The most obvious lies in the museum typology. The museum houses a collection of objects, in this case dictionaries and related lexicographical artifacts, that must be archived and displayed. Both archive and display mandate some type of ordering system so users might access the objects and the information they purvey. Dictionaries, at their most basic, contain word-lists with definitions and pronunciation. Dictionaries rely upon familiarity with the alphabet in order to be viable tools for reference, education, and collection.
Dictionaries exist as both tool and object.
Dictionaries may be characterized as word-museums, institutional sites for education, enlightenment, legitimization. These word-museums are housed in a very particular form of book. Also like museums for objects, dictionaries act as an apparatus for the ordering and codifying the world around us. They claim objectivity, authority and concern for some cultural good, in the way museums do. It treats the dictionaries as artifacts rather than tools.