A university museum: Istanbul Ex-libris Museum

Abstract

Museums are cultural institutions that pass the treasures they host on to the future generations. The mission of modern museology is to educate the community and to contribute to its sociocultural development. Museums should not only be fostered by the state but all the segments of the society. Creating knowledge and carrying it on to the future generations, universities can be the leaders of museography. The communication and interaction of the museum and university with the public can be facilitated. There are only 38 university museums in Turkey. One of them is Istanbul Exlibris Museum (IEM) in Işık University. Small but highly functional museum has a collection of great value. Ex-libris are printmaking artwork affixed to the inside cover of books and contain the name of the owner of book. Istanbul Ex-Libris Society has organized three international competitions under the leadership of Hasip Pektas and the collected pieces of ex-libris have found a venue within the premises of Işık University. IEM has 14,000 pieces of ex-libris. All students visit the museum and participate in workshops. The goal of the museum is to remain for the future as an online museum. The purpose of this research is to share IEM’s development.