Organisational development: Process of analysing the formal and informal structures of the museum, determining needs and problems, and designing a systematic plan for incorporating appropriate, feasible changes into the structures to increase the overall effectiveness of service delivery by the museum or one of its programmes.

Organisational structure and infrastructure: Definition of the relationships, roles, responsibilities, and capabilities within an organisation.

Person specification: This is developed from the Job Description and identifies the qualifications, skills and experience needed in order to be able to do the job at the required standard.

Pilot project: Initial project designed and funded to serve as a model for similar projects meeting the same needs in other areas.

Planning: Devising methods through which to achieve an objective. Detailed expression of an action program to reach an identified objective, enabling a coordinated, shared effort.

Preservation (of collections): The reduction of any and all future losses to the collection.

Preventive conservation: Measures to maintain the collections in stable condition through preventive maintenance, condition surveys, environmental controls and pest management (as opposed to processes involving physical intervention, e.g. restoration).

Provenance: The full history and ownership of an item from the time of its creation or discovery through to the present day, from which authenticity and legal ownership are determined.

Policy deployment: Developing and communicating guidance needed to coordinate and execute activity throughout the museum to achieve common goals and objectives.

Public relations: Public relations are the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation and its public.

Record keeping: Design and implementation of a system to collect management or program information.

Relative humidity (abbreviation: RH or RH): The amount of moisture vapour (gas) in the air, expressed as a percentage of the maximum possible at that temperature. This is usually expressed as a percentage of the moisture level of saturated air at a given temperature.

Risk (to the collections): Degree of danger of loss to the collections, whether total and catastrophic, or gradual and cumulative from any cause, whether natural or humanly induced, accidental or deliberate. Risk can be defined as a product of probability and consequences of the incident, i.e. Risk = Probability x Consequences

Risk analysis: A process in which the museum management identifies the frequency and seriousness of dangers threatening the museum (its employees, visitors, collections, other movable and immovable property and reputation). The outcome of risk analysis is the assessment of each of the risks - for the purposes of this chapter, on a five-grade scale: (a) negligible; (b) low; (c) medium; (d) high, and (e) catastrophic.

Security: Controlled access to premises for the public, staff and researchers to limit the opportunities for theft and destruction to collections.

Showcase (vitrine): Specially designed piece of furniture dedicated to display one or several objects.

Special events: Activities used to draw attention to the museum or to raise money, for example, exhibition receptions, open houses, and banquets.

Stakeholders: the various audience groups and others with a legal, financial or moral interest in the museum and its responsibilities and work. all those people who would directly or indirectly be affected by the action of a museum including employees, government officials, the local or national community, researchers and other museum professionals as well as the visitors.

Security management: Includes all management instruments, measures and procedures having impact on the level of the institution's security.

Security policy: A document or other statement defining, on the basis of risk analysis, the required level of the museum's security (the acceptable level of individual risks).

Strategic plan of museum protection: Includes all planned activities aimed at fortifying the organisation against various kinds of risks (ensuring security of the museum) on the required level and with clearly defined priorities

SWOT analysis: An analysis of the museum's overall situation, both of the organisation itself and the environment. Internal factors are analysed according to Strengths and Weaknesses, external factors according to Opportunities and Threats - hence "SWOT".

Target audience: The group for which an exhibit, exhibition or display is intended. organisation as the focus of its marketing, sales, or other efforts.

Teamwork: The coordinated effort and activity between several individuals in which each does a part.

Theft: a taking of property with the intent to deprive the owner of it.

Valid tide: Indisputable legal right to ownership of property; supported by full provenance of the item from discovery or production. Visitor - actual, potential & virtual: Actual visitors are the current audience of the museum, potential visitors are others within the same community or region who the museum may wish to attract in the future, while virtual visitors are those making use of the museum's information and other resources via the Internet usually through websites and on-line databases of the museum's collections and environmental records.

Visitor studies: Market research techniques and research which aims to collect information about visitors, their views and experiences of the museum, its displays, exhibitions and services.

Web: Popular abbreviation for the Internet-based World Wide Web information and communication system.