International Museum Day has been celebrated all over the world since 1977. Each year, a theme is decided on by the Advisory Committee.

The event provides the opportunity for museum professionals to meet the public and alert them to the challenges that museums face if they are to be - as in the ICOM definition of museums - “an institution in the service of society and of its development”.

The chosen topic is also discussed in ICOM News, a review of the related activities is produced and made available to members of ICOM.

It has been recommended that this celebration be held each year on 18 May (Given that each country has its own specific traditions and conditions, we recommend that members organise their events around 18 May), in the spirit of the motto: « Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, co-operation and peace among peoples »

The ICOM Secretariat invites all members to celebrate International Museum Day around 18 May.
- Suggested activities to celebrate this event.
- International Museum Day Resource Guide

On the one hand the Museums of Bizcaya will offer this Sunday a special programming on the occasion of the International Day of the Museums, inside which 19 spaces of this type distributed by the whole Historical Territory will receive shows, guided visits, admission free, didactic workshops, gifts and a wide range of activities.

The deputy of Culture of the Council of Bizcaya, Josune Ariztondo accompanied of representatives of 19 Bizcayan museums, will present tomorrow in the ‘Arkeologi Museoa’ of Bilbao this programming, which will develop under the title of ‘ A Cultural Sustainable Tourism ‘.

On the other hand seven centers of San Sebastian organize a battery of acts during the weekend as open days, holding a guided visits, projections, photographic contests and a wide range of activities that will use as prologue and celebration in Gipuzkoa of the International Day of the Museums of next Monday with a score of activities in Ekainberri, the Naval Museum, Zumalakarregi, Igartubeiti and Agorregi, which are managed by the institution and which will open their doors the public for free.

The new adviser of Culture will visit on Monday the works of San Telmo’s Museum. It will be precisely this day the one that will mark the visit of the new adviser of Culture of the Basque Government, Blanca Urgell, to the works of rehabilitation of San Telmo’s Museum, invited by the mayor of the city, Odón Elorza.

And finally the Deputation of Alava has organized a complete program of cultural activities that includes workshops for children and adults, a spectacle of dance and diverse exhibitions. The day will serve in addition to promote the Basque language, as indicated the deputy of Culture, Lorraine Lopez de Lacalle.

The program, which will start at the beginning of week with the first workshops in the museums of Fine Arts, Sacred Art, Natural Sciences and Archaeologyc - there is expected the participation of 6.500 children and 1.000 adults-, fuses different artistic disciplines in the same place. This way, the companies Moaré and Ikutu will realize on Saturday, the 17th a show of improvisation of dance in three rooms of exhibitions of the Artium, which during the weekend the tariff will apply ‘You decide’.  That is to say, the visitors just will have to pay the will.Four days later, the Principal Theatre will shelter a concert of the Municipal Band, which will interpret several pieces while there is projected an montage of the pupils of the School of Arts and Offices.

Among the exhibitions they emphasize the sample that will be carried out in the Museum of Fine Arts by the acquisitions of work of 2006 and 2007; and in the Museum of Natural Sciences, which has prepared an montage on the company that at the end of the 19th century developed a mechanism to extract water of a well of the White Virgin. The culture will come, likewise, to the villages with an exhibition of pottery.