Glossary
Curator Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential curator terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key curator vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in curator training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Accession
- Formally adding objects.
- Acquisition
- Adding to the collection.
- Catalog
- Exhibition book.
- Climate control
- Temperature and humidity control.
- Collection
- Objects a museum holds.
- Condition report
- Object condition record.
- Conservation
- Preserving objects.
- Deaccession
- Removing objects.
- Docent
- Volunteer guide.
- Exhibition
- Public display.
- Gallery talk
- Public tour.
- Loan agreement
- Borrowing terms.
- Provenance
- Ownership history.
- Registrar
- Tracks collections.
- Wall text
- Exhibit labels.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Curator practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Curator training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.