generate economic value, including tourist spending, spatial quality, employment and city and regional promotion.

For the Dutch Museum Association the research outcome is an incentive to stimulate cooperation between the museum sector, Governments, civil society, education, funds, media and businesses. Supported by the results of the two studies, museums have a better understanding of how to profile themselves on (one of) the five social values.