1 Editorial team - dr. Virgil Ștefan Nițulescu – Editor in chief; - Raluca Iulia Capotă – peer-reviewer; - Mircea Victor Angelescu – peer-reviewer;
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D I G I T I Z A T I O N
3 5 Virgil Ștefan NIȚULESCU – Editorial
digitizaTION 8 Ghizela Cosma, Anca Ioana Docolin – World War I in 3D in Europeana. The Contribution of the Octavian Goga Cluj County Library 18 Dan Matei – The European Digital Library (and its National “Clones”): A Cultural Sock for Museums as Well 27 Izabela Luiza Pop, Tiberiu Alexa – The Use of Technological Innovation for Increasing the Museum Heritage Accessibility and Attractiveness 37 Alis Vasile – A New Digital Revolution - Open Data or the Re-use of Public Sector Information 43 Andrei Crăciun – Research on Cultural Heritage Digitization 50 Valer Rus – A New Approach to Digital Museum Heritage Valorization 55 Raluca Bem Neamu, Carmen Croitoru, Anda Becuț – Openness to the
BLE OF CONTENTS Effective Communication with the Audience by Reviewing the Museum Websites in Romania
TA 62 Natalia Negru – (Non) Digitization of Rural Museum Collections in Dâmbovița County. Challenges to the Digitization of the Moveable Rural Cultural Heritage
Cultural Marketing Conference The Bucharest Municipality Museum 71 Introduction. 74 Carmen Croitoru – Cultural Marketing 78 Adrian Majuru – The Museum of Our Ages, from Childhood to Old Age 81 Ovidiu Baron – The Fair as a Socio-cultural Event and a Public Education Tool 84 Raluca Ioana Andrei – Fairs and Museums - Economic and Educational Outlook 87 Coralia Costaș – Museum as a Cultural Product: From Customer Interest to Customer Retention 92 Horia-Ioan Iova – Alternative Spaces and Audiences – The Bucharest Municipality Museum
MISCELLANEOUS 96 Ioan Denuț, Alexandra Sîngeorzan, Elisabeta Fodor, Anca Cociotă – The Museum of Mineralogy at its 40th Anniversary 4 eDITORIAL
Virgil Ștefan NIȚULESCU, PhD
Editor in Chief
BLE OF CONTENTS TA
ABSTRACT
Abstract: Though Romania had good opportunities to be in the frontline of the European countries in the process of digitising the national cultural heritage, most of the last 15 years were lost, as the Ministry of Culture proved little interest in sustaining this advantage. That is why, after joining the EU, Romania had to face an important gap, regarding the progress made in the rest of Europe. Some of the reasons, beside the governmental attitude, are the scarce human resources, the lack of spaces and technology, the completely insufficient budgets for digitisation, the low salaries of the personnel and the neglecting of the major role which should be played by the national integrator, the National Institute of Cultural Heritage. The present issue of our journal for museums is presenting only some relevant cases about the efforts made by museums in digitising their cultural heritage, as well as some theoretical debates. Also, we are raising some questions about the duties of the national authorities, which are not fulfilled.
Key-words: Romanian museums, digitisation.
5 The issue of cultural heritage digitizing (and this be the most important platform of cultural resources phrase is purely conventional; in fact, it refers on the continent, several other initiatives, such as to cultural resources, and not just to what the Google Art Project, have succeeded to resuscitate Romanian law typically defines asproperty ) has been the interest of major holders of movable cultural discussed before in “Revista Muzeelor” (Romanian heritage. Journal of Museums) and has been reiterated more and more frequently in the last two decades. On the other hand however, one should not overlook Romania, unlike many European countries, enjoyed the efforts undertaken by other institutions that, the initial advantage of having a centralized cultural though they are not museums, they are important goods record system, which facilitated a smooth cultural heritage managers, as it is the case, for transition to the digitization process. However, the example, of the National Archives of Romania, decentralization of cultural institutions in Romania the National Library of Romania or the Romanian did not work as expected, fact that adversely Academy. impacted on the process of collection, management and optimization of cultural goods databases. At this moment, I do not believe that there are still people or institutions in Romania to question the Under the circumstances, despite the efforts made need for digitization of the cultural heritage, ina by the former Institute for Cultural Memory and a world where the first impulse we feel when we want few enthusiasts in the cultural field, when Romania to find out more about a certain cultural good from joined the European Union, the gap between our anywhere in the world is to search the databases country and the other Member States, where available online. Instead, someone might ask why digitization had been a priority since the end of the cultural heritage digitization needs a national last century, became evident. integrator, for that matter. I will briefly answer this question below. Efforts to resume cultural heritage digitization and take it to the next level intensified for a short while, Firstly, the big international databases, including more specifically in 2007 and 2008, only to be de europeana, have put in place specific data uploading facto abandoned in the next six years, due to the rules, which imply a degree of standardization that reorganization (by a merger) of the Institute for the museums cannot always achive by themselves . Cultural Memory. By the time the National Heritage Secondly, before data get to be known at continental Institute finally managed to get the process up or global level, it would be desirable that they be and running again, a lot of precious resources had available to the users in Romania – who are the first been lost, not only in terms of time, but, worse people interested to get to know more about their even, in terms of people and field-related expertise. national heritage, be they specialists or members Meanwhile though, some of the museums in Romania of the general public. And this is precisely the role had taken over the digitization task, either on their of the National Heritage Institute, among others. own initiative or in response to impulses coming Finally, the technical possibilities of Romania in from abroad. Besides europeana, which continues to terms of digitization are limited. The Therefore, a 6 national integrator would facilitate the exchange lines to digitization. Finally, I as I said before, the of information among institutions and would help lack (or, more exactly, the disregarding of) a national streamline the heritage digitization process. integrator generates serious inconsistencies in terms of individual digitization activities. Now, what are the major constraints the Romanian museums are facing with respect to heritage The articles in this issue of Revista Muzeelor are digitization? describing a few initiatives of museums in Romania, along with some views on the cultural heritage Without claiming to make an exhaustive list of digitizing methodology. Our publication can only problems here, I would first of all mention the lack raise a red flag and convey a warning message of human resources in general and of field-related that, hopefully, will be heard and understood by all expertise in particular. In a situation where museums stakeholders, and in particular by regulators, whose Romania are forced to operate based on outdated involvement is crucial for the saving and promotion staffing structures, their only chance to take up and in digital format of our national cultural heritage at, successfully fulfil the challenge (or the duty, I would at least, a reasonable speed compared to the other say) posed by the digitization of their own heritage European countries. At the moment we cannot is to win projects or grants, either at national or at possibly draw up the picture of the nationwide state European level, which would enable them to hire of digitization. As such, a better cooperation among specialist staff on a temporary basis. Secondly, the the National Heritage Institute, the National Institute chronic lack of up-to-date equipment is yet another of Cultural Research and Training and the holders reason why museums in Romania are still lagging of cultural goods could provide, in a few years from behind the museums in most of the other European now, the big picture of what has been done so far countries. Thirdly, museums in Romania are in and what the future direction is on this front. That short supply of adequate spaces for the digitization is why we hope to see some practical arrangements operations. In fact, they even lack spaces for the in connection with heritage digitization incorporated storage of their current heritage, let alone for future in both the central strategies and in the local acquisitions they would want to make in the future development plans. to enrich their collections. Fourthly, the salaries of the museum personnel are totally unattractive to high calibre specialists. Fifthly, the meagre budgets museums dispose of are barely enough to carry out the preventive and active conservation of their own heritage or the restoration works – which, normally, are their top priority and hence come Virgil Ștefan Nițulescu, PhD before digitization. Last but not least, digitization Editor in Chief has never been the target of any financing priorities [email protected] of the government or of the central bodies, which simply disregarded the allocation of special funding 7 DIGITIZATION
World War I in 3D in Europeana. The Contribution of THE “OCTAVIAN GOGA” CLUJ COUNTY LIBRARY
Primul Război Mondial 3D în Europeana. Contribuția Bibliotecii Județene Octavian Goga Cluj
ABSTRACT
Playing an active role in everything Europeana meant at regional and national level, Octavian Goga Cluj County Library also contributed to Europeana 1914- 1918, a project focused on collecting memorabilia and stories from the period of the Great War. A significant contribution was represented by a collection of 92 stereoscopic photographs from World War I, purchased in 1991 from an antique store, together with a stereoscope engraved with the Austro-Hungarian coat of arms. These photos are produced by the Neue Gesellschaft Photographische (NPG), the largest German producer of WW1 stereoscopic photographs. As part of the First World War 1914-1916 collection, the photos held at Octavian Goga Cluj County Library, inscribed with the NPG logo, are black and white photos on cardboard, with texts written in Hungarian. NPG photos were made with propagandistic, but also commercial purposes, the photos from the collections of the Octavian Goga Cluj Library being produced for the Austro-Hungarian market. Having a structure similar with the German collection, most photos present the Austro-Hungarian theatre of war from Galicia, Bukovina and Volhynia, being mainly images of the Austro-Hungarian troops and less of the German. Our collection of stereoscopic photographs is built on the same principles with the great NPG series, having some specific themes. The images on the front do not capture fight scenes, but trenches, air-raid shelters, troops on the move or in moments of rest, observation posts and weapons. Besides these specific battlefield images, these photos show the soldiers’ daily life. Death isonly suggested, even in those photos illustrating the gathering of corpses. Many pictures show the injured soldiers, thus evoking their sacrifice and heroism, prisoners of war, destroyed targets. Some victories were immortalized in these photos. The stereoscopic photographic archive of the Great War was completed by digitizing and posting on the Europeana 1914-1918 site of the collection of stereoscopic photographs held by Cluj County Library. This is complementary to other collections from Europeana platform, together becoming three- dimensional testimonial documents for the life on the battlefield, despite the propaganda goals that were the basis for their creation.
Key-words: photography, stereoscopic photographs, Octavian Goga Cluj County Library, Europeana, First World War, propaganda
8 “Octavian Goga” County Library in Cluj and the Europeana Project
The goal pursued by many professionals in the field of In an attempt to make Europeana known to users, cultural heritage, namely that of building a common, decision makers, politicians and to the cultural information-rich international repository and making organizations in every Member State, while encouraging it available to the public in a user-friendly manner, has its use, attracting new content and increasing awareness been achieved following creation, in November 2008, of of the role of cultural heritage as a driver of economic the Europeana (www.europeana.eu), the online digital growth, the Europeana Foundation has developed library, museum and archive of Europe. Bringing together the European best practice network, Europeana digital content on a multimedia online environment, Awareness, with the Cluj County Library continuing to accessible to anyone interested in European culture, act as the national coordinator of the project (which ran in order to facilitate the discovery of multilingual and from 2012 until 2014). In parallel, starting from 2013, multicultural European values, Europeana is currently our library has also acted as local partner in the LoCloud providing access to over 53 million digitized items, Project, dedicated to the development of cloud-based gathered together from over 3,300 European cultural technology and services and to helping small and heritage organizations.Europeana website, available in medium local enterprises to put together their digital 31 European languages, collects and indexes descriptive resources and make them available online.1 metadata associated with digital objects, thus giving the chance to view digitized books, artifacts, artworks, Continuing to play an active role in everything that videos and sounds, photographs, paintings, maps, Europeana means at regional and national level, the manuscripts, newspapers and archival documents. “Octavian Goga” Cluj County Library has also involved itself in the Europeana 1914-1918 project, which Realizing the importance of contributing actively, with focused on revealing heartfelt testimonies from the First its own resources, to a European project of this scale, World War, managing to provide access to over 600,000 the “Octavian Goga” County Library in Cluj assumed of digitized items collected from 20 countries, available the role of national coordinator of the project called to the public via a multilingual thematic portal. The EDLocal - Making local and regional content accessible project website, http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/ through the European Digital Library, funded by ro, brings together documentary resources, structured the European Commission under the eContentPlus as a unique archive where library collections are mixed Programme - Best Practice Networks, conducted with family stories that give viewers a unique insight in the period 2008-2011. Besides the library’s own into the First World War. This original combination contribution, consisting of 1,106 digital documents, of objects, personal memories, memorabilia, public structured thematically into five distinct collections documents and audiovisual materials is not the only (Photos from the old Cluj, Archival documents from innovative aspect of the project. The approach as such the collections of the County Library Octavian Goga in represents a novelty, given the use of crowdsourcing Cluj, Correspondence belonging to important cultural – i.e. collecting and posting personal family memories figures in Cluj, Books on Cluj County and Photos and memorabilia online, to be used by researchers and illustrating great cultural personalities from Cluj), the communities. contribution to Europeana included another 6,771 digitized documents provided by the 13 national project To help achieve the objectives described above, partners (9 county libraries, the National Archives - our library has organized one of the two document Cluj County, the County Centre for Conservation and collecting campaigns carried out in Romania (the other Promotion of Traditional Culture in Cluj, Museum of one was conducted by the Romanian Academy Library Dacian and Roman Civilization in Deva and theTribuna in Bucharest) under the Europeana 1914-1918 project, Magazine, Cluj). The immediate consequences of this which resulted into collection of 35 family stories and a contribution were the enhancement in the visibility of total of 1,015 digital documents from 383 contributors. the Library and in the use of its information resources, Moreover, documents form the Special Collections proven by the increased traffic volume recorded on section of the Library have also been presented the library’s website, given that Europeana provides and posted on the Europeana website, including a links to the online resources of the content providers. remarkable collection of 92 stereo photographs.
1 Stanca, Sorina (2015), pp. 131-132.
9 Stereo photography
Stereoscopic photography is based on binocular vision, whose slogan was “A Stereoscope in Every Home”. allowing the three-dimensional rendering of the reality. The company managed to sell over 500,000 devices in The earliest type of stereoscope was invented by Sir the span of only four years, thus making stereoscopes Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) in 1838. It used a pair affordable even to people with lower incomes. of mirrors at 45 degree angles to the user’s eyes, each reflecting a picture located off to the side. It demonstrated Under the circumstances, the making and the sale of the importance of binocular depth perception by showing stereoviews grew and the number of collectors of 4 that when two pictures simulating left-eye and right-eye such images started to increase. London Stereoscopic views of the same object are presented so that each Company has come to own a catalog of 100,000 eye sees only the image designed for it, but apparently stereoviews and was sending photographers to as far as the United States and the Middle East.5 in the same location, the brain will fuse the two and accept them as a view of one solid three-dimensional The stereoscope enabled people to watch and admire object. Later on, Wheatstone asked the two portrait pictures which they had read about in travelogues. The photographers, Daguerre and Talbot, to make photos pictures were not illustrating buildings only. Very quickly, that could be seen through his stereoscope. Stereoscopy shops started to sell photos of nature landscapes and has not been received with much enthusiasm until series of thematic photos like The Joys of Marriage, David Brewster (1781-1868) invented a new device. Life’s Ups and Downs.6 An article published in the Wheatstone, in turn, had brought changes to the device, Kolozsvári Közlöny issue of November 1860 argued so that its model, introduced in 1838, was using mirrors. that stereo photography could be an educational and Brewster’s personal contribution was the suggestion to an entertainment tool at the same time, and that it use lenses for uniting the dissimilar pictures, in 1849, could also be used as teaching aid for history, statistics replacing the mirrors by lenses and prisms. Brewster’s and geography classes, helping students to better device consisted of a small wooden box, equipped understand and memorize the lessons taught and with pairs of lenses, which was used to view drawn acquire solid knowledge. landscape transparencies, since photography had yet to be invented. Many began buying and collecting stereo photos showing images from other countries, which could In 1851, at the Great Exhibition in London, Brewster’s thus be “visited” by way of virtual and free of charge device has sparked the interest of Queen Victoria. As travels. Photos and stereoscopes were sold in book a result, shortly after, the opticians in London began shops, specialized stores, general stores or by sale reps, manufacturing the device. Within three months, almost or they could be ordered by mail. Thus, stereoscopic a quarter of a million sterescopes were sold in Paris and photography reached its peak popularity in the early in London.2 1860s.7
Transposition of stereo photos on paper started At the turn of the century, the public could admire to gather speed. The first commercially available not only stereoscopic photographs they used to make stereoscopic camera was manufactured by Quinet or buy, but could also visit exhibitions of stereoscopic and placed on the market in Paris. As the stereoscopic photographs. The German August Fuhrmann invented photography was gathering momentum, many other the Kaiserpanorama. In 1890s, the device was up on the models of stereoscopes were built, used equally by market in Budapest as well, much to the delight of the professional and amateur photographers.3 locals. The memories of manufacturer Pál Granasztói allow us to understand the way the Kaiserpanorama In 1854, the first specialized company, London operated after the First World War: in a corner of the Stereoscopic Company, was founded in England, Franciscans’ Square (Ferenciek tere), there was a board
2 Szilágyi (1982), pp. 57-58 3 Szilágyi (1982), p. 58 4 Comănescu, Constantinescu, (s.a.), p. 12; Szilágyi (1982), p. 58 5 Szilágyi (1982), p. 58 6 Szilágyi (1982), p. 59 7 ForteBlog (2012)
10 Figure 1. Kaiserpanorama9
displaying the weekly schedule of the picture show lenses, through which people would peer through the people could watch for a fee. Some of the most a pair of lenses showing a number of clockwise- popular Kaiserpanorama shows were London, The rotating stereoscopic glass slides showing numerous Swiss Mountains, The Blue Sky of Italy, The Middle East stereoscopic images on rear-illuminated glass, giving a etc. People walked into a shop-like building and into a 3D effect. Images were shown at a speed of one image large waiting room equipped with a few chairs and a every 1 or 2 minutes; after each photo, a buzzer would table where tickets were sold. The waiting room was separated by a thick curtain from a dark room where go off, announcing the display of the next photo by people were guided to their places by a person carrying the rotating mechanism. A Kaiserpanorama used to a flashlight. In the middle of the large dark room there show between 30 and 40 images in a row. When the stood a polygonal wooden structure, equipped with show was over, people had to leave the room or were about 25 viewing stations, each with its pair of viewing expected, at least, to do so.8 Origin and description of the stereo photographs contributed by the “Octavian Goga” Library in Cluj
The ninety-two stereoscopic views were acquired as early as 1915. The NPG logo was not used on the by the “Octavian Goga” County Library collections in American versions. Several years after the war,Keystone 1991, through a purchase from an antiquity store, purchased from NPG’s successor the rights to more together with a stereoscope engraved with the Austro- than two dozen additional NPG images for its definitive Hungarian coat of arms. The photographs were made 1932 World War set of 400 stereoviews.11 by Neue Photographische Gesellschaft (NPG)10, the largest German producer of stereoscopic photographs NPG photographs and stereographs almost always bore of WWI. The company made standard-size stereoscopic NPG logos. On stereographs, a 3 mm logo appeared in photographs on photo paper for the German and the the lower left corner of the image. The style of the logo Austro-Hungarian markets. NPG also sold stereoviews changed over time. During the World War One period, 12 to American firms Keystone and Underwood & the company used the style at right. Underwood, which purchased stereoviews from NPG
8 ForteBlog (2012) 9 The image was taken from the world wide web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiserpanorama 10 NPG was founded by Arthur Schwarz 1894, who rented a building in Schöneberg near Berlin. He marketed photographs and supplies, including stereoscopes. Within three years NPG had outgrown its rented quarters and Schwarz purchased a spacious complex in Berlin-Steglitz. At its peak, the company was a pioneer in color photography, had more than 1000 employees, and included subsidiary offices in London, Paris, Rome, and New York. Due to the impact of the war, NPG closed the Steglitz plant in the winter of 1921-22, and its name passed to a firm in Dresden.. Great War in 3D.org (2007) 11 Great War in 3D.org (2007) 12 Great War in 3D.org (2007)
11 The stereoviews from the collection of the “Octavian Photos from the County Library’s collection bear the Goga” Library in Cluj carry the NPG logo in the lower NPG logo and are part of the World War 1914-1916 left corner of the first picture. collection, with the captions written in Hungarian.
NPG printed stereographs on heavy photo paper and NPG’s extensive coverage of Austro-Hungarian troops did not mount them on cardboard, although retailers not only served propaganda purposes for the German occasionally did.13 home front, but it gave NPG another major market. NPG sold standard German-language stereoviews in Austria The first NPG war set was issued shortly after the war and published stereoviews in Hungarian to reach began in 1914. It consisted of 100 cards, each marked other areas of the Dual Monarchy. The stereoviews Krieg 1914. The cards were numbered 1-100. In 1915, in the “Octavian Goga” County Library Collection are the name of the series was changed to Krieg 1914-15 part of the set of images intended to be sold on the and cards 101-231 were added. The zenith of the NPG Austro-Hungarian market, with captions written, as I World War set occurred in 1916, when the collection said, in Hungarian. The structure was similar to that of was renamed Krieg 1914-16 by adding stereoviews 232- the German sets, but the largest section covered the 411 and including a large prisoner of war (POW) section. Austro-Hungarian war theaters of Galicia, Bukovina and The latter bore the POW Camp (Gefangenenlager) name Wolhynia. For the other sections, NPG selected images instead of the series name. Fewer cards were added showing mostly the Austro-Hungarian troops, while in the last two years of the war, and those appear not minimizing the number of images showing the German to have had series names. Probably in the immediate troops. postwar period a revised set with the name Weltkrieg (World War) was created; many earlier cards were The ninety-two stereoscopic photographs from the republished with that name. The final NPGWeltkrieg set, Octavian Goga Cluj County Library are in black-and- identified by a distinctive font and an “S” prefix to the white. As a matter of fact, standard NPG stereoviews numbers, may have been produced after the remnant were in black-and-white, but some retailers made of the company relocated to Dresden.14 colorized versions as well. Descriptions of the photographic images of the collection
Photography has made a difficult entry in the military WWI became an unprecedented catalyst of the world of the late nineteenth century, as battle photographic phenomenon, helping photography representation was still the privilege of painters. On to acquire its status as a mass medium of visual the eve of World War I, the photography entered communication. With it, the way the war image was the civil society thanks to technical advancements, perceived changed for good. Germany seems to have being finally able to dethrone traditional ways of mastered the possibilities afforded by photography, so representation such as painting and engraving. that, starting from 1914, Germany turns photography Photography transforms the way images are produced into an instrument of international propaganda.16 and consumed. Authorities were consistently reluctant to permit War photography as a genre came of age during photography in the war zone for any non-military the First World War. Despite many constraints and purpose and, while quick in acknowledging the value of limitations, professional and amateur photographers written propaganda, they were slow in recognizing that of all nationalities combined to create a significant of the photography. Censorship of photography was body of work, which informed the public about introduced immediately. In Germany, censorship was the war. In subsequent years, further photographs, controlled entirely by the military authorities.17 unpublished in wartime, served to fuel debate, shape perceptions and inform contemporary understanding Between 1914 and 1918, masses of photos were taken of the War.15 at the front and at home, making the First World War a highly visual war. From its beginnings there was a
13 Great War in 3D.org (2007) 14 Great War in 3D.org (2007) 15 Roberts (2014) 16 Guillot (2010) 17 Roberts (2014)
12 Figure 2. Trenches made of wood and sand bags23 growing demand for authentic representations of what It is hard to distinguish between this kind of censorship was going on “out there”. Photographs in particular and self-censorship.21 were considered an “objective” medium depicting the realities of war. As a matter of principle, any The NPG photos come to support these assertions. visual representations of a military kind were subject The World War One set of photographs covered three to censorship prior to their publication. Shooting major sections: A. Pictures from the Front; B. Pictures photographs and movies with intent to publish them of German POW Camps; and C. Landscapes of the had to be authorized by the censor. In Germany, Occupied and War Zones. The latter were standard censorship authorities admitted photographers and prewar travel scenes and appear to have been only cameramen to the theater of war starting from October rarely sold with the actual war stereoviews. 1914.18 Most published photos did not show any actual Section A illustrates that, as was the case with the fighting, but only the fighting outcome: the effects of other major combatants, Germany had stringent artillery, destruction, prisoners and wounded people. censorship regulations. The German General Staff used They focused on motifs located behind the front, far off NPG stereoviews to reassure the home front and to from the actual battlefield. At the same time, amateur counteract the Allied propaganda. Recurrent themes photographers were allowed to take photos at the included: “Our troops (“Unsere Feldgrauen”) are well- front. Their photos were then circulated among soldiers cared after, well-equipped, well-led and happy.” In fact, and tolerated by military authorities.19 the Germans eschewed images of the gritty reality of Representing war met immense difficulties, not only life in the trenches in favor of those portraying life in from the censorship authorities. The battles on the combat as akin to camping in the outdoors. Another Western Front were waged over dozens or hundreds theme was that “Austro-Hungarian allies are capable, of kilometers, with battlefields showing nothing but loyal, true comrades of the Germans.” In fact, the reality destruction and devastation. If a camera reached the was that, apart from providing the heavy artillery that front lines, it could not show anything but the emptiness helped reduce enemy fortresses, Austro-Hungarian of the battlefield. Last but not least, the technical involvement in the war was largely negative for the limitations imposed by bulky, heavy cameras made it Germans. Nearly one-quarter of the NPG set portrayed almost impossible to take photos of the combat.20 Austro-Hungarian forces, including more than 80 images from the Galician and Balkan theaters, which were German authorities were under the illusion that overwhelmingly Austro-Hungarian. Another theme of censorship and propaganda could be a surrogate for the NPG photographs was trying to induce the idea that victories, bread, and coal or for anything else that missed the Russians were wantonly destroying the German on the home front. Censorship was a framework set territory. Lastly, the photographs were trying to make up by the military authorities and enforced by editors, people believe that the Germans treated the defeated journalists, photographers, painters and graphic artists. civilians kindly.22
18 Altenhöner (2014) 19 Altenhöner (2014) 20 Altenhöner (2014) 21 Altenhöner (2014) 22 Great War in 3D.org (2007) 23 The images from World War I come from the stereoscopic photo collection of Octavian Goga County Library Cluj, posted in Europeana and available at http://www.europeana1914-1918. eu/ro/contributions/10827, or et http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/2020601/attachments_107740_10827_107740_original_107740_pdf.html. 13 Figure 3. German Light Cruiser “Blucher”
Figure 4. Soldiers Bathing in Barrels at a Dye Factory
The collection of stereoscopic photographs of the Light Cruiser “Leipzig”, German Battleship “Blucher”, Octavian Goga Cluj County Library appears to be German Naval Squadron or Troops and Horses during built around these specific themes of the NPG series. Shipping to Serbia. Primarily monitoring the Austro-Hungarian troops in Galicia and the Balkans, the collection was obviously Besides these specific battlefield scenes, the intended for this market, and in particular, judging by photographs show snapshots of everyday life of the 24 the Hungarian translation of the captions of the images, soldiers: Campsite Bakery in the Bukovina Mountains , to the Hungarian market. Food Collecting for Trench Soldiers, Soldiers Transporting Food to Trenches, A Campsite Laundry or Religious The war photographs in this collection, alike those in the Sermon on the Day of the Dead on Battlefield amid larger collection of origin, do not capture battle scenes. Gunfire. Accidentally, a photo was captured, showing a There are, however, many images showing the troops trench soldier hunting lice. on the move or while resting or in recognition missions. Air-raid shelters, trenches and observation posts In the NPG photographs, treatment of the dead not are other settings where soldiers are photographed, only reflected stringent censorship, but may have often focusing on the background, rather than on the revealed traditional German prejudice against Russians. protagonists. No dead German or Austro-Hungarian soldiers were shown, only soldiers’ memorials and cemeteries of Other fortifications or military sites are illustrated by the heroes. French and English dead were similarly not panoramic photos, although it is a well-known fact that in evidence, but a sub-series of eight views showed authorities were reluctant to promoting such images Austro-Hungarian soldiers collecting Russian dead and for fear of the enemy and of the risk of exposing secret placing them in mass graves.25 locations. However, photos of this type are few, even in the collection. Other photographs show howitzers, In the ninety-two photographs from the collection in machine guns, armored trains and battleships: German Cluj, death is only suggested, even in the photographs
24 The photo was published in A világháború képes krónikája, October 1915. Pálffy (2015) 25 Great War in 3D.org (2007)
14 Figure 5. A mmonument of projectiles erected in the honor of German soldiers fallen in WWI
Figure 6. Field hospital showing the collection of the bodies (Soldiers resting train. Hospital trains included a surgery wagon, a kitchen during collection of bodiesor Storage of coffins destroyed wagon and an officer wagon. in Belgrade26). Respect for the dead enemy is shown by two photos: Cemetery of Russian Soldiers and German More than 100 NPG war images showed prisoners Soldier Preparing an Inscription on the Tombstone of of war (POWs). This sizable coverage of this theme a Russian Officer. No images of dead German soldiers constituted a rebuttal to Allied claims that their are shown, but only a monument made of projectiles, prisoners were treated badly. NPG, no doubt at erected as a tribute to the German soldiers who died on the behest of the General Staff, produced a series the battlefield. of photographs showing three of the hundreds of POW camps. The three (Wünsdorf, Döberitz and Instead, more present in the war photographs are the Müncheberg) appear to have been purpose-built and wounded, as a proof of their sacrifice and heroism. were probably the best of the lot. The series reflected Very eloquent in this regard are photographs such propaganda themes countering specific Allied as: A Soldier Wounded in the Battles of Campulung complaints. They had to convince that the POWs: were Moldovenesc Carried by His Comrades in Arm; Wounded housed in comfortable, clean barracks with access Soldiers Arriving at Királymező; Wounded Soldier Carried to kitchens, theaters, hospitals and fire stations; in on a Sledge in the Carpathians. On the other hand, the those inevitable circumstances where Allied prisoners photographs reveal the concern for the wounded, as, for died, they were given decent burials in well-kept example, the photos called: Tea Offered to the Wounded cemeteries; the camps offered gainful employment in the Battles in the Carpathians, Feeding the Wounded for those prisoners desiring to work; all of the various at the Storalya-Újhelyi Train Station, Transportation of nationalities and races were treated equally and fairly; the Wounded by Sledges to Iacobeni27. The fact that the and every prisoner, whether Christian, Jew, Hindu, wounded were well cared after is also evident in several or Muslim, had access to an appropriate religious photographs taken at a field hospital or in a hospital facility.28
26 The photo was published in Das Interessante Blatt, in 1915, but also in the December issue of the same year of Érdekes Újság, which placed the storage in Nis. Pálffy (2015) 27 Photo taken by the photographer Jelfy Gyula, employee of the Hungarian publication Vasárnapi újság, which published this photo on 7 March 1915, also taken by NPG. Pálffy (2015) 28 Great War in 3D.org (2007)
15 Figure 7. 2,800 Russian prisoners captured in the battles in eastern Galicia.
Figure 8. Central Train Station in Lemberg-Lviv, Ukraine, after the bombing.
In our collection, too, there are several photos showing Drina Rebuilt in a Few Days; Interior of the Church in prisoners of war (POWs). One of them suggests the power Zandvoorde,, Belgium, Destroyed by Bombardment, of the troops who captured the prisoners, namely the Main Train Station in Lemberg-Lviv, Ukraine, after the one portraying 2,800 Russian soldiers taken prisoners in Bombing, Castle Destroyed in Hollebeke, Belgium; Side the fight in eastern Galicia. Other two photos show two View of the Church in Gorlice). prisoners of war working: French Prisoners on Their Way to the Work Site and Russian Prisoners Building Roads Victories are immortalized in photos such as Victorious for the Austro-Hungarian troops in Volyn. General Beseler and His Staff of Generals in Antwerp; Victorious Austro-Hungarian Troops Entering Lvov There are quite many images of destroyed buildings (June 22, 1915)29 or Austro-Hungarian Cavalry Arriving and monuments: castles, fortresses, churches, train in a Russian-occupied Polish Village. Other photos are stations, bridges (Side View of Destroyed Zukov symbolic: Captured Russian Flags, Sorting Out War Spoil Castle; Destroyed Bridge Over a Mountain River near on the Battlefield in Limanovaor View of the Battlefield the old Polish Fortress “Lowicz”; Overview of the in Masovia (Poland), where Part of the Russian Troops Bridge Destroyed in Zemun, Belgrade; Bridge Over Perished in the Marshes. Conclusions
By digitizing and posting on the Europeana 1914-1918 countries (France, Belgium, the UK and Romania) website its collection of stereoscopic photographs, and presenting certain peculiarities. the Cluj County Library contributed the completion of the archive of WWI stereoviews. French contributors added 343 such photographs to Europeana, most described as glass plates, illustrating A detailed investigation of the presence of documents life in the trenches on the Western Front. Among them of this type on the said website reveals the existence is a collection of 172 photographs taken from 1915 to of four compact collections, coming from different 1916, by Marcel Le Grand (1890, Le Havre), mobilized
29 Photo taken by a photographer of the press office managed by the general staff colonel Hoehn, whose original title was „The marching of our victorious troops...”, which was changed in the album Keystone from 1923, becoming „The marching of the conquering German and Austrian troops...”. Pálffy (2015)
16 Figure 9. Victorious Austro-Hungarian Troops Entering Lvov in August 1914, who was part of the official team of While all the other collections mentioned above are photographers of the French army. revealing for the situation of the Allies, the Romanian contribution is a unique one, because it consists of The one hundred and six stereoscopic photographs snapshots taken by the Germans and the Austro- posted by Provinciaal Centrum voor Cultureel Erfgoed Hungarians on the Eastern front. In other words, the (Regional Centre for Cultural Heritage) from the Belgian archive of stereoscopic photographs of the Great War was province of Limburg are different from the rest, in completed by digitizing and posting on the Europeana that they are hand-colored and are accompanied by a 1914-1918 website of the collection of stereoscopic Holmes-Bates stereoscope manufactured by Underwood photographs held by the Cluj County Library, as an & Underwood. addition to the other collections available onEuropeana The official collection of documents about the First platform, with which it makes up a complete set of World War of the Ministry of Intelligence in the UK, three-dimensional testimonials regarding the real life owned by the Imperial War Museum in London, consists of the people fighting on the WWI battlefields, in vivid of 185 black-and-white photographs, taken towards the contrast with the propaganda of those times, whose end of the war and showing, in particular, war spoils and purpose the photographs were intended to serve. German prisoners. References
Altenhöner, Florian. 2014, 8 October. Press/Journalism Pálffy Lajos. 2015 February 10.A Nagy Háború sztereóban (Germany), în 1914-1918-online. International és 3D-ben. http://mandarchiv.hu/cikk/3710/A_ Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Nagy_Haboru_sztereoban_es_3DbenChromeHTML. Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, S4TLASPU47EPVFWZXLOCFRJCPE/Shell/Open/ Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued Command. (20 September 2016). by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin. http://dx.doi. Roberts, Hilary. 2014 October 8. Photography, in: org/10.15463/ie1418.10404 (20 September 2016). 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the Comănescu, Sylviu, Constantinescu Alexandru. s.a. First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Fotografia în relief. București: Editura Tehnică. Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan ForteBlog. 2012, 30 August. Nemzeti kincs, amit Kramer and Bill Nasson, publicat de Freie Universität a Fortepan fedezett fel. http://fortepan.blog. Berlin, Berlin. http://dx.doi.org/10.15463/ hu/2012/08/30/nemzeti_kincs_amit_a_fortepan_ ie1418.10142. (20 September 2016). fedezett_fel. (16 September 2016). Stanca, Sorina. „Acces facil la documente digitale Great War in 3D.org. The Great War in Stereoviews. locale”, Biblioteca, 5 (2015), pp. 131-132. German Stereoviews. 2007. http://greatwarin3d. Szilágyi Gábor. 1982. A fotóművészet története. A org/GermanViews.htm. (16 September 2016). fényrajztól a holográfiáig. Budapest: Képzőművészeti Great War in 3D.org. The Great War in Stereoviews. Neue Alap Kiadóvállalata. Photographische Gesellschaft (NPG), 2007. http:// Ghizela Cosma greatwarin3d.org/NPG.htm. (20 September 2016). „Octavian Goga” County Library Cluj Guillot, Hélène. „La section photographique de l’armée [email protected] et la Grande Guerre. De la création en 1915 à la non- Anca Ioana Docolin dissolution”, Revue historique des armées. Les corps „Octavian Goga” County Library Cluj expéditionnaires, 258 (2010). http://rha.revues. [email protected] org/6938. (19 September 2016).
17 Figure 1. Europeana portal homepage
The European Digital Library (and its National “Clones”): A Cultural Sock for Museums as Well Biblioteca Digitală Europeană (și emulii săi): șoc cultural (și) în muzee
ABSTRACT*
The European Digital Library (europeana.eu) imposed a new paradigm of the digital library, i.e. a public oriented fusion of the virtual museum and of the traditional digital library and archive. The general public orientation ofthe descriptive metadata of the digital cultural resource exposed online produced a genuine cultural shock in the memory institutions, especially in the museums, which traditionally are not putting their catalogues on public display. This paper exemplifies the contrast between the traditional catalogue record and the newly required one and suggests ways to ease the transition. Finally, a short description of the future Romanian national shared catalogue ofthe memory institutions (culturalia.ro) is given and is suggested how it will assist the contributors to help each other to improve the quality of their catalogue records, to the benefit of the public.
Key-words: digital libraries, virtual museums, libraries, Europeana, Culturalia, shared catalogue, collection documentation, heritage interpretation
18 Figure 2. Digital Public Library of America portal homepage
A. The European Digital Library
European Digital Library (europeana.eu)1) has brought an economic and governance model ensuring a deep paradigm shift2 in digital libraries by merging its success and sustainability, traditional digital library (exposing mostly textual • actively promote EUROPEANA in Europe and content) with the digital archive (exposing mostly throughout the world and encourage the textual content) and the virtual museum (exhibiting establishment of public-private partnerships mostly digital reproductions of tangible artifacts). In which might help its development, particularly other words, europeana.eu (and its national pendants) as regards digitization and the online displays together texts, images, sounds, films and 3D accessibility of cultural material and digital virtual objects. This merger is an important innovation, preservation.” with a significant impact on the cultural world The public launch of the portal took place on November 27 in Paris, during the French Presidency The European Digital Library prototype was launched of the European Union, at the conference on 20 November 2008. At that time, the European “Numérisation du patrimoine culturel – Bibliothèque Digital Library portal was showcasing over two million numérique européenne”4. digital cultural resources. Upon its launch, the Council of the European Union formulated the Conclusions of In recent years, several national clones ofEuropeana the Council of 20 November 2008 on the European have been set up, such as: digital library EUROPEANA3, whereby the Council: • USA: Digital Public Library of America (dp.la)5 (mind that Europeana is one of the very few “[…] INVITES THE MEMBER STATES AND THE major innovations adopted by the Americans!); COMMISSION, within their respective competences, to: • Germany: Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek6; • encourage the development of EUROPEANA • Italy: Culturaitalia7; and work alongside stakeholders, in particular • Austria: Kulturpool8; through the Member States’ Expert Group on • Finland: Finna9. Digitization and Digital Preservation, to define 4 www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/editions/r-cr/cr118-119.pdf 5 www.dp.la 1 www.europeana.eu 6 www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de 2 We call them “libraries”, in the absence of a generic terms to encompass libraries + 7 www.culturaitalia.it museums + archives 8 www.kulturpool.at 3 eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52008XG1213(04):EN:NOT 9 www.finna.fi
19 Figure 3. Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek portal homepage
B. And yet again: what is good about museums?
Angelica Helena Marinescu10: explains what is today • it counteracts to some extent the geographic a widespread mentality of the entire museum world, urban vs. rural and metropolitan vs. provincial and not just art museums: discrimination; • it shows museum objects that would otherwise “The main function of an art museum is to never surface from the museum deposits; preserve works belonging to the moveable • it allows the display of information-rich legends. heritage.” And the fear that virtual museums lead to as drop So, is “conservation” an end in itself? Why would in number of their offline visitors is completely it be? And A.H. Marinescu explains things further ridiculous! We should not lose sight of the fact that the through a reference to Dominique Poulout: virtual museum is (still) but the ersatz of the physical “Dominique Poulot stresses out that «assertion museum! And often, if you dislike the surrogate, you of human rights leads us to claim access to go for the original. I wonder: How many millions of works of art as a legitimate right that must be reproductions of the Mona Lisa painting are available effectively and fairly granted”. around the world? One? Ten? And yet people throng in I agree with Poulot: we “preserve” museum front of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, at the Louvre Museum. collections so that we may enjoy them. I mean, so And how about the people going to the Philharmonic, that the public (as wide as possible) may enjoy to listen to Mahler’s 5th symphony? I bet they listened them! (By “enjoyment”, I understand aesthetic and to it at home, recorded on a CD! intellectual satisfactions, of course.) It follows that museums should (always) be audience-oriented.
D. Why is Europeana generating a sock amongst memory institutions? C. How about the virtual museum? What is a virtual museum good for? Europeana is an online platform open to the general public. As such, the exhibiting memory institutions From the public’s perspective, a “virtual museum” – publishing their heritage on Europeana see themselves i.e. the online display of museum items – is major forced to (re) orient the fact sheets describing the gain because: cultural resources they are exposing to the eye of the plan customer, and not to that of the expert viewer. In 10 Angelica Helena Marinescu. – “Museum Heritage Digitization”. The Online Collections other words, the metadata associated with a work of of the National Art Museum in Romania”, Revista Muzeelor, no. 1, 2015. www. culturadata.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Revista-Muzeelor-2015.pdf art, for example, that are traditionally intended to the
20 Figure 4. Poussin. “The Abduction of the Sabine Women” (see Europeana website12) custodian / curator / librarian, have to be expanded to include information dedicated to the ordinary visitor / reader. As a result, the work of art concerned has to be Figure 5.Poussin. “The Abduction of the Sabine Women” reinterpreted, i.e. placed a historical and geographical (Louvre website13) context, and its subject and significance needs to be explained in simple words. Simply put, the work has to be “wrapped up” in a narrative.
As we all know, museums will not normally make their catalogues public, while most libraries and archives will include in their record cards a few headline topics and the ever present (yet useless) UDC indices.
A museum caption: the famous painting “Abduction of the Sabine Women” by Poussin. Fig. 4 below shows the Europeana card (provided to Europeana by the Central Library in Zurich) attached to this painting. Does it actually matter for the viewer that the size of the original painting is 21x27,5 cm? No, not at all, as long as the viewer can zoom the image out to the full size of his or her computer screen.11 Apart from the size, the viewer has almost no information about the subject: the Sabine women, the Romans, the war? Who are the Sabine women after all? Why do the Romans abduct them?12 13
But if the viewer somehow ends up on the Louvre website, he or she finds there clear and enlightening explanations about the painting (fig. 5 and 6). There, this work of art is described in detail, so the onlooker can watch it with a 11 If we really want to give the viewer an idea of the true size of the painting, we’d better place in the field of view a fiducial marker, such as a match or a finger (see Figure 13). 12 www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/9200166/BibliographicResource_ Figure 6. Poussin. “The Abduction of the Sabine Women” 3000117228919.html (Louvre website, continued) 13 www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/l-enlevement-des-sabines
21 different eye. Fortunately, museums in Romania have adopted this exhibit presentation style (though still very timidly) – as it is the case, for example, with The National Art Museum in Romania (MNAR) (fig. 7).
Figure 7. El Greco. “The Adoration of the Shepherds” (MNAR14)
Despite the fact that they are used to the public display of their catalogues, library cards are not very explanatory for the readers either. For example, Figure 8 below illustrates typical library cataloging data. Let’s see what the card says to the reader about one of Tolstoy’s novels: that it is a novel “about the Russian literature.” So, the classification indices are not only incomprehensible to the reader (how many people area actually able to decipher the code: “821.161.1-31 = 135.1”?), but they are even misleading. In this particular case, the index 821.161.1 refers to the Russian literature; in other words, the reader is told that the famous novel deals with the Russian literature!
Figure 8. Library card: “War and Peace” by Lev Tolstoy
In contrast, the bookseller’s catalogue card on this novel (Fig. 9) is much more enlightening. No wonder librarians are surprised to see that people prefer to look for this book on the online catalogues of famous book retailers such as amazon.com15 or elefant.ro16...
Figure 9. Tolstoy “War and Peace” online library cards 14 www.mnar.arts.ro/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&catid= 76&Itemid=243 15 www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Vintage-Classics-Tolstoy/dp/1400079985/ 16 www.elefant.ro/carti/fictiune/literatura-clasica/razboi-si-pace-ii-vol-top-ii-324648. html
22 Figure 10. “Adolph Hitler” (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek17)
No are archivists’ records too helpful, for that matter. old exhibition catalogues and transfer them onto the For example, the fact sheet of a photo showing Hitler, relevant online cards. The same method could apply among others, from Deutsche Fotothek, does not say to the old audio descriptions that are still available anything about who the other people next to Hitler in some museums. are, nor does it explain where and on what occasion the picture was taken. Sure, “a picture is worth a Another useful way to satisfy the needs of the audience is thousand words”, as the saying goes; yet, sometimes to “collaborate” with the Wikipedia. Many professionals a picture without a few explanatory words does not treat Wikipedia articles with distrust, if not shear worth much.17 contempt. Wrong! Professionals who disagree with what they read on Wikipedia, they can simply amend or improve the content of whatever they read about. Yet, insofar as, when you “google” a certain topic and find E. How can we adapt ourselves to the it on Wikipedia, on top of other links, this simple fact should determine museums to consider Wikipedia as new circumstances? a possible communication vehicle. And let’s be honest: the public will first go searching on Google. Therefore, if The coming back of the memory institutions – possible, it would be good to provide for a link between museums, in particular – from the “culture shock” is the museum exhibit and the corresponding Wikipedia an emergency. The comeback will no doubt require article. Especially because, in many cases, the article a shift in our mentality, which is not quite easy. says more than the exhibit fact sheet. Let’s compare, for On the other hand, it should not be very difficult example, the description of the artwork “The Wisdom either, because curators are used with extensive of the Earth” as contained in the sculpture’s catalog interpretations of the museum pieces in their card (Fig. 11) with that in the Wikipedia article (fig. 12): exhibition catalogues. So the easiest solution would be to proceed to recovering the descriptions from the
17 www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/AS7B544RVMYQSC43YFF24LX2Q6L7SIYC
23 Figure 11. Brancus. “The Wisdom of the Earth” (National Heritage Institute18)
Figure 12. Brancus. “The Wisdom of the Earth” (Wikipedia19)
18 http://clasate.cimec.ro/detaliu.asp?k=31744B0AE0944252A6C8AD6FFC95D9A0 19 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumin%C8%9Benia_p%C4%83m%C3%A2ntului
24 of 2017. Culturalia.ro will be a free online platform, available to virtually anyone, yet to varying degrees. In other words, each participant (individual or institution) may decide how much and how exactly it will expose to others.
The nationally-shared catalogue (a much delayed public service in Romania, if we think that the Americans “invented” it as far back as in the 70s!) is designed as an eclectic catalogue, meaning that it will bring together both library and museum and archive catalogues. Of course, providers of catalogue data will have complete control over permissions to access such data. Another benefit for the museum professionals will be the “absorbing” by this national catalogue of some authority files that are well- established worldwide, as, for instance, files on Getty’s thesauruses: • AAT [Art and Architecture Thesaurus]21; • TGN [Thesaurus of Geographic Names]22; • ULAN [Union List of Artist Names]23.
Below are a few possible use cases for professionals that will be using the shared catalogue: Figure 13. A page from “Codex Aureus” with a fiducial marker • before crating a card about a cultural resource (a book, an article, a museum piece etc.), the cataloguer checks whether the resource is Finally, another important way in which a museum already recorded or not; if yes, the cataloguer can make itself even more useful to the general may use that record and may, if necessary, add public (and to the museum community, for that to / alter its content; • when crating the record card of a cultural matter) would be to share its knowledge with both resource (having no previous record card), other museums and with the libraries or the archives the cataloguer reuses records of contextual of all sorts. The most obvious examples are the entities (people, places, time periods, concepts descriptions of the so-called “contextual entities”, etc.) already developed; i.e. people, places, epochs, concepts and institutions, • a museum digitizes a piece in its collection, i.e. of what are traditionally called “authority files”. displays it online, draws-up (assisted) the Moreover: although museums are usually holding digital object fact sheet (card) starting from unique items, meaning that, apparently, they could the correspondent analogue record thereof not possibly (re)use metadata produced in other and then marks it for exposure on Europeana; institutions, in practice there are plenty examples • an archaeologist records (assisted) in the to the contrary, such as, for example, numismatic National Archaeological Register a newly material, old books, specimens and lithographs. discovered archaeological site; • a curator designs a thematic exhibition, looks Luckily, sharing metadata amongst memory for relevant pieces held by other museums and institutions in Romania will become much easier with then sends out an inter-museum loan request. the launch of the future nationally-shared catalogue culturalia.ro20, due (in its preliminary version) for end
20 A project included under the “Competitiveness Operational Program” (2016-2020), 21 www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/aat/ action 2.3.3: “Improving ICT infrastructure and digital content in the field of systemic 22 www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/tgn/ e-education, e-culture, e-health and E- inclusion” 23 www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/
25 Note that culturalia.ro platform will serve at the same environment, where modern technologies, knowledge time as the portal of the Digital Library of Romania, and the intensive use of digital libraries are of essence. the national counterpart of the European Digital A more audience-centered approach from the part of Library (europeana.eu). the museums will make them even more meaningful social-wise. In summary, Romanian museums should make an explicit effort to adapt themselves to the contemporary
Images:
Figure 1. Europeana Homepage
Figure 2. Digital Public Library of America Homepage
Figure 3. Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Homepage
Figure 4. Poussin. “The Abduction of the Sabine Women” (Europeana website24)
Figure 5. Poussin. „ The Abduction of the Sabine Women” (Louvre Museum’s website25)
Figure 6. Poussin. “The Abduction of the Sabine Women” (Louvre Museum’s website, continued)
Figure 7. El Greco. “The Adoration of the Shepherds” (MNAR website26)
Figure 8. Tolstoy. “War and Peace” – library record card
Figure 9. Tolstoy. “War and Peace” – online bookseller’s record card
Figure 10. “Adolph Hitler” (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek website27)
Figure 11. Brâncuși. “The Wisdom of the Earth” (National Heritage Institute website28)
Figure 12. Brâncuși. “The Wisdom of the Earth” (Wikipedia29)
Figure 13. A scanned page from “Codex Aureus” with a fiducial marker
Dan Matei analyst (digital libraries), National Heritage Institute [email protected]; [email protected]
24 www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/9200166/BibliographicResource_3000117228919.html 25 www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/l-enlevement-des-sabines 26 www.mnar.arts.ro/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&catid=76&Itemid=243 27 www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/AS7B544RVMYQSC43YFF24LX2Q6L7SIYC 28 http://clasate.cimec.ro/detaliu.asp?k=31744B0AE0944252A6C8AD6FFC95D9A0 29 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumin%C8%9Benia_p%C4%83m%C3%A2ntului
26 The Use of Technological Innovation for Increasing the Museum Heritage Accessibility and Attractiveness
Folosirea inovațiilor tehnologice pentru creșterea accesibilității și atractivității patrimoniului muzeal
ABSTRACT
Technological development and changes in consumer desires and preferences are external factors, uncontrollable by a museum, but which have a great influence on its public success. Depending on the attitude and measures taken by a museum, these factors may represent an opportunity or, conversely, a threat, eventually turning into strength or a weakness of the museum. Based on these considerations, the purpose of this article is to highlight some practical ways in which museums can use technological innovation in order to gain a competitive advantage. In the first part, this paper presents a series of modern technologies applied in museums, which allow them to become more attractive and to better fulfill their functions of storage, conservation, research and exploitation of the heritage. The second part presents a study conducted at the County Art Museum «Baia Mare Artistic Centre» regarding the measures taken for heritage digitization and, starting from this, for increasing the public access to the museum’s collections.
Key-words: innovation, technology, museums, heritage, digitization, distribution, visitors, experience, virtual reality
Introduction
It has been demonstrated that the use of modern technologies is a viable way to improve performance in cultural organizations.1 Through technology, museums can better manage their collections, provide memorable visitor experiences and overcome physical boundaries through the use of online distributions and communication channels.2 In turn, these can lead to higher public satisfaction, which has a positive influence on the rate of visitation and, implicitly, onthe
1 Camarero & Garrido (2008), pp. 413-434 2 Parry (2013) 27 revenues gained by the museum. In other words, studies lies also in the fact that some museums museums resort to technological innovations in order perceive modern technologies as a threat rather than to better protect and preserve their heritage, while an opportunity. Thanks to technology, the Internet enhancing the attractiveness of their exhibitions, and the increased remote access to information thus increasing the proceeds they gain directly from and products, many museum professionals are beneficiaries, in a situation where subsidies allocated concerned that audiences in the future will become to museums are insufficient compared to current more interested in digital images and virtual needs.3 experience, rather than in the static nature of works of art.7 This duality, this mixture of advantages and Statistics show a high number of museum non- possible disadvantages linked to the use of modern visitors in Romania. For example, in 2014, 70% of technologies, causes many museums to be reluctant the Romanians did not visit any heritage objective to embracing technological innovation. According to 4 located outside of their place of domicile. This Marchetti & Valente8, technologies are not broadly means that the traditional ways of promoting the adopted, because a clear vision about their role museum heritage are not capable enough to capture within the troubled process of museum innovation public attention, which may result in the failure is missing. The authors argue that most museums of museums to successfully fulfill their mission prefer to stick to low-tech settings, which are 5 to contribute the development of the society by perceived as (almost) equally captivating, but less using the their heritage as a driver of cultural, social disturbing, cheaper and easier to maintain. and economic value.6 Under these circumstances, museums are required to apply strategies that are Based on these considerations, the first part of this designed to increase their market competitiveness. article summarizes the ways in which technology Given that the technological innovation strategy can be used by museums to increase accessibility facilitates the achievement by the museums of their and attractiveness of their heritage. The case study functions related to heritage conservation, research included in the second part of this article describes and promotion, we believe that studies are needed, the steps taken by the County Art Museum “The to show the practical ways in which museums can Artistic Center of Baia Mare” to digitize heritage and successfully use such strategy. The need for these the strategic directions envisaged for the next period.
Technological innovations in the museum sector
Innovativeness in business refers to the degree to one of the main ways in which museums can show which a firm creates new products and services their innovativeness. To improve their performance, using accumulated knowledge from consumers, the museums may resort to technological innovations competitors, and technology.9 Applying this definition in management, to organizational innovations and, to museums, we may say that museum innovation last but not least, to innovations aimed at improving is “the new or enhanced processes, products, or visitation experience.12 business models by which museums can effectively achieve their social and cultural mission.” 10 In other As visitors are an important criterion by which words, the development of new products, services museums are evaluated and funded, specialists have and processes or the improving of the existing ones constantly sought for new ways to provide attractive through the implementation of new technologies11 is visitor experiences through the use of technology. In
3 Camarero & Garrido (2011), pp. 39-58. 4 Becuț (2015), p. 116. 5 Pop & Borza (2016). 6 Centrul de Cercetare și Consultanță în Domeniul Culturii (2013). 7 Anderson (1999), pp. 129-162. 8 Marchetti & Valente (2012), pp. 131-143. 9 Camarero & Garrido (2011), pp. 39-58. 10 Eid (2016), p. 2. 11 Camarero & Garrido (2011), pp. 39-58. 12 Vicente, Camarero & Garrido (2012), pp. 649-679.
28 this regard, it was found that visitors want to spend a visitors “to travel through space and time without nice going out and socializing, while also discovering stepping out of the museum building”16. new things and broaden their horizons. For this reason, many museums have developed participative Museums can also use the new technologies to content, which combines learning with relaxation, develop edutainment (education through enter- conversation, social interaction, participation and tainment) content and to improve the quality of their collaboration.13 The main types of technologies that services. In this regard, Lepouras & Vassilakis17 propose are used in museum exhibitions for an improved the use of 3D game technologies for the purpose of visitation experience are:14 developing affordable, easy to use and pleasing virtual environments. For example he Museum of Science • Audiovisual media used for passive presentation , t in Boston has been experimenting with a variety of in an appealing way. This generally consists of public engagement approaches designed to help video presentations on simple monitors or wall projections. visitors think and talk about the societal implications • Guided presentation with the help of audio of nanotechnology. These approaches are generally guides, video projections and other means interactive and two-way, allowing for the collection of to accompany visitors throughout their tour, data about what people think, in addition to simply offered as alternatives to tours given by disseminating information about technology to them.18 museum staff. In another case, an immersive virtual museum provides • Interactive browsing stations, with information a virtual environment that lets students assume the on museum collections and educational persona of an adolescent gorilla and interact as part of programs (usually, in the form of touch screens a gorilla family unit.19 and user-friendly interfaces). • Environments that provide opportunities Even if such technologies were first used in science for direct creation or production, take-away museums, Gül & Akmehmet20 argue that, at global experiences and interactive experiences. level, there are more and more art museums, which are equipped with interactive spaces and objects. Thus, the multimedia employed in exhibitions This shows that museums, regardless of their type, perform multiple functions, such as provide can indeed use modern technology to offer their explanations; display exhibits that the museum visitors an unforgettable experience. cannot actually show, either because of lack of space or because of their fragility and special Therefore, the advantage of virtual reality handling requirements; induce visitors a certain technologies is that they provide a vivid, enjoyable emotional state and facilitate their involvement and and realistic experience to museum guests. interaction with the exhibits in the museum.15 Also, virtual reality technologies are very useful because they allow visualization and simulation To enhance their attractiveness, in recent years of environments, structures or objects that no more and more museums have been focusing on longer exist or are difficult to visit.21 Despite these creating exhibitions that allow visitors to interact advantages, the successful implementation of in different ways with the content of the exhibition, virtual reality environments requires is effort and and not to just passively receive information. time consuming. On the other hand, though, we For this reason, museums resort to: exhibits cannot speak of interactive exhibitions as long as the offering visitors the opportunity to learn different museum heritage is not digitized. This is precisely things while interacting with them, simulation why digitization of heritage museums is a step that environments, interactive movies, 3D graphics all museums should go through, if they want to move and, last but not least, a virtual reality, allowing forward and provide interactive exhibitions.
13 Black & Skinner (2016), p. 3. 14 Roussou & Efraimoglou (1999), pp. 59-62. 15 Mamrayeva & Aikambetova (2014), pp. 33-35. 16 Roussou & Efraimoglou (1999), pp. 59-62. 17 Lepouras & Vassilakis (2004), pp. 96-106. 18 Bell (2008), pp. 386-398. 19 Lepouras & Vassilakis (2004), pp. 96-106. 20 Gül & Akmehmet (2015), pp. 141-155. 21 Lepouras & Vassilakis (2004), pp. 96-106. 29 The advantages of museum heritage digitizing, subjected to online registration/ subscription. In i.e. converting heritage objects to digital format, other words, following their digitization, museums consist of proper heritage conservation, collection could develop databases, either individually or management and enhanced public access to museum centralized at national level. The advantages of collections. Museum heritage digitization can be creating a national database are manifold: (1) all accomplished in many ways, such as photography, museums will be included in the database, even scanning, and panoramic display or by saving the if they lack the resources (human, material etc.) 3D coordinates of the art object.22 Besides being the required to set up and manage such databases; (2) starting point of many forms of interactivity that can from the users’ point of view, the value provided is be provided in exhibitions, the transposition of the much higher, which is an important factor for the heritage in digital format and its organization within databases makes it easier to manage, collect, store market success of the project; (3) museums will not and generate reports on: (1) movement of objects have to individually manage their revenues, as these inside and outside the museum, (2) the exposures will be the task of team that manages the database, of each object and (3) any restoration procedures following that, every year, each museum should performed on an object. In turn, this information receive a share of the revenues, commensurate with simplifies the research of museum collections.23 Also, to number of accesses to /visualizations of objects the development of digital images in 3D format is from its collection. particularly useful for the conservation, research and restoration of heritage objects.24 As Pieraccini In turn, each museum can use the Internet as a et al. argue, the scientific community’s attention to distribution channel, to increase access to museum the 3D heritage digitizing techniques is driven by the heritage and to the scientific resources resulting multiple benefits they offer, as for example:25 from the research thereof.26 This can be achieved • digital archives of three-dimensional models by allowing virtual visits to the museum and its are durable and unalterable, and thus can be collections27 and by distributing images (e.g. via used as reference for degradation monitoring Instagram), video content (YouTube), podcasts and restoration of works; (Soundcloud, iTunes or TuneIn), short messages • 3D images allow the construction of high (Twitter) and by publication of documentary material resolution models of valuable artworks; on blogs and / or social networks (Facebook, Google • 3D digital images allow for remote fruition and Plus, etc.).28 digital restoration of the cultural heritage. Based on these theoretical considerations, below is a Once their entire heritage is digitized, museums can description of the steps taken by County Art Museum use the Internet to facilitate public access to images “The Artistic Center of Baia Mare” towards digitizing and information about their collections. From this and promoting its heritage through methods and point of view, many museums are reluctant to going products designed to broaden indirect accessibility online, for the following two reasons: firstly, because of the audience to the museum collections. online access is unlimited and free and, secondly, because of the impossibility to control how virtual visitors use further the images of the museum heritage items. A possible solution to this problem is that online access to the museum database be
22 Cakir & Karahoca (2015), pp. 101-106. 23 Mamrayeva & Aikambetova (2014), pp. 33-35. 24 Guidi, Beraldin & Atzeni (2004), pp. 370-380. 25 Pieraccini, Guidi & Atzeni (2001), pp. 63-70. 26 Lagrosen (2003), p. 132. 27 Marinescu (2015), pp. 17-25. 28 Lewis (2012), pp. 8-11.
30 Digitization of the Art Museum “The Artistic Center of Baia Mare”
It should be noted from the outset that the may be moderate, yet sustained and continuous. argumentative scenario presented in the first part This would mean that it would be desirable to avoid of the article is, in our view, the projection ofan joining radical programs at the moment - such as, for ideal casuistry. We mean a utopian, and not an ideal example, transferring digitization initiatives to “open casuistry, because the international trend in this source” projects through a massive dissemination of field is clearly advocating the updating of existing heritage digitization formats before all the databases museums through a process of “transfiguration” of have been researched and introduced in the public their look and their professional activism, which domain, even if only by specific primary tools is expected to shape the identity traits of the (catalogs, directories, studies, etc.). museums of tomorrow. Placed in this context, the reality depicted by the Romanian museums today Seen from this perspective, the situation of the is extremely diverse and, to some extent, lacks County Art Museum “Baia Mare Arts Center comes to consistency and homogeneity, being no doubt prove the aforementioned positioning (quantitative positioned somewhere in the early stage of the and qualitative) somewhere in the early half of the change process. Moreover, it would not be far-fetched “updating” process. We substantiate this assertion to say that our today’s museums are presented with by the statistics that follow. a list of urgent issues, that is in stark contrast with The County Art Museum “Baia Mare Arts Center” that of the museums from the Western European (MJACABM) was established on 1 October 2006 as countries, in particular - where emergencies like an independent institution, subordinated to the conservation and restoration, primary records and Maramures County Council, by the MCC Decision no. secondary records (databases), coherent collection- 82 / 19.09.2006, following the reorganization of the specific definition and the like were solved a long Maramures County Museum. time ago. However, given the extremely fast pace at which international museology has evolved in last The heritage of County Art Museum “Baia Mare Arts two decades, the Romanian museum sector is faced Center” is structured into two main categories: fine with the “mandatory task” to “burn some stages”, arts & visual arts, and documentary fund. In turn, the which means that their “updating” is a challenge fine art and visual art section comprises collections they must take in parallel and simultaneously with from various domains: painting, sculpture, easel the task of “catching up”. and reproduction graphic art, decorative art and art photography. According to heritage inventories, as at If we were to accept the logic of such a dualist 31.12.2015 the museum’s collections are structured journey, a formula we are advocating for in the case as follows: of the County Art Museum “Baia Mare Arts Center” (MJACABM), we believe we should also accept the fact that the “growth rates” of the “updating” efforts
Table 1. Structure of the museum moveable cultural heritage goods as at 31.12.2015 Decorative Art Documentary Collection Painting Graphic art Sculpture Total art photography fund No. of items 1.366 2.508 149 56 33 2.269 6.381
Share 21,41% 39,30% 2,34% 0,88% 0,52% 35,56% 100% Source: heritage inventory registers as at 31.12.2015
Graphic works hold the largest share of the museum collections, and by easel paintings, representing collections, i.e. 39.3%, followed by documentary 21.41% of the museum’s cultural heritage fund collections, accounting for 35.56% of total
31 Figure 1. The structure of the Documentary Fund as at 31.12.2015.
3.1. Digitization of the Documentary Fund the same time, the museum is gradually proceeding to transposing the color print scans on medium The documentary section of the museum contains density cardboard (160-200 g/ m2), thus creating a total of 2,269 items and is structured as follows: the Documentary Fund Faximiloteque – a collection 1,953 objects in the public domain (pieces acquired of documentary copies, which will duplicate all the by purchase) and 316 objects in the private domain collections of original documents and will eventually (items acquired by donations and by accessioning). be available for primary access and research. Besides The most important collections of the documentary the fact that digitization will, thanks to the by- fund are: Zoltán Bitay , József Balla, Louis Slevensky products it generates, have a beneficial effect on the and Elijah Cămărăşan Archives. The documentary fund conservation state of the original objects, which will also includes vintage documents and photographs, thus be protected against damage caused by direct personal correspondence, memorabilia, catalogs, and frequent use, the scanning of the Documentary exhibition publications, clichés and medals that Fund is expected to: belonged or are related to the life and the work • speed up access of museum professionals of artists who worked over the time with the Baia to documents and their content, thereby Mare Arts Center, starting from 1896. The structure contributing to increased work efficiency and of documentary fund by types of objects is shown in productivity; Figure 1. • facilitate access of potential users of the documentation resources of the museum; Given that some of the documents are more than • provide the opportunity to enhance the 100 years’ old, their frequent handling for research cultural harnessing of the collections by online purposes may damage their physical integrity and dissemination of the collection items. conservation state. As such, to allow access to the information contained by these documents without The scanning of the Documentary Fund lasted from exerting a negative impact on their physical condition, December 2011 until June 2012 and was carried the museum proceeded to their conversion into out under a partnership agreement between the digital format through scanning. Thus, from the total museum and the Team for Youth Association, with of 2,269 objects of the Documentary Fund, 1,244 the latter providing project volunteers from Serbia, have been scanned so far, i.e. 54.83%. Macedonia, Poland, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Spain, Estonia and France, who worked for a total of 800 Scanning was performed in the order of importance hours on this project. In addition to the scanning of the documents and taking account of their level of the museum documentary fund, a task handled of exposure to the risk of damage, starting with the by Predrag Radivojevic (volunteer from Serbia), the oldest documents, continuing with the photographs international volunteers carried out tasks such as: and ending with exhibition leaflets and catalogs. (1) translation of the presentation brochure of the The database resulting from the scanning – the Baia Mare Arts Center in their native languages Documentary Fund Digiteque - was transferred to and posting it on the Center’s webpage29, fact that an external hard drive, to be accessed whenever facilitated the dissemination of information about the need to view these museum items arises. At the Baia Mare Arts Center and the worldwide
29 http://www.muzartbm.ro/centrul-artistic-baia-mare-1896-2007/
32 Figure 2. Level of artwork digitization promotion of local cultural values; (2) organization repertoires, postcards, posters, invitations etc.), in of the temporary exhibition “Forms of Beauty: electronic formats (online databases, publications Beauty from the Outside, Beauty From Within”30; (3) on virtual environments - website, blog, Facebook, organization of a series of events under the name of Youtube etc.) and in intermediate formats that use “International Evenings at the Museum”. digitization to produce “artisan-like” items to be sold to the public (transposition on canvas, ceramic and metallic support: e.g. reproductions of paintings, Digitization of the museum’s fine arts and visual jugs, plates, bags, cloths, jewelry boxes, mirrors, arts heritage bookmarks, visiting card boxes, fridge magnets etc.).
As for the museum’s easel paintings, easel and Implementing a genuine promotion and dissemination reproduction graphics, decorative art, sculpture and policy, focused on the basic rules of contemporary artistic photography collections, some of them were marketing, has been the strategic objective of the digitally processed by photographing. Out of the total MJACABM since 2009. Until early 2011, the presence of 4,112 artworks, 2,302 were digitized, i.e. 55.98%, on the Internet of our museum had not been a major and a total of 3982 record cards were entered in target, and had therefore been rather sporadic and the DOCPAT record application (for 96.84% of the unsystematic. In 2011, the museum decided to artworks – some of them without photographic embark itself on a set of actions aimed at progressively documentation). The level of digitization by increasing its visibility in the virtual environment. As collections of is shown in Figure 2. such, in the summer of 2011, the museum started its blog on the WordPress platform, containing both raw data and information on the programs conducted by Measures taken to enhance public access to the the institution. By linking its blog to Facebook and museum’s heritage Twitter accounts, the museum was able to exploit the blog both as a free-of-charge online promotion In carrying out further heritage digitization and, channel, and as a substitute for the museum’s hence, the preservation, processing, internal webpage. Likewise, the museum carries out most of research and public exploitation of its heritage, its public relations activities via the Internet. Most the museum must find additional ways and tools often than not, the museum’s press releases are sent to broaden the dissemination to the public of the via email and are taken up by the media either directly museum heritage in traditional formats (catalogs, or from the museum’s blog or Facebook page.
30 https://muzeuldeartabaiamare.wordpress.com/category/expozitii-temporare/forms-of-beauty/vernisajul-expozitiei-forms-of-beauty/
33 Figure 3. Extract from the statistics on the museum’s presence of Facebook
The year 2012 brought further improvements in the of the museum was visited by over 8,000 people and web-based activities of the museum, owing to the fact the material posted by the museums were accessed that the museum managed to transfer its database in just one month (18 October-14 November 2016) from the blog to the www.muzartbm.ro website, by 44 443 visitors (Fig. 3). thereby allowing access of potential audience to virtual visits to the museum at http://www.muzartbm. On Twitter, the museum has a number of 293 ro/tur-virtual/, where the museum offers everybody, subscribers, a significant proportion of who are anytime and anywhere the possibility of a free virtual represented by other cultural organizations and visualization of its permanent exhibition. media.
Also, the museum publishes each month on its Museum’s Youtube channel31 is totaling 6083 views website the image and an argumentative essay on an and 12 subscribers, given that, from its launch (July artwork, under the project “The work of the Month”, 2011) and up until now the museum uploaded initiated in December 2011. Until November 2016, 31 videos on Youtube. We believe it is worth a total of 60 paintings and sculptures were posted mentioning that 21 of the videos were made by the on the website, representing the top of the fine art museum staff, under the promotional program “Baia collection of the museum. Mare Art Center. European Benchmarks between Traditions and Innovations”. The implementation Occasionally, the museum posts on its blog or on its and promotion of this program is, until now, one of website the digitized images of artworks from the the main objectives undertaken and achieved by the various temporary exhibitions organized in or outside young and very active staff of the Department of the museum. Thus, from the launch of its blog and Programs, Marketing and Museum Cultural Products until November 2016, the museum has published a Promotion – a new and innovative function ofour number of 252 articles, 6 pages and 1,542 digitized museum, established in 2008. image, totaling 1.8 GB, which recorded, by November 6, 2016, a total of 189 725 visualizations. In summary, we believe that, during its ten years of independent operation (2006-2016), the County Art Regarding the other communication channels, Museum “Baia Mare Art Center” has endeavored to the greatest impact was achieved by the museum adopt various measures to enhance public access through the Facebook platform. The official website to its collections, exhibitions and information, for
31 https://www.youtube.com/user/MuzeulDeArtaBM
34 educational and promotion purposes, put at the promotional products, including the creation ofa disposal of the public in electronic format through a publicly accessible database containing digitized variety of virtual environment channels, fully free of artworks from the museum’s heritage. Thereafter, charge. the museum should start transferring its database to a national database, along with dissemination However, further improvement of these distribution thereof at a transnational scale, subject, of course, and public communication tools is recommendable. to compliance with the intellectual property rights In the medium and long term, the museum and related rights of the legal administrator - County may consider the possibility of selling online its Museum “Baia Mare Art Center.”
Conclusions
We may say that, across the Romanian museum the making available of scientific information in an sector, there is a wide range of attitudes and opinions attractive and interesting way to the public at large as to the use of modern technological solutions and will help them understand it much easier. In addition, the need for museum upgrading. Some museums the use of new technologies is likely to contribute choose to disregard the use of new technologies in the future to stimulating the desire and interest almost completely (nearly half of the museums listed of the community members to get involved in the in the database of museums and public collections activities of the museum. Last but not least, modern in Romania, managed by CIMEC, do not even have technological solutions are particularly useful for the an e-mail address), while other museums use conservation, management and research of museum almost exclusively the information dissemination cultural heritage. Besides, as technological innovation technology, while ignoring modern technologies, is also used for communicating educational content design to provide and enhance interaction of the in use-friendly manner, the innovation strategy museum with its visitors. can contribute even to the improvement of the environmental sustainability of the museum, there At the opposite end, we see museums (usually, where exhibits include materials / content focusing national museums) that are nearing completion on natural environment protection. of their heritage digitizing processes and are on the verge of making it accessible to the audience, Of course, before all these positive effects can occur, while developing practices designed to adapt the museums should first of all solve the problems related exhibition content in such a way as to improve the to their heritage digitizing. If the main reason for the visitation experience in line with the most advanced reluctance of museums to employing ultramodern international standards. technologies in organizing their exhibition is and will remain for quite some time the high investment costs The reasons that have led to the adoption of the such technologies are involving, the development measures described above are related not only to the of digital databases is an affordable and feasible financial, but also to the socio-cultural sustainability objective even under the current conditions, even of the museum. From the economic point of view, if for now its achievement is hindered, especially implementation by the museum of a technological in the case of small and medium museums, by the innovation strategy requires substantial investments, shortage of skilled professionals with competencies i.e. higher costs, but it also yields higher revenues in this field and, not to a lesser extent, by the huge for the museum, thanks to an increased number of volume of museum objects still awaiting to enter the visitors. In terms of the socio-cultural dimension, primary documentary processing stage and then the the impact is 100% positive, given the fact that digitization process as such.
35 References
Anderson, M. L. 1999. Museums of the future: Lepouras, G., & Vassilakis, C. 2004. Virtual museums for The impact of technology on museum all: Employing game technology for edutainment. practices. Daedalus, Vol. 128, No. 3, pp. 129-162. Virtual Reality, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 96-106. Becuț, A. „Patrimoniul cultural construit. O analiză Lewis, K. E. 2012. Navigating social media a percepției populației” în Croitoru, C., Becuț, challenges with small museums be proactive, not A. (ed.). 2015. Barometrul de Consum Cultural reactive. Scitech Lawyer, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 8-11. 2014. Cultura între global și local, București: Pro Mamrayeva, D. G., & Aikambetova, A. E. 2014. Universitaria, pp. 99-138. Information technology in museums, Education Bell, L. 2008. Engaging the Public in Technology and Science without Borders, Vol. 5, No. 10, Policy A New Role for Science Museums. Science pp. 33-35. Communication, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 386-398. Marchetti, E., & Valente, A. 2012. Diachronic Black, G., & Skinner, D. 2016. The innovation Perspective and Interaction: New Directions for in museum displays project. Online: http:// Innovation in Historical Museums, International www.innovationinmuseumdisplays.co.uk/ Journal of Technology, Knowledge & Society, uploads/1/8/9/7/1897065/full_report_innovation_ Vol. 8, No. 6, pp. 131-143. in_museum_displays.pdf Marinescu, A.H. 2015. Digitizarea patrimoniului Cakir, D., & Karahoca, A. 2014. The protection muzeal. Colecțiile online ale Muzeului Național de of cultural heritage through digitization Artă al României, Revista muzeelor, nr. 1, pp. 17- using virtual museums — a proposed virtual 25. museum model. Global Journal of Information Parry, R. (Ed.). 2013. Museums in a digital age. Technology, 4(2), pp. 101-106. Routledge: London. Camarero, C., Garrido, M.J. 2008. The role of Pieraccini, M., Guidi, G., & Atzeni, C. 2001. 3D technological and organizational innovation in digitizing of cultural heritage. Journal of Cultural the relation between market orientation and Heritage, 2(1), pp. 63-70. performance in cultural organizations, European Pop, I. L., & Borza, A. 2016. Factors Influencing Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 11, No. 3, Museum Sustainability and Indicators for Museum pp. 413-434. Sustainability Measurement. Sustainability, 8(1), Camarero, C., & Garrido, M.J. 2012. Fostering innovation 101. in cultural contexts: market orientation, service Roussou, M., & Efraimoglou, D. 1999. High-end orientation, and innovations in museums, Journal interactive media in the museum, International of Service Research, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 39-58. Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Centrul de Cercetare și Consultanță în Domeniul Techniques: ACM SIGGRAPH 99 Conference abstracts Culturii. 2013. Strategia Sectorială în domeniul and applications,Vol. 8, No. 13, pp. 59-62. Culturii și Patrimoniului Național pentru perioada Vicente, E., Camarero, C., & Garrido, M. J. 2012. Insights 2014-2020. Online: http://www.cultura.ro/ into Innovation in European Museums: The impact uploads/files/STRATEGIA_%20SECTORIALA_IN_ of cultural policy and museum characteristics, DOMENIUL_CULTURII_2014-2020.pdf. Public Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 5, Eid, H. A. 2016. The museum innovation model: pp. 649-679. a museum perspective on open innovation, social enterprise and social innovation, Doctoral Izabela Luiza Pop, PhD candidate dissertation, School of Museum Studies. (e-mail: [email protected]) Guidi, G., Beraldin, J. A., & Atzeni, C. 2004. High-accuracy Economist 3D modeling of cultural heritage: the digitizing of County Museum of Art Donatello’s “Maddalena”. IEEE Transactions on “Baia Mare Artistic Center” image processing, 13(3), pp. 370-380. Tiberiu Alexa, PhD Gül, S. N., & Akmehmet, K. T. 2015. Interactive (email: [email protected]) spaces in art museums: A landscape of exhibition Manager Strategies, Solsko Polje, Vol. 26, No. 5, pp. 141-155. Lagrosen, S. 2003. Online service marketing County Museum of Art and delivery: The case of Swedish “Baia Mare Artistic Center” museums. Information Technology & People, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 132.
36 A New Digital Revolution - Open Data or the Re-use of Public Sector Information
O nouă revoluție digitală – open data sau reutilizarea informațiilor din instituțiile publice
ABSTRACT
The article presents the latest legislation amendments on the re-use of public sector information, as introduced by Directive 2013/37/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council. The transposition of Directive 2013/37/EU was made in Romania byLaw no. 299/2015 amending the Law no. 109/2007 on the re-use of public sector information, the latter transposing Directive 2003/98/EC. New obligations are stipulated for the public museums, along with public libraries and archives, with regard to free data and open data held by this type of institutions, as the digitization of the cultural heritage has developed into an important resource with high potential for educational, cultural and entrepreneurial re-use. After a brief analysis of the digitization progress in the Romanian museums, the article suggests a series of possible organizational changes that might be taken into consideration by museum professionals and management, following the new legal provisions.
Key-words: digitization, museum, open data, law, legislation, Directive 2013/37/UE.
1. Digitization
The significance of digitization in the world of our museums is still unclear, perhaps because of the speed at which digital technology progresses, which is much higher than the pace at which museums are accommodating themselves to the changes brought about by cyberspace.
Leaving aside the standard definition according to which digitization is strictly the conversion of an analogue format (more exactly, a signal) into a digital one, digitization also implies: • online communication, digital marketing, promotion, increased attractiveness as a cultural and tourism objective and, implicitly, public and even financial gains;
37 • education through the provision of specialized and scientific research purposes, development of information to a target audience, increased digital packets - education, exhibition, research - accessibility to heritage and the publication and we have failed to make significant progress in thereof on the Internet in much better the elementary digitization of our cultural heritage conditions in terms of audience and costs than – taking digital pictures of tangible heritage and those offered by traditional publishing means; digitizing related information. • inter-institutional collaboration, information sharing and research; From the standpoint of publication and accessibility • collections management - inventory, records, of digital information, the European statistics research; show that we again rank amongst the last in line: • digital preservation of the information carried according to europeana.eu portal, at the beginning by tangible items - the digitization as such of of 2016, Romania’s contribution to this website the heritage assets; amounted to 172 186 objects, accounting for 21, 8% • digital preservation of metadata related of the target set for 2015 by European Commission to cultural goods – e.g. digitization of the Recommendation 2011/711 / EU. Only Ireland had a registration, conservation and restoration lower content contribution than Romania, i.e. 20.7%, documentation related to tangible cultural but had a higher number of objects contributed - 256 assets; 0981. • production of digital-born materials, including cultural goods (such as digital art); In the same report, the Netherlands has the highest • production of educational, exhibition and number of registered items - 6,295,413, exceeding research packages, exclusively in digital format, the target by over 400%. Italy, France and Spain online or offline. exceed the target by 4 million entries, while Germany We should always bear in mind the distinction between has more than 5 million titles. online and offline, when referring to digitalization. There are materials intended for public use, which These are our failures at the present, but we hope are designed to promote democratization and to be able not only to catch up, but also to achieve facilitate access to heritage, information and culture objectives that seem unattainable at the moment. in general, and materials intended for a restricted But time is running short. We need to open ourselves use – whether professional or administrative – with to a different approach and to other imperatives: limitations being mostly of a legal nature. the museum is no longer just a preserver and a Up to this point, things are clear to everyone in the communicator; the museum is a service provider. museum world in Romania, at least conceptually. In It seems that the role of the museum today is no practice, however, very few museums have managed longer linked strictly to educating and entertaining to go through the digitization processes listed above. the general public; the museum must serve as a Most often than not, our possibilities are limited resource for the entrepreneurial sector as well. to developing a more or less comprehensive Although acknowledged through the various and updated website (rarely available in foreign initiatives dedicated to the development of the languages), to making one’s presence in social media creative industries, people are less aware of this role using one’s own unspecialized and unbudgeted of this new role of the museum, as defined under EU resources, to using the ancient DOCPAT application and national laws and regulations. to keep a digital track of the heritage and to publish The European Commission has included, amongst it exclusively in conjunction with the classification others, the following considerations in the preamble procedure. to its regulatory initiative on the re-use of public In other words, we have not managed so far to sector information: tick the boxes of collection management system “(15) One of the principal aims of the establishment digitization, information exchanges for collaborative of the internal market is the creation of conditions
1 Report on the Implementation of Commission Recommendation 2011/711/EU, 2013-2015http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/image/document/2016-27/ 2013-2015_progress_ report_9-06-2016_16531.pdf (Accesat: 7 octombrie 2016).
38 conducive to the development of Union-wide those resources. As libraries, museums and archives services. Libraries, museums and archives hold continue to invest in digitization, many already make a significant amount of valuable public sector their public domain content available for re-use and information resources, in particular since digitization many are actively seeking out opportunities to re- projects have multiplied the amount of digital public use their content. However, as they operate in very domain material. These cultural heritage collections different regulatory and cultural environments, the and related metadata is a potential base for digital practices of cultural establishments in exploiting content products and services and have a huge content have developed in disparate ways.”2 potential for innovative re-use in sectors such as learning and tourism. Wider possibilities for re-using Later in this article we will try to present the new public cultural material should, inter alia, allow Union obligation incumbent on museums by law following companies to exploit its potential and contribute to the entry into force of Law no. 299/20153, namely economic growth and job creation. that to provide various informative materials, as these are available within public institutions, to (16) There are considerable differences in the rules be used for both noncommercial and commercial and practices in the Member States relating to the purposes by external applicants, upon request – the exploitation of public cultural resources, which so-called “re-use of public sector information” constitute barriers to realizing economic potential of
2. Re-use of Public Sector Information – A New Stage in the Digitization Process
In 2007, by enactment of the Law no. 109, Romania amount to the re-use of information5; supporting transposed Directive 2003/98/EC of the European the commercial activities (activities which are not Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 necessarily of a general public utility) of other natural on the re-use of public sector information; Law or legal persons has now acquired legitimacy. no. 109/2007 was amended shortly after its publication by Law no. 213/2008. Requests for re-use of information may cover, subject to compliance with personal data and copyright The regulation expanded the scope of the obligation protection laws, “any informational content or any of the public institutions to provide certain portion thereof, stored on any support, whether information according to Law no. 544/2001 on free paper, electronic, audio, video or audiovisual”6, access to information of public interest, by adding generically defined by the law as “document”. the duty to provide information that can be reused by applicants to develop new information products According to the provisions in its versions of 2007 and services, including of a commercial nature.4 and 2008, respectively, Law no. 109 was not to be applied to museums, if its application was likely to In other words, the law goes beyond objectives infringe any intellectual property rights.7 like providing information to the general public or ensuring the transparency of the activities conducted In 2015, Law no. 109/2007 is again amended, this by public authorities and institutions, which can time by Law no. 299/2015 transposing the Directive be considered as objectives of public or general 2013/37 / EU amending Directive 2003/98 / EC on 8 interest - in fact, looking for information does not re-use of public sector information.
2 Directive 2013/37 / EU of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2003/98 / EC on re-use of public sector information, Preamblehttp://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- - content/RO/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32013L0037 (Accessed: 7 October 2016).. 3 Law no. 299/2015 amending and supplementing Law no. 109/2007 regarding the re-use of public sector information, Official Journal of Romania No. 898 of 03/12/2015.. 4 Law 109/2007 on the re-use of public sector information, Official Journal of Romania No. 300 of 05/05/2007, Part I: „ Art. 1. The purpose of this law is to regulate the reuse of public sector information in order to create new information products and services. Art. 2. This law regulates the legal framework for reuse of documents held by public institutions that the latter created during their public activity and which can later be used for commercial or non-commercial purposes. This law does not apply to mass media.” 5 Law No. 109/2007, art. 4, lit. c). 6 Law No. 109/2007, art. 4, lit. b). 7 Ibid., art. 3, lit. f). 8 Directive 2013/37 / EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 amending Directive 2003/98 / EC on re-use of public sector information, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, series L, no. 175 of 27 June 2013.
39 Unlike Law no. 109/2007, Law no. 299/2015 expressly those in digital format, but also those stored on a excludes museums, libraries and archives from the physical support. category of cultural institutions holding documents exempt from the application of the provisions of the The applicant may choose the format in which said regulation.9 it wants the documents requested to be made available to it, but the public sector institutions In addition, the earlier provision regarding the holding the requested information do not have an infringement of intellectual property rights is obligation to create or adapt documents where this eliminated, leaving in force only Article 3 (b), which would involve disproportionate costs.10 However, excludes from the scope of the law the documents where “possible and appropriate”, documents have covered by third-party intellectual property rights. to be made available through open and machine- readable formats together with their metadata The situation where museums hold ownership titles (i.e. information about the data contained in the in documents is regulated under a new paragraph documents concerned). Both the format and the inserted in Article 5, i.e. par. (6), which states that “the metadata should, in so far as possible, comply with documents in which libraries, including university formal open standards.”11 libraries, museums and archives hold intellectual property rights, where the re-use of such documents These provisions, together with the obligation to is allowed, shall be re-usable for commercial or non- set up departments / sections designated to receive commercial purposes in accordance with this law and deal with applications for supply of documents and the intellectual property laws.” in a relatively short time (20 days, extendable by up to 20 days), will certainly involve further allocation We wish to remind here the fact that, in the case of of financial and human resources to museum works created during the performance of individual establishments, even if the law requires the applicant employment contracts, the related intellectual to pay, as compensation, the charges for the provision property rights are held by the employer; therefore, of reusable documents. documents produced by institutions using their own human resources fall within the scope of this piece Law no. 299/2015 introduced the possibility of of regulation. adding an extra fee to the actual charge for the reuse of documents, provided only that such extra fee does In other words and by way of example, record files of not generate a revenue of more than “5% above movable cultural property, photos of cultural items, the reference interest rate of the National Bank of exhibition room texts, catalog texts and educational Romania”12 to the provider of reusable documents. materials, all are documents that may be requested for re-use. A positive aspect of the new regulation is that museums are allowed to keep the amounts gained Article 5 (1) states that the re-use of documents is from supply of documents for reuse, in the form free of charge; however, Law no. 299/2015 adds a of revenues (previously, these amounts had to be new mention in paragraph (4), saying that public transferred to the state budget). institutions may establish the conditions for the reuse of documents. Another practical aspect worth mentioning here is that the public sector body to which the request Summarizing the above, we may say that any for reusable documents is submitted has to also information material other than that covered by third- indicate the way in which the charges for the supply party intellectual property rights is reusable, subject of the requested documents have been calculated in to compliance with any intellectual property rights as relation to the specific re-use request. the holder-institution might have over such material. Linked exclusively to the digital domain is the We wish to emphasize the fact that, as the law itself requirement that public institutions should publish on stipulates, reusable documents are not exclusively the data.gov.ro portal the lists of documents available
9 Art. 3, lit. f) of Law No. 109/2007 is amended accordingly.. 10 Law No. 109/2007, art. 7, para. (2). 11 Ibid., art. 7, para. (1). 12 Ibid., art. 6, para. (3). 40 for reuse. Of course, the obligation to publish such term “public information”, i.e. information that lists is not limited to the governmental portal.13 is accessible to the general public, should not be overlooked. From the Presentation section of the data.gov.ro website we learn that the website represents “the Recalling the objectives of the Open Data Initiative application of the European Open Data Initiative – as stated by the European Commission16, namely: making available to the public information that is supporting the discovery of new and innovative accessible, reusable and redistributable freely and solutions, achieving efficiency gains through sharing without restrictions in terms of copyright, patents or data inside and between public administrations, other control mechanisms (open data)”.14 increasing transparency of government and fostering participation of citizens in political and social life - I For now, the portal data.gov.ro is, in terms of content, think we can say that museums in Romania have not well below the standards of the models based on yet made a significant contribution to achieving these which it was developed: the British data.gov.uk, and goals, at least not through the data.gov.ro platform. the US data.gov. So, what should we do next? The open database for the museum sector15 shows that: 3. Conclusions, Red Flags and Encouragements • out of 74 institutions registered, only 4 are I have made here a brief presentation of the museums; regulations on the reuse of information held by • two museums are registered as independent public sector bodies, with a view to draw the institutions – the National History Museum of attention of museums on a potential need to adapt Romania and The Romanian Peasant Museum; their work to a social framework whose coordinates in the section dedicated to the Ministry of and imperatives are changing continuously. Culture, reference is also made to the National Art Museum of Romania and the National Some of the possible immediate consequences of Museum of Natural History “Grigore Antipa”. the aforementioned regulations are: • another institution, besides the museums • amendment of the regulation on the specified above, is the National Heritage organization and functioning of the institution, Institute, with 26 sets of open data, including so as to include, for the relevant department some that contain information about in charge, the duty to handle the requests museums and museum heritage (note that all received under Law no. 109/2007, as amended data included has already been published and and supplemented; managed by CIMEC - The Cultural Memory • changes in the job descriptions for the Institute, currently a department of the personnel in charge of public relations, or the National Heritage Institute). assignment of new tasks, pursuant to Law no. None of the four museums specified above has 109/2007, to other categories of personnel; provided information about its cultural heritage; data • modify the fees charged for supply of services posted are solely that falling within the scope of Law like picture taking or filming or of the fees no. 544/2001 – contact details, organizational chart, charged for allowing the publication of materials balance sheet and the like, plus a curious selection made available by the public institution; of pay slips from 2016, of some of the staff of the • training existing staff or recruiting personnel National History Museum of Romania. specialized in digitization and capable to operate databases, including the data.gov.ro Data posted by museums are not open data in portal; machine-readable format, but they are simply • drawing up the lists of documents available public domain information. The distinction between for reuse - an operation that requires careful the technical term “open data” and the common planning and quite substantial time and human resources - and publication thereof;
13 Ibid., art. 9, para. (1), (2), (4). 14 http://data.gov.ro/about. (Accessed: 8 October 2016). 15 On October 8 2016. 16 https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/open-data/ (Accessed: 8 October 2016).
41 • preparation of annual legal compliance We might succumb to the temptation to see all reports, as may be required by the Ministry of these European obligations as burdensome tasks for Communications; museums in Romania, which are understaffed, or • last but not least, establishing a consistent as possible sources of new disputes and conflicting procedure to monitor and inform about relations with the private entrepreneurial sector or, regulatory changes and recommendations in even worse, as a loss of informational and cultural the field of digitization. capital. Fact is that, if we manage to fulfill all these These could be, as I said, immediate consequences requirements, we can turn what we might perceive of the enforcement of the law on re-use of public as a loss into a gain for our institutions. sector information. This new openness to society and these new ways of However, a consequence on the long run should be addressing the beneficiaries of the museum activities a change in the way museums operate today, in the can be yet another means of promoting cultural heritage sense of increasing their willingness o collaborate and each and every museum, a way to strengthen with other sectors and, of course, to include the digital the status of the museum as a key provider of public, component in everything they do. The education and cultural and education services, and in particular the development of a digital “reflex” would be the ideal status of the museum as a resource and an engine for our museums should pursue. economic growth, a status the Romanian museum has not yet fully succeeded to assert and bring to the fore.
References
Communication 822/2011 from the Commission of cultural material and digital preservation – to the European Parliament, the Council, the http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ. European Economic and Social Committee and the do?uri=OJ:L:2011:283:0039:0045:EN:PDF Committee of the Regions – Open data An engine for (Accessed: 8 October 2016). innovation, growth and transparent governance – Report on the Implementation of Commission http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ. Recommendation 2011/711/EU, 2013-2015 –http:// do?uri=COM:2011:0882:FIN:EN:PDF (Accessed: 8 ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/ October 2016). image/document/2016-27/2013-2015_progress_ Directive 2013/37/EU of the European Parliament report_9-06-2016_16531.pdf (Accessed on 7 and of the Council of 26 June 2013 amending October 2016). Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information – http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/RO/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32013L0037 (Accessed on: 8 October 2016). Alis Vasile European Commission Recommendation 2011/711/ [email protected] EU on the digitization and online accessibility
42 Research on Cultural Heritage Digitization Assumptions, Approaches and Challenges
Cercetarea digitizării patrimoniului cultural
ABSTRACT
This paper describes the characteristics of the studies regarding the cultural heritage digitization process. By reviewing a series of studies and research projects carried out at international level, the paper argues that the systematic analysis of the cultural heritage digitization presents particular challenges for researchers. Bearing in mind the importance of substantiating the activity of public intervention through dedicated studies and researches, identifying solutions for such challenges can be seen as a crosscutting objective for the initiatives regarding systematic analysis of the cultural heritage digitization. The subject is approached from the general view of digitization in the case of cultural heritage with an overtone on the particular situation of a museum’s heritage. A similar strategy is applied for the analyzed material – starting from international identified sources and continuing with examples from Romania.
Key-words: cultural heritage, digitization, digital preservation, cultural statistics
43 I. Introduction
Given the major impact that digital technology digitization presents a few particular challenges to has on culture as result of the restructuring of not researchers in the cultural field. only its tangible size (such as cultural infrastructure or the means of distribution of cultural goods), Considering the importance of substantiating public practices and behaviors (consumption or interaction intervention initiatives through dedicated studies and with cultural products and services), but also of the research, finding solutions for such challenges can process of creation (incorporating new forms of be seen as a cross-cutting objective for the initiatives expression, for example) - the culture digitization covering a systematic analysis of the cultural heritage issue becomes a priority for many categories of digitization process. actors involved. In particular, digitization of the I will approach the subject from the general level cultural heritage ranks high on the EU agenda, being of digitization of cultural heritage, refining my transposed into national strategies or programs considerations, where appropriate, by reference and implemented in several cultural institutions. In to the particular situation of the museum heritage. general, public intervention initiatives in the cultural Regarding the analyzed material, I have employed sector are subject to researches conducted in various a similar strategy: I start from sources identified stages and guided by multiple purposes, and cultural internationally and then concentrate on relevant heritage digitization is not an exception to this rule. examples from Romania. In selecting the research This article describes certain features of the studies studies and projects analyzed herein I did not seek dedicated to cultural heritage digitization process. to attain completeness, but rather to capture the Based on a review of a series of studies and research diversity and the points of complementarity that projects carried out at international level, I will show can facilitate the understanding of the prerequisites, that the systematic analysis of the cultural heritage approaches and challenges in this field.
II. Definition and interpretation of the digital object
The use of digital technologies to activate, engage Simply put, digital objects are representations social participation and transform the cultural of “natural objects” (such as images, sounds, heritage is paralleled by shifts in the organizational documents), created by means of specific recording and practice culture of the institutions entrusted technologies (such as cameras, scanners).2 In a more with its care. Once adopted, these technologies are technical sense, digitization is defined as the material in turn adapted and transformed as result of their process of converting individual analogue streams of use in the specific context of a given institution.1 information into a binary system that is specific to Thus, the relationship between digital technology the digital environment.3 In both cases, digitization and the environment in which it is used can be implies the existence of an original object, a digital understood through a series of tensions that are representation thereof and of the means required to most often contained by the virtual versus real and create the representation.4 material versus immaterial divides. The building up of these tensions is linked to the features of the In the case of cultural heritage, digitization is 5 digital object and to the way they are understood by undertaken as part of a longer process that includes: the institutions managing the cultural heritage. • selection; • assessment, including of needs;
1 Cameron and Kenderdine (2007), 1. 2 UNESCO (f.a.). 3 Collin et al. (2015). 4 Specialized literature distinguishes between “digitization” and „digitalization”. Thus, digitalization is defined as the process of the technologically-induced change within all aspects of human society (Khan, 2016). Although sometimes these concepts are used interchangeably (BarNir et al., 2003), there is a growing tendency to distinguish between the two conceptual terms. In this article I will refer only to the digitization process and will use only this term to describe it. 5 UNESCO (f.a.).
44 • prioritization; culture paradigm.8 Cameron concurs that these kinds • preparation of originals for digitization; of approaches to digital objects have constrained the • creation of collection structure; value, meaning and imaginative uses of both the digital • digitization and creation of data collections; objects and related technology. • submission of new digital resources to delivery/ repository systems. Another important distinction on this vein is that between digitization and digital preservation. The Starting from the definition of the digital object in latter refers to the protection of digital objects over relation to what is considered an “original” object that a longer period of time and takes account of the is often characterized by materiality, many studies the rapid pace of technological changes.9 Thus, for digital observation that the digitization process has induced objects created in a given period and with certain some anxiety within the cultural heritage management technologies there is a risk that, once the technologies sector, and in particular within the museum sector.6 The initially employed are discontinued, the digital objects reproducibility and the immaterial nature of the digital concerned might become inaccessible. The concept of objects were viewed as “threats” against “real” objects digital preservation applies also to the so-called “born and works of art. For example, Andrea Witcombe digital” objects (created through a “digital production” points out that, when it comes to the impact of process). digital media technologies in museum exhibitions, the existing discussions tend to be based on an opposition While the way digital object is defined and interpreted between the virtual and the material world: the influences the activity of institutions that manage virtual is interpreted either as a threat or as a radical cultural heritage, and which, in most cases, are also 7 process of democratization (of the access to culture, those that are leading the process of digitization, for example). For example, Witcombe recommends the attempts to analyze the heritage digitization a different interpretation, namely one that takes find in this point a first challenge they are expected digital objects as material objects in their own right. In to overcome. Digital preservation presents similar another example, Fiona Cameron, after examining the challenges, given that it circumscribes the relationship prevailing institutional debates and discourses, shows of the cultural heritage with technology, in the context how digital historical collections have been bounded of an increased pace of technological change. by an object-centered museum culture and material III. Measuring the digitization process: applied studies and projects
Digitization monitoring encompasses an important and go into more details about the projects aimed category of applied studies. They are guided by a at achieving international comparability. At the end, clear practical purpose, represented by the need to I will discuss about the Romanian initiatives in the substantiate public intervention policies. In this case, field of digitization process research. My intention monitoring consists of measuring (i.e. conducting is to highlight some types of indicators used, data a quantitative survey on) the digitization process, sources and methodological challenges. using different indicators and data sources. Characteristics of the national initiatives In early 2000s we witnessed a growth in the number of international and national initiatives Basically, the national projects covering the statistical designed to monitor heritage digitization process, measurement of the digitization process are driven 11 in the form of measurements dedicated to a given by what happens in this field internationally. sector (museums, libraries, archives etc.) and of For example, for Europe, an important role in the crosscutting measurements as well.10 In this section development of such measurements has been played I will review some features of the national initiatives by the initiatives undertaken by the European Group on Museum Statistics (through the instruments
6 Cameron and Kenderdine (2007), 4. 7 Andrea Witcomb (2007). 8 Fiona Cameron (2007). 9 Seamus (2000). 10 Bakker et al. (2011). 11 Ibidem.
45 EGMUS Standard Questionnaire and Abridged List of new contributions is rather slow.14 The reasons of Key Museum Indicators - ALOKMI) ESSnet-Culture for such a situation are linked, on the one hand, to (notably through ESSnet Culture Task Force 1) or the the methodological difficulties encountered in the ENUMERATE Project (implemented by the European process of creating a statistical framework (an activity Commission). that generally requires longer periods of time for the data collection systems to be well established) and, 12 Several criteria may be used to rate these project: on the other hand, to difficulties of a more general • temporality (the frequency with which they are nature implied by data collection in various countries implemented: one time, biannually, annually (with the financial resources allocated to research etc.); playing an important role in this case). • area / sector (either transversal projects or projects dedicated to a specific field - museums, International approaches: comparable data libraries, archives etc.); • the initiator (a public authority, a professional International initiatives take digitization process association, a private entity etc.); measurement one step further, because the focus • issues addressed (cost of digitization, is placed on data comparability, which is something digitization expansion, access to digitized that requires methodological harmonization at products, digital preservation etc.). various levels (definitions and indicators, data collection methods, reporting forms). International Data are collected by means of statistical studies and research projects are particularly questionnaires developed by the initiators of the important, especially in countries where digitization monitoring and distributed to institutions managing measurement is still underdeveloped.15 In this case, and digitizing the cultural heritage. In general, the examples of best practices and the recommendations census-like approach is the preferred monitoring or the research results identified internationally technique, in an attempt to collect data from all the function as knowledge resources for the start / bodies in charge with heritage management (either improvement of digitization measurement process. in a specific sector or crosscutting). The objective pursued by The European Group on The types of data collected may include information Museum Statistics (through the instruments EGMUS on: Standard Questionnaire and Abridged List of Key • management of the institutions managing and Museum Indicators - ALOKMI) covers the collection digitizing cultural heritage; and publication of comparable statistical data.16 The • the financial dimension of the digitization Group reviews and centralizes data on the situation process; of museums, collected through national censuses or • human resources involved in the digitization surveys. In addition, they developed a standardized process; questionnaire for data collection, in 2008, whose • infrastructure available for the digitization scope covers information such as: process; • digitized collections (type, size, use); • museum identification details; • conservation or preservation issues; • data about the types of museums and their • public access. legal status; • opening hours; Although the number of projects that measure the • exhibitions and number of visitors; digitization process at national level has increased, it • income and expenses; is estimated that their number is still small compared • human resources; to the needs of cultural heritage sector13 and that the • ICT (Information and Communication Technology pace of methodological innovation and of addition - a chapter that encompasses digitization as well).
12 Ibidem. 13 Ibidem. 14 Jan Nauta (2015). 15 It is important to note that such projects are not always entirely devoted to digitization, but rather digitization is just part of a wide range of research targets. 16 Ibidem.
46 The ESSnet-Culture Network, initiated by Eurostat, administered questionnaires sent to various implemented the project “Cultural Statistics”, in institutions that manage and digitize cultural the period 2009-2011, which included four working heritage. Nationally, the different partner institutions groups, one of which, called Task Force 1, was centered or expert groups are responsible for the translation on creating a common methodological framework of the data collection tool and its dissemination to for cultural statistics and definitions. The results of cultural institutions. An important methodological this project, though not specifically dedicated to aspect is that the survey attempts to sample digitization, have contributed the domain through institutions (a census-like approach would be difficult the clarification and operationalization of concepts to implement). Based on the recommendations or definitions. formulated by the expert groups at national level, the survey establishes a number of criteria designed The most important digitization measuring project to help identify the category of relevant institutions is the ENUMERATE Project, an initiative of European out of the total number of institutions in charge with Commission, which builds on the results of the pilot cultural heritage management. Then, a sampling is project NUMERIC (a groundbreaking initiative, which made on the relevant institutions, based on a quota ran from 2007 until 2009) and is now (since 2014) system, in such a way as to ensure representation of part of EUROPEANA – an online platform of digitized the different sectors and subsectors. Once the data resources in the cultural field. is collected, a weighting factor is applied, to extract estimates that are applicable to the cultural heritage The survey involves collecting statistics covering four digitization field as a whole. major areas and several indicators:17 Romania 1. Digitization • digital collections; The National Statistics Institute, through its • types of digitized objects; instruments INS CULT 1 (libraries) and INS CULT • “born-digital” collections; 2 (museums and public collections), collects • digitization strategies. information about cultural heritage products available in digital format. Although they are not 2. Digital Access intended to capture the digitization process as such • use of digital collections. (and in particular heritage digitization), these data 3. Digital Preservation have not been yet harnessed by dedicated studies and analysis. As a matter of fact, in Romania there is • digital preservation strategies applied in a shortage of assessments and surveys on the state institutions; of the digitization process. Except for Romania’s • digital preservation strategies available participation in the NUMERIC project, in 2008, nationally. through the activation of the Center for Research and 4. The cost of digitizing Consultancy in Culture18, no other similar initiatives • cost components; exist in Romania.19 As the authors of the final survey • size of human resources involved in digitizing report emphasized, the low rate of response to the (employees and volunteers); survey suggested was an indication at the time of the • funding. absence of digitization programs across the sampled institutions (survey questionnaires were sent toa Regarding the data collection method, the survey total of 105 institutions). follows the same route described above: self-
17 Stroeker and Vogels (2012). 18 Becuț et al. (2009). 19 It can also be identified only another feasibility study about the potential digitization program conducted by the Romanian National Library in 2007.
47 IV. Digitization analysis and interpretation
In this section, I am giving some examples of surveys similar to using computers, the Internet and other conducted based on data about the relationship ICT policy documents. On the other hand, digitization between institutions and the digital technology (in of collections and their publication online evolve at a particular, but not exclusively, the digitization process), much slower pace. The explanation given by Navarrete obtained by qualitative or quantitative research is that the national ICT adoption policies have focused methods, in order to discuss a few wider aspects of the on innovation based on new technologies, but missed to cultural sector. support organizational change or skill development.22
Examining the extent of adoption ofopen data strategies Given that heritage institutions may be, at the same and the engagement in crowdsourcing practices for time, places where research is conducted, Borowiecki Swiss heritage institutions, Beat Estermann20 finds and Navarrete discuss the digitization process in terms that, though very few organizations have an open data of innovation.23 Cultural heritage remains digitally policy, the future may bring major changes, since an inaccessible, despite the huge potential of its digitization. increasing number of organizations outweigh the risks Looking at the situation in Europe at different levels, associated with such practices with the development the authors show that institutions and organizations opportunities they perceive as more important. The are more open to heritage digitizing when operating in main obstacles to the adoption of open data practices an environment where cultural consumers are digitally are linked to the concerns the institutions have with literate. Equally important are the resources allocated to respect to the control over data. training the staff of the cultural heritage organizations. Digital literacy is one of the most important positive “Born-digital” products, and in particular the three- determinants for digitization and innovation. dimensional (3D) ones, have given birth to a specific need, namely the need for digital archives – particularly, As for digital preservation, it has been reported that the 3D archives.21 These digital cultural products and format in which documents, images, sounds or videos their archiving raise further challenges to museum are stored depends on the software chosen by the practitioners, including: managing digital rights in 3D different institutions.24 In other words, the preservation models, understanding the uncertainty that is specific of digital products ultimately depends on standards that to 3D reconstructions, creating specific metadata are no longer developed by the heritage institution, but structures, long-term preservation, interoperability etc. by private vendors of software packages. This low level of control over standards affects the preservation and In his analysis of the history of the digitization of the curatorial work. Therefore, we need innovative tools, museum heritage in the Netherlands, Trilce Navarrete designed to ensure quality benchmarks for assessing argues that the pace of technological adoption is the archived collections. V. Conclusions A major challenges presented by the assessment of by heritage institutions. The problem of defining and the state of cultural heritage digitization process is the approaching the digital object may occur both during definition of and approach to the digital object. This the research design, at the time of data collection (at challenge stems from the fact that the relationship least due to the fact that the heritage institutions that between digital technology and the environment in manage are also the data sources, the providers of the “research material” for such initiatives ), or at the point which it is used can be understood through a series of analysis and interpretation of the fact-findings. of tensions described by the virtual versus real and material versus immaterial divides. The building up In assessing the state of the digitization process, of these tensions is linked to the characteristics of we should bear in mind that the methodological the digital object and the way they are understood difficulties that are generally encountered when
20 Estermann (2014). 21 Koller (2009). 22 Navarrete (2014). 23 Borowiecki and Navarrete (2016). 24 Fresa et al. (2015).
48 creating a statistical framework hold true in this preservation and digitization costsee ( ENUMERATE case as well. International measurement initiatives, Project). in addition to the fact that they allow a comparative approach, they present the great advantage of The problem of digital preservation is presented providing examples of best practice, as well as separately from digitization, given that international recommendations and results identified as functional. research on digital preservation is still in its inception stage. Most statistical measurements turn to data obtained by a survey conducted amongst heritage management In Romania, the surveys and assessments on the state of and digitization organizations. In this case, sampling the the digitization process are scarce (in terms of both data respondent institutions encounters some difficulties, availability, and the number of initiatives undertaken which are addresses only to little extent by the surveys in this field). Data on the extent of cultural heritage and projects reviewed herein (in particular, the relevant digitization are currently collected by the National institutionscan be quite problematic, as are the methods Institute of Statistics. The fact that such data do not of assessment/extrapolation across different cultural actually monitor the digitization process as such is not sectors). necessarily justified by a methodological reason, but Basically, most of the indicators used may be grouped might be an indication of the weak manifestation of the under categories like: digitization, digital access, digital phenomenon. VI. References Bakker, S., M. de Niet and G. Jan Nauta., 2012. Overview Khan, S., 2016. ‘Leadership in the digital age: A study of National and International Initiatives. ENUMERATE on the effects of digitalisation on top management Project. leadership’, Disertație, Stockholm University. BarNir, A., Gallaugher, J. M. and Auger, P., 2003. ‘Business Koller, D., Frischer, B. and Humphreys, G., 2009. process digitization, strategy, and the impact of firm ‘Research challenges for digital archives of 3D cultural age and size: the case of the magazine publishing heritage models’. Journal on Computing and Cultural industry’. Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 18, Heritage , vol. 2, no. 3, p. 7. no. 6, pp. 789-814. Nauta, G. J. and van den Heuvel, W., 2015. Survey Becuț, A., Stroe, M., Chelcea, L., 2009. Diagnoza report on digitisation in European Cultural Heritage sectorului cultural: instrument pentru managementul Institutions 2015. Europeana/ENUMERATE, DEN culturii, Iaşi, Polirom. Foundation (NL). Borowiecki, K.J. and Navarrete, T., 2016. ‘Digitization Navarrete, T., 2014. ‘Becoming digital: A Dutch heritage of heritage collections as indicator of innovation’. perspective’. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, and Society, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 153-168. pp. 1-20. Seamus, R., 2000. ‘Changing trains at Wigan: Digital Cameron, F. and Kenderdine, S., 2007. Theorizing digital preservation and the future of scholarship’. National cultural heritage: A critical discourse. Cambridge, Preservation Office, Occasional Papers. MIT Press. Stroeker, N. and Vogels, R. 2012. Survey Report on Cameron, F., 2007. ‘Beyond the cult of the replicant: Digitisation in European Cultural Heritage Institutions Museums and historical digital objects–traditional 2012. ENUMERATE Thematic Network. concerns, new discourses’. In F. Cameron and S. UNESCO. (without year). Fundamental principles of Kenderdine Theorizing digital cultural heritage: A digitization of documentary heritage. Available at: critical discourse, Cambridge, MIT Press, pp. 49-75. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/ Collin, J. et al., 2015. IT leadership in transition-the HQ/CI/CI/pdf/mow/digitization_guidelines_for_ impact of digitalization on finnish organizations. web.pdf and accessed on November 6 2016. Helsinki: Aalto University Witcomb, A., 2007. ‘The Materiality of Virtual Estermann, B., 2014, ‘Diffusion of Open Data and Technologies: A New Approach to Thinking about the Crowdsourcing among Heritage Institutions’ Journal Impact of Multimedia in Museums’. In F. Cameron of theoretical and applied electronic commerce and S. Kenderdine (ed), Theorizing Digital Cultural research, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 15-31. Heritage, pp. 35-48. Fresa, A., Justrell, B. and Prandoni, C. 2015, ‘Digital Andrei Crăciun curation and quality standards for memory NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR institutions: PREFORMA research project’. Arch Sci, CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 191–216. [email protected] 49 A New Approach to Digital Museum Heritage Valorization
Pentru o nouă metodică a valorificării patrimoniului digital muzeal
ABSTRACT
Museums find themselves faced with the greatest educational challenge ever in their entire history. Although their primary mission is to protect and exploit the cultural-material heritage, it came to be also of a digital type, the subjects and the beneficiaries of museum services are witnessing a unique phenomenon in the history of mankind, as part of a generation that has more access than ever before to information from around the world through personal terminals (such as a mobile phone or tablet) connected to the Internet. The article proposes a new approach to museum education, i.e. one that is based on the useof assumed technology.
Key-words: museums, interactions, technology, education, digital heritage, methods, internet, social media
The New World
While in 2005 only one of the top ten largest American companies was a technology developer – i.e. IBM (ranking 10th)1 – in 2016, five out of the world’s most valuable brands are linked to technology development: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and IBM.2 In less than a decade, a period that was decisively marked by the emergence of the iPhone in 2007, mankind has switched from the consumption of hydrocarbons and the trade in consumer products (dominated by companies such as Wal-Mart, Exxon, General Motors, Ford Motor, General Electric and Chevron Texaco) to an era dominated by online/cloud databases, search engines and social networks and by manufacturers of devices that allow access to the cyberspace information.
We are contemporaries of a generation that has read and wrote more than ever in the entire human history. The reading and “consumption” of content supplied by search engines, the real-time communication – written and oral – via social networks and the unlimited access to almost any type of information have seen an expansion that is unprecedented in the whole history of mankind. All these processes unfold virtually
1 http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/2005/ 2 http://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/#tab:rank
50 ceaselessly and are encompassing huge masses of to the Romanian Transmedia Audit Bureau, in 2015 people, with billions of users accessing the Internet there were 8.8 million internet users in Romania.4 daily. Around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today. While in 1995, only less The way the professional community in charge with than 1% of the world population was using the protecting and passing on the cultural heritage of the Internet, the number of internet users has increased humanity reacts in the face of this new global trend is tenfold from 1999 to 2013, to reach the first billion still in the pioneering stage. The first action (perhaps, in 2005. The second billion was reached in 2010 the easiest, given the huge technological leap of the and the third billion, in 2014.3 The incidence rate recent years) was to start the heritage digitization of this “virus” is increasingly higher, and it is only process, as the inception stage of the wider heritage a matter of time before the whole mankind will be valorization (now in digital format as well) endeavor. interconnected within the global network. According
The Old Continent
At European level, the largest database, www. At the European level, several strategic policies and europeana.eu, dedicated exclusively to the European action points in the field of cultural heritage have been cultural heritage, has been created, whose declared recommended, which, unfortunately, have not been mission is: “We transform the world with culture! “absorbed” yet by the national heritage operators, We want to build on Europe’s rich heritage and make simply due to that that they are unaware of the it easier for people to use, whether for work, for existence of such recommendations. Thus, in May 2015, learning or just for fun.”5 the document Europeana for Education and Learning established the vision, the key recommendations, the Europeana portal was launched in November 2008 context (the changing nature of learning, the use of and, by October 2016, was already providing access digital cultural heritage in education and learning and to over 53 million artworks, cultural goods, books, the challenges), as well as the policy recommendations films and music, collected from all over Europe. and the proposed actions in the field of learning and Contributors to this huge database are over 3,300 education.6 cultural heritage organizations, mostly archives, libraries and museums. We will outline below the issues dealing with the changing nature of learning, namely the general However, the major challenge that lies ahead at recommendations formulated at European level, the moment is to be able to pass on this wealth and then we will review the situation of the national of information and emotions, whose role in museums and the current specialized literature, ending strengthening our sense of belonging to the larger with the presentation of a case study on possible new mankind community is paramount. approaches to digital heritage valorization.
The consumption habits of the “new humanity”, The vision at European level with regard to digitized which has emerged or adapted itself in recent years cultural heritage is defined as follows: “Digital and which is expected to become stronger and European cultural heritage may be widely used for stronger in the immediate future, are now totally high-quality education and learning for the mutual different from anything we knew before. This new benefit of all stakeholders.”7 reality requires a customized strategy, especially when it comes to leveraging the cultural heritage, an The nature of learning is changing, with learning taking activity that will become our only ongoing task, once place increasingly outside of the classroom or formal the heritage digitization is over, and the ultimate institutions. The number of visual learners rises and, form of heritage preservation. as such, the demand for visuals and moving images
3 http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ 4 http://www.agerpres.ro/sci-tech/2015/12/14/brat-in-romania-8-8-milioane-de-utilizatori-de-internet-6-5-milioane-de-romani-sunt-zilnic-online-12-35-24 5 http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en 6 http://pro.europeana.eu/files/Europeana_Professional/Publications/Europeana%20for%20Education%20and%20Learning%20Policy%20Recommendations.pdf 7 Ibidem, 3.
51 grows. More attention is given to the development of digital cultural heritage that is available. Furthermore, transversal competencies such as cultural awareness suitability of the European digital learning resources for and digital, social and civic competences. Educators need learning is reduced by language barriers. “There is still a innovative educational resources that are engaging, lack of open digital learning resources that help students reliable (see the questionable quality of many online acquire transversal and subject-specific competences resources!) and of high quality and help stakeholders through the use of digital heritage”. 9 to acquire competences and are easy to use, adapt and develop further. Educational systems are traditionally The policy recommendations and action points focused on the history and culture of the individual contained by the aforesaid document are as follows: nations, rather than on the transnational links amongst set up a Europe-wide structured dialogue between them. Therefore, a transnational approach would be policymakers, cultural heritage institutions and better suited to the current realities.8 educators to improve access and reduce duplication of effort; prioritize the provision of ‘Fit for Education and There are some challenges in realizing this vision, such Learning’ content by cultural heritage institutions and as the absence of instruments for a structured dialogue ministries; emphasize the development of inclusive between all stakeholders. Many times we are faced with and accessible digital learning resources; promote open a lack of awareness among cultural heritage institutions licenses and improve access and re-use conditions to about the needs of education and learning and with underpin education and learning.10 an insufficient knowledge amongst educators of the
Our World
In Romania, the strategic directions in the field of Long-Term” (not in the short and medium term!) digitization of cultural resources were outlined by the reads as follows: “Promoting the use of digitized document “2014-2020 Sectoral Strategy on National cultural resources in education”13. Culture and Heritage11. Although the aforementioned strategic document Section 9.2 - Digitization of Cultural Resources – of (correctly) includes education and training among the said document describes the general and the the transversal strategic objectives, in line with the specific objectives of the strategy and the courses common EU objectives (“making lifelong learning and of action to be pursued in the short, medium and mobility a reality; improving the quality and efficiency long term. Among the specific objectives of this key of education and training; promoting equity, social strategic direction are the increase of the national cohesion and active citizenship; enhancing creativity contribution to the European Digital Library and the and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all use of digitization to: enhance access to national levels of education and training.”14), the general cultural resources, preserve and promote national and the specific objectives laid down by the cultural heritage, transform the way arts and culture document with respect to education and training are created and experimented, create new forms of make no connection whatsoever between heritage artistic and cultural expression and build and diversify digitization and education. audiences and consumers.12 In a somewhat declarative and ambiguous way, the As we can see, education and learning are not main courses of actions established for the medium included in the specific objectives listed above. Taking and long term recommend “support to programs and a closer look at this otherwise very promising Section projects aimed at using mass-media (sic!) and ITC15, (section 9.2), we find that the last but one sentence to build audiences, sustain interactivity and enhance of the text under the heading “Main Actions on the the creative skills and abilities of the general public,
8 Ibidem, 4. 9 Ibidem, 5. 10 Ibidem. 11 http://www.cultura.ro/uploads/files/STRATEGIA_%20SECTORIALA_IN_DOMENIUL_CULTURII_2014-2020.pdf. 12 Ibidem, 335. 13 Ibidem, 338. 14 Ibidem, 189. 15 Information Technology and Communications includes, generically, heritage digitization – n. n..
52 and in particular of the vulnerable groups”16, and young people are getting digital in the purest sense “diversify artistic practices (sic!) across formal of the word! education system and use ICT for this purpose”17. As we said, we will describe below a case study, Regarding the way the Romanian museum which shows how digitized heritage can be leveraged management sees valorization of the digitized in education. The museum “Casa Mureşenilor” heritage, we have to say that the main drawback is in Braşov was the recipient of a grant provided by the lack of systematic approach. Starting from the the National Cultural Fund Administration in 2015 formal tertiary education system, which is expected for the project “Arhiva Mureşenilor – A National to provide qualified museum professionals, and Cultural Heritage Treasure. Increasing Access to continuing with staff recruitment and the training Culture through New Media Technologies”. The programs provided by the various education providers main outcome of the project was the creation in the market, no one trains museum professionals in of an online database containing 2,000 scanned what digitization process implies. historical documents, of relevance for the history of Transylvania from the 19th through the 20th century, The courses on teaching methodology, taught focusing on memorabilia of some of the personalities to most students enrolled in higher education of those times (correspondence, photographs, in Romania, are totally unrelated to the today’s official documents etc.). realities. Experience proves that young visitors of the museums in Romania are systematically discouraged The practical module of the project consisted (in to use modern technologies and the Internet in the absence of similar examples of best practices) the classroom. The books candidates are required of application of digitized heritage during history to read and the written or practical tests they are classes. The same experiment was replicated at the supposed to pass before they are hired as museum museum, during the visit of a group of high school professionals are obsolete, dating back to what we students. The students were directly involved in can call the “prehistoric era” of the Internet. Old the educational process by using their own cell books, which are otherwise very well written for phones or the terminals in their computer labs at their time, are still making the mandatory reading for school. The exercises consisted of identifying specific the candidates sitting from exams. Likewise, museum elements in the old photos displayed to them, as laws - see the Public Museums and Collections Law well as the differences among photos belonging to (Law 311/2003) – contain no reference whatsoever a set of photographs dealing with the given subject, to the digitalized world. Legislative updates have including the transcription and interpretation of old also failed to deal with digitization, thus missing this documents.18 unique opportunity. Training of museum specialists after their employment continues to focus on Perhaps the most spectacular experiment was the use what have become the “fetish” museum topics of Facebook to interact, from the museum’s premises, (preservation, accessioning and heritage research), with the students of “Emil Racoviţă” Natural with only very timid attempts to exploit the heritage Sciences College in Braşov. Starting from the generic through reenactment and interactive exhibits. theme of the history of journalism in Braşov, where the newspaper “Gazeta Transilvaniei” (Transylvanian When looking at the educational methods employed Gazette), published between 1850 and 1911 by the for the harnessing what is still heritage in analogue Mureşanu family, stands as a remarkable milestone, format (as digitized heritage is more a matter of the students were shown how to write a headline in wishful thinking at the moment), we may see that the newspaper. The exercise asked the students to they are still monologue-oriented, with a few slight extract the key questions a newspaper story should variations like “learn by doing” and the “cut, color answer to, starting from the first headline in the and play” workshops. Reenactment tends to be seen said newspaper, available on a Facebook page19, as the panacea for all problems. And all this while specifically created by curators for this purpose:
16 http://www.cultura.ro/uploads/files/STRATEGIA_%20SECTORIALA_IN_DOMENIUL_CULTURII_2014-2020.pdf, 211. 17 Ibidem, 212. 18 https://www.facebook.com/Arhiva-Muresenilor-1018982671467109/photos 19 https://www.facebook.com/GazetaTransilvaniei/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1158811650816762
53 “Transylvania. Brașov 22. March. adults responsible for the education of the younger in a big city such as our, generations to correct and make the students aware we’ve been deprived of theatrical shows this of such errors. And we can just as well do that at year. the museum, and not necessarily at school, thereby But we are happy to see bringing our contribution to the development of the theater opened again and to watch the students’ communication skills, a task that is a bunch of amateur artists, made up of some of circumscribed to the overall transversal educational some of the finest young men objective. Even a history class can be an opportunity and the most beautiful girls in our city, to teach students how to write and speak Romanian whose talent is worth all our praise!” correctly. After defining the key questions in journalism (where? when? who? what? how? why?), the students were Last but not least, we emphasize the informal asked to post their comments, in reply to the posting interaction among the members of the group of on the Facebook page, containing their own “news” students during the exercise.The students reacted to about what they were doing then and there. Below the novelty of the situation using the language that are two of thee most relevant comments of the was typical to people in their age group (16-18): e.g. 20 21 students taking part in the exercise. “OMG” , “nice meme” , “2 short” , appreciation (like) and forward (share). Rareş Ciornea “Friday, 11/03/2016, a group of students from Emil Racoviţă College in Brasov Once the writing and the online interaction exercise attended a presentation at the Casa Muresenilor was over, the host engaged in free talks with the Museum about the history of the newspaper “Gazeta students and had the change to realize that students de Transilvania” and celebrated the 178th anniversary are open and willing to engage in creative work and in of the newspaper. The students were very interactive sustained learning, provided they are allowed to use and answered all the questions they were asked modern communication media. One of the students and wrote their own account about the event they even said that out loud: “It would be so cool, if all our participated in.” classes at school were like this one, here!”
Antonia Țânț - Today, March 11, 2016, at the Casa As a conclusion, we advocate the following absolute Muresenilor Museum in Brasov, a group of students priorities (stipulated also by the law): using digitized from Emil Racoviţă College, together with the heritage in education; continuous updating; devising museum management and a former journalist of new methods to include information technology in the city of Brasov, Mr. Ioan Popa, celebrated 178 the education activity carried out by cultural heritage years since the first issue of the newspaper “Gazeta organizations; training a new museum facilitators Transilvaniei”. Students had a pleasant experience, and, last but least, and proactive adaptation to the interacting with the host museum and learning many contemporary realities of our society. new and interesting things during the interactive workshop.” Valer Rus We have to say that, when reading the students’ “Casa Muresenilor” Brașov Museum comments, we could not help noticing some phrasing, [email protected] grammar and punctuation mistakes. It is our duty as
20 The acronym for “Oh, my God!”. 21 meme = an widely used Internet concept: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenomen_pe_internet
54 Openness to the Effective Communication with the Audience by Reviewing the Museum Websites in Romania
Deschiderea către o comunicare reală cu publicul prin analiza site-urilor de muzee din România
ABSTRACT
The article was written by a research team of The National Institute for Cultural Research and Training (culturadata.ro) and presented to an international audience at We are Museums conference, in June 2016, Bucharest. The article aims to identify the level of interactivity of the websites of the Romanian museums, the quality of this interactivity and their openness to the audience. The observation sheet was applied on 51 different museums and the conclusions are: although there are some exceptions, the websites of the Romanian museums are generally old, inactive and difficult to use. The textual information is too wide, the data about artifacts is limited and only the traditional functions of the museums are extensively presented: research and exhibiting in permanent exhibitions. The study intends to be an objective analysis and to become a stimulus for the museums to improve their websites and make them to become more user-friendly for the audience.
Key-words: Romanian websites museums, interactive websites, interactive museums, user friendly museums, facebook museums
In the call for speakers initiated at the conference “We Are Museums”1, the National Institute for Cultural Research and Training (INCFC)2 proposed the presentation of a study focused on the level of technological developments used by the Romanian museums. No such research has been undertaken in Romania so far, whereas in the other European countries museums have taken very seriously the use and development of new technologies, doing so far as to develop studies designed to generalize such practices.
Given that there are no national studies on the relationship between technology and museums, the research objectives were established as a first approach at a very general level: 1. Identifying the level of interactivity of museum websites in Romania; 2. Identifying the types of interactions between museums and the audience, highlighted on social media pages; 1 We Are Museums 2016 (http://wam16.wearemuseums.com/), organized at Bucharest, 6 - 8 June 2016, in partnership with the National Network of Museums in Romania (http://muzee.org/romania/) 2 http://culturadata.ro
55 3. Assessment of the spread of technology and local museums, as well as a balance in terms of applications proposed by museum for making number of visitors reported during last year. heritage accessible to the public. As a research tool, an observation sheet was prepared, The premises from which the research started which included the following sections: site structure, took into account the time constraints imposed site content, site assessment, virtual tour assessment, and required the division of the research into two assessment of social media pages, comments. These phases: the first phase had run until the date of sections were divided into subsections, as shown by the conference We Are Museums and the second the results described below. phase took place in June 2016. Thus, the first two objectives they approached during the first phase and The first indicator analyzed was therepresentativeness consisted entirely of a review of the virtual museum of the museums on their own websites: from 51 environment, and the third objective covered an in- museums, a total of 46 have developed their own situ assessment of the state of the museums. websites, the remaining holding web pages hosted mostly by the institutions acting as authorizing officers, The study employed the statistical databases of namely by county councils or municipalities. This aspect 3 the National Institute of Statistics in conjunction is relevant for the study of the subject, because it with data collected on certain segments by INCFC determines a lower or a higher degree of independence in recent years, plus data collected specifically for and dynamism in terms of information updating. this project. A sample consisting of 51 museums was established, of which 12 art museums, 12 In terms of access of foreign visitors to museum history museums, 12 ethnography museums and websites translated in foreign languages, it was 15 county museums, selected equally from the noticed that some of t of the museums surveyed have seven development regions of the country. The website versions in English (19 of 51) and only very 51 museum institutions were selected taking also few have website versions in French (5), Hungarian into account the need to ensure a proportional (4), German (4), Spanish (1) (see Table 1). representativeness amongst national, county and Table 1. Website versions across the museum websites surveyed
Type of Museum History Ethnography County Art Museum Total Website Version Museum Museum Museum English version 5 5 5 4 19 French version 0 2 2 1 5 Hungarian version 0 2 1 1 4 German version 1 0 1 2 4 Spanish version 0 0 1 0 1
Another relevant indicator that provides information left or centrally at the bottom of the page. In most about website accessibility is the number of menus cases, a relationship can be established between on the home page (see Table 2). These can be placed the large number of menus and the high degree of horizontally at the top of the page, vertically to the difficulty in finding information.
Table 2. Number of menus of the websites reviewed Number of menus 1 2 3 4 5 Not applicable Number of museums 12 18 12 2 1 3
3 Accessible in Tempo database at https://statistici.insse.ro/shop/ 56 The average number of menus of the museum websites analyzed is 2 (see Table 3).
Table 3. Average number of websites reviewed Ethnography Type of Museum Art Museum History Museum County Museum Total Average Museum Average 2,1 2,08 2,5 1,83 2
It was also observed that history museums show a As for the existence of a search engine to facilitate greater appetite for a more complex structure of identification of the information sought, less than their websites and for the publication of a greater half of the websites analyzed have such a button, a amount of information. Only four of the 51 museums situation described in Table 4. analyzed are using sitemaps that enable and simplify the finding of information.
Table 4. Existence of a search engine on the websites analyzed Ethnography Type of Museum Art Museum History Museum County Museum Total Museum Number 3 6 7 3 19
A museum virtual tour, one of the most interactive We were also interested to examine the extent to ways to communicate with the public, is present in 17 which the museums issue newsletters and whether of the 51 cases analyzed and it comes in many different the websites communicate the presence of their forms: from classic tour, consisting of panoramic photos, periodical magazines. The research has revealed that to films showing the exhibition space and to links to six museums have this type of information available, googlemaps.com locations, in case of outdoor museum which is another means of interacting with the public. exhibits. Regardless of their quality, we believe that the number of virtual tours is still too small compared the As for the distribution policy practiced by the surveyed needs of the public. We also appreciate that the fear museums, evaluated as the possibility given to the expressed by most museums that virtual tours would public to buy online museum entry tickets or objects decrease the number of physical visits to the museum from the museum shops, we can see that none of is unfounded because, most often, virtual tours become the museums in question has provides this type of real effective marketing methods that stimulate people online service, fact that diminishes the access to to go to museums. Of the 17 museums that feature and deprives the museum of an important tool to virtual tours, two have included an audio-guide organized promote its desired identity image. by museum rooms, with information about the heritage Given the accelerated spread of mobile telephony assets exposed and/or the theme presented, and three and mobile Internet access4 in Romania, we have of them display written information about the objects examined the way in which the museums managed to exposed along the visitation route, in the form of concise adapt themselves to these technologies by creating or explicit labels. a specific version for mobile phones, designed to Another important clue for assessing the degree allow easier access to primary information, as well of interactivity of the websites was the presence as a higher degree of user friendliness. So far, only of social media buttons. A total of 30 of the 51 11 of the 51 museums offer this possibility. The museums reviewed have added this button to their small number of such mobile versions is nonetheless websites, with the spread of such buttons across significant in the context of the generalized use of the 4 types of museums (art, history, ethnography, mobile phones, especially in urban areas. county museums) being relatively balanced.
4 Cultural Consumption Barometer 2014. Culture between Global and Local. (2015), p. 215, highlight the fact that 25% of the Romanian population has a smartphone and 72% a cell phone.
57 Another aspect analyzed was the number of museums due perhaps to the fact that sometimes temporary offering differentiated information about permanent exhibitions last a very short time (one, two), and the and temporary exhibitions. As one can see in Table 5, pace of posts on the museum website fails to keep up there is a gap between these two types of information, with that of the opening of new exhibitions.
Table 5. The existence of a search engine on the websites analyzed History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Content/information about 10 6 10 12 38 permanent collections Content/information about 8 5 6 8 27 temporary collections
We referred in the paragraph above to general textual items (heritage objects in the museum collection or information about exhibitions and to photographs exhibitions) for each of the two types of exposures: presenting an overview of the museum exhibitions, for public information or for their use in different then we have counted the number of digitized contexts (see Table 6). Table 6. Number of digitized items on the exhibition presentation page History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Digitized items/permanent 5 8 10 8 31 collections Digitized items/temporary 8 5 6 8 27 collections
Then, we counted the number of museums offering conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the possibility to use the image enhancement option, the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and for a greater clarity when viewing the details of the its environment for the purposes of education, study museum exhibits (zoom). Only 5 of the 51 museums and enjoyment5, we selected three of the functions offer this possibility, of which one is an art museum directly communicated by websites and have and 4 are ethnographic museums. analyzed their prevalence explicitly. According to the data in the observation sheets, more than half of the Starting from the ICOM definition of the museum, websites have section dedicated topublications , and according to which a museum is a non-profit, 9 of the surveyed museums have included a research permanent institution in the service of society and section as well on their websites, which highlights its development, open to the public, which acquires, the emphasis they place on this aspect (see Table 7). Table 7. Content/information about museum publications and research, available on museum websites History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Content/information about 8 6 9 10 33 publications Content/information about 0 4 2 3 9 research Another observation resulting from the survey audience surveys, museum education, theoretical undertaken is the lack of topics in the categories that and philosophical approaches to museum as an could make the subject to museum-specific research: institution and studies about heritage. curating, restoration, conservation, marketing,
5 http://icom.museum/the-vision/museum-definition/ accessed on 01.11.2016.
58 With respect to another function of the museum, have their own specialist departments or staff in charge i.e. the conservation/restoration function, 10 of the with this function. As such, the ratio of the museums museums analyzed have dedicated sections where that have this function and communicate it on their they either present general information about their websites and those that, although they perform this specialized departments, or present case studies about function, they do not publish information about it objects preserved and/or restored (see Table 8). It is on their websites it is probably much smaller than it worth mentioning that not all the museums surveyed appears from a simple comparison of the figures.
Table 8. Content/information about conservation/restoration available on the museum websites History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Content/information about 2 0 5 3 10 conservation/restoration
Only 17 of the museums surveyed have information “programs for the public”, “public programs” or posted on their websites about museum education “museum education”. (See Table 9). programs, which they call “educational programs”,
Table 9. Content/information on museum education programs available on the websites of the surveyed museums History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Content/information about 2 0 5 3 10 museum education programs
Another indicator considered in our research was audience and its needs for adequate information. news/blog/events/calendar sectionon the websites We quantified only the constantly updated sections surveyed, which, by its mere presence, speaks of (see Table 10). the importance that each museum gives to the
Table 10. Presence of an info sections on the websites of the museums analyzed History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Presence of information 6 9 8 4 27 sections6
Given the wide range of types of actions analyzed in this presence of audio-visual recordings and their coherent section, the number obtained from the survey is small. integration in the website and the user friendliness Basically, some museums have a calendar of events, but of the website. The first two indicators are present on do not have a blog, while others have a news section, seven and eight museum websites, respectively (see but do not have a calendar, and only half of them are Tables 11 and 12). These figures are small, given that constantly posting updated information for the public. both the technical means of interaction and the audio- Under the next section, we evaluated the websites video materials supporting the information posted on taking into account three criteria: degree of technical the website are conferring dynamism and a different type interactivity (e.g. the possibility to change the state of of interaction compared to the simple reading of the text elements on the web pages by moving the cursor), the and the viewing of a static image.
6 news, blog, events, calendar etc.
59 Table 11. Degree of interactivity of the websites analyzed
History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Museums with a high degree of 6 9 8 4 27 interactivity
Table 12. Presence of video/audio recordings on the websites analyzed History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Presence of video/audio 2 2 2 2 8 recordings
As for the third indicator, the user friendliness, etc., the grades scores given on a scale from 1 to i.e. extent of intuitive information available to 10, where 1 is very poor and 10 is very good, are the user of the website, the degree of structuring shown in Table 13.
Table 13. Degree of user friendliness of the websites analyzed History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum Average score for user 6,9 6,4 6,9 7,2 6,8 friendliness
Quoting Jean-François Lyotard7, who claims that A positive contribution to the narrating place and sense exhibition visitor is “a body in movement, whose of visiting is brought by the official websites available on trajectory within an exhibition is comparable to that Facebook.com8 social media platform. These are clearly of a character in a novel”, the figures above are also more active than the websites of the museums surveyed an indication of the lack of awareness of a real visitor, and are constantly updated. A total of 43 websites out with real expectation, real need for information and of the total number of websites examined contain a fascination, as well as of the lack of narrative in link to their Facebook page. The communities created visiting a museum, even online. around the Facebook page of the museums surveyed, quantified as number of likes, are shown in Table 14. Table 14. Number of subscribers to the Facebook pages of the museums analyzed History Ethnography County Type of Museum Art Museum Total Museum Museum Museum 100-500 0 2 0 0 2 501-1.000 0 0 2 3 5 1.001-4.000 4 3 7 4 18 4.001-10.000 4 3 0 6 13 peste 10.000 2 1 2 0 4
While not all the museums examined have managed have over 10,000 subscribers. Most of the museums to build up communities via this type ofsocial media surveyed have between 1,001 and 4,000 subscribers. channel, four of the largest museums in the sample
7 J.-F. Lyotard (1985). 8 Besides the web pages of Facebook.com, we also counted the number of museums having an active web page (i.e. postings dating from as recently as May 2016) on Twitter.com. Eleven of the 51 museums surveyed.
60 Conclusions
Analyzing the websites included in the sample From a technical standpoint and in terms of access of 51 museums from Romania, considered to to information, the museum websites show a representative in terms of size, spread across the low degree of interactivity, providing information country and type of museum, we have obtained a without requesting feedback or participation from first overview of the main constituents thereof, but the virtual visitor. However, museum websites are also of the gaps many of the museum websites better represented in terms of interactivity through investigated need to fill in. their pages on social media, and in particular on Facebook.com platform, which provide constantly In appears that, in general, the museum websites updated information. analyzed were constructed some years ago and were not updated since then. The cumbersome structure, Museums avoid any form of marketing via their the enormous amount of textual content, the lack websites, despite the fact that online environment is of consistency in the layout of textual or visual the ideal place for marketing actions. information are all common traits of most museum Hopefully, an objectifying of the big picture of the websites in Romania. official websites of the museums will, by presenting the figures and comments of this analysis, trigger While the most visible, consistent and traditional a positive attitude in the attempt to adapt to this activities of the museum are presented extensively by environment to the needs of the contemporary, museums (permanent exhibitions, research function, young, active and proactive audience. English versions), the latest trends in website construction are still neglected, at least concretely: The authors of this article also hope that the museum websites in Romania do not put on display comments contained herein, however tough they good quality pictures of their heritage assets and the may sound, will serve as recommendations for the information about temporary exhibitions is sporadic, construction of friendlier museum websites for the little and of little relevance. benefit of the general public.
References 1. http://culturadata.ro (01.11.2016) 2. http://wam16.wearemuseums.com/ (01.11.2016) 3. https://statistici.insse.ro/shop/ (01.11.2016) 4. http://icom.museum/the-vision/museum-definition/ (01.11.2016) 5. https://statistici.insse.ro/shop/ (01.11.2016) 6. Lyotard, J.-F. Des Immatériaux. Éditions du Centre Pompidou. Paris, 1985 7. Cultural Consumption Barometer 2014. Culture, between Global and Local. Culturadata.ro (2015)
Raluca Bem Neamu Da’DeCe Association [email protected] Carmen Croitoru, PhD Manager NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING [email protected] Anda Becuț, PhD Research Director NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING [email protected]
61 (Non) Digitization of Rural Museum Collections in Dâmbovița County. Challenges to the Digitization of the Moveable Rural Cultural Heritage
(Non) Digitizarea colecțiilor muzeale sătești din județul Dâmbovița. Piedicile digitizării patrimoniului mobil rural
ABSTRACT
This article tackles the digitization of the rural museums in a Romanian county, Dâmbovița. One can not talk about rural museum digitization without a contextualization, a descent among daily realities that museum founders and curators have to surpass. In the rural environment, the digitization process seems to be an imposed need than one based on real and specific problems local museums have. The digitization stage of those 12 museums analysed is in between level zero (non-digitization) and an incipient form of the process (e.g. basic online presence). Without overtaking the problems that jeopardise even the exhibition – as the precarious state of some buildings that host local museums, the lack of financial resources or a coherent local development strategy, with a focus on the cultural sector - the digitization process and its benefits will always be overshadowed and continually delayed. Furthermore, in this context, the debate about rural museums digitization seems to be worhtless.
Key-words: rural museums digitization, digitization levels, World Wide Web, virtual museums, local development
A discussion about digitizing the moveable cultural heritage (museums and collections) in the sense of the internationally accepted definition 1 would normally deal with museums and public collections of a national, regional or county importance.2 When referring to public museums and collections of a local interest - which make the subject of this article – with focus on the rural ones, then the topic of the discussion would shift to the World Wide Web (www). Given that village museums, be they called museum points, communal museums, museum corners, memorial houses or author/ private museums, are confronted with day-to-day setbacks that threaten their very existence (lack of funding, poor exhibition rooms, deteriorated by moisture, mold and pests), talking about their digitization while ignoring their basic urgent needs may sound preposterous. On the other hand, it is precisely the current precarious state of the village museums and collections, caused by the total lack of interest on the part of central and regional administrations in their funding – that should bring the issue of digitization to the fore, given the positive impact the digitizing of the rural cultural heritage is expected to have on the museums as such and on the conservation,
1 “Digitization means digital capturing, transformation from analogue to digital form, description and representation of heritage objects and related documentation, processing, access to the digitized content and long-term preservation” Calimera Guidelines citedthe National Library of Romania,Feasibility Study on Digitization, digital preservation and online accessibility of library resources, Bucharest, 2007, p. 5. Accessed online on November 4, 2016: http://www.bibnat.ro/dyn-doc/Studiu%20Fezabilitate/Studiu-de-fezabilitate- digitizare.pdf 2 According to the classification of public museums and collections by the Law No. 311/ 8 July 2003 on public museums and collections, published in the Official Journal of Romania, Part I, No. 528 of July 23 2003. Accessed online on 5 November 2016: http://www.cimec. ro/muzee/lege/index.htm
62 protection and the leveraging of museum heritage, all the museums play within their community and the to the benefit of the local communities.3 fact that they can actually “be seen as an emblem of identity, originality and local specificity, as well as The need for a research study focusing on digitization a resource for the cultural development of the local of the rural museums and their collections derives communities and of the cultural tourism.”4 from the way village museums and collections are structured and the role they play locally, as well as Across the localities included in our survey, several from their potential intrinsic value that is hardly categories of public museums and collections of local exploited in economic terms. The museums in most importance have been identified, some of which of the communes included in this analysis - 26 villages are recorded in the CIMEC (Institute for Cultural from Dambovita county, 12 of which have local Memory) database or are curated by the National museums - are basically the result of the enthusiasm Museum Complex “Curtea Domnească” (Royal and passion of a handful of local resource-persons, Court), in Targoviste, under the care of the Museum who started to collect rural heritage objects from the of Romanian Literature, while others are the result local communities, building up a team of supporters of some enthusiastic private initiatives, supported and stimulating the interest of the locals in setting up a by the local authorities, with the latter providing the museum. With rural museums established in this way, necessary space for the exposure of the museum it matters less whether or not their heritage is of an objects. I will use here the generic term “museum”, exceptional historical, archaeological or ethnographic commonly used by the locals as well, even if some of value. In fact, most of the museums surveyed have the village museums under consideration are classified, local ethnography as their main profile, which explains according to the CIMEC database, as “museum points”, the similarities amongst exhibits from one museum to “museum corners”, “communal museums” and “private another. What really matters in this case is the role museums”.
From non-digitization to virtual reconstructions. Phased digitization Figure 1. Stages of digitization by virtual products available to visitors
A discussion about the appropriateness and degree heritage Museums & Collections in Romania, and the of digitization of the rural museums covered by our website of the National Museum Complex “Curtea analysis cannot possibly ignore the current state Domenască” (Royal Court). The World Wide Web and the difficulties the curators and the initiators of (www) digitization stage covers construction and these museums are facing on a daily basis. In this maintenance of a museum webpage with, ideally, article I will refer to six digitization stages/categories, textual and video content, designed to allow interaction established on the basis of an extensive bibliographic with the virtual visitor. The Virtual Tours digitization documentation (see Figure 1). phase, which is currently the booming trend across the 5 The Incipient digitization phase refers to a sporadic biggest museums in Romania , implies the existence presence in the virtual environment and, possibly, of a dedicated webpage, completed by a virtual tour to indexation of the museum in various databases or of the museum. The last two stages, i.e. Virtual the development of static webpages with/without Museums/Exhibitions and Virtual Reconstruction by pictures (in this particular case, the CIMEC database, means of Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies, the mobile app dedicated to promotion of museum are the most advanced digitization stages.6
3 Oberlander-Târnoveanu, Irina, “Cultural Identity and Digital Heritage: Projects, Networks and Portals”, published in Cibinium 2001-2005. Cultural Identity and Globalization in the th20 Century. Museum Research and Representation, Sibiu, 2005: Astra-Museum, pp. 41-48. Accessed online on 4 November 2016: http://www.cimec.ro/Muzee/Oberlander-Identitatea- culturala/Oberlander-Identitatea-culturala-si-patrimoniul-digital.pdf 4 Mihalache, Carmen (coord.). 2008. The Slaves of Beauty. Village Museums and Collections in Romania. București-Martor. p. 6. Accesat online la 5 noiembrie 2016: http://www.cimec.ro/ Colectii-Muzeale/pdf/Robii-frumosului-Muzee-si-colectii-satesti-din-Romania.pdf 5 Marinescu, Angelica Helena, “Musuem Heritage Digitization”. The Online Collections of the National Art Museum”, published inRevista muzeelor Nr. 1/2015, pp. 17-25. Accesat online la 5 noiembrie 2016: http://www.culturadata.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Revista-Muzeelor-2015.pdf 6 See for example the TOMIS (2007-2010) project, whose scope covered the “design, implementation, testing and demonstration of a multisensory, interactive and collaborative system, based on VR/AR (Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality), dedicated to promoting culture in general and the reconstructing historical sites and organizing virtual visits, in particular.” The project was implemented by CERVA research group from “Ovidiu” University in Constanta. Accessed online on November 5, 2016: http://tomis.cerva.ro
63 Methodological Issues
Over the last two years (2014-2015), my colleagues only) and hence the uneven distribution of the rural and I have conducted field research in different areas communities this article deals with. That explains the of Dambovita County, mainly in rural areas.7 During wide gaps between, for example, the built heritage our field research we concentrated our attention on and its concentration more in the Bucegi Leaota finding facts about the local history, customs, crafts area and less in the southern part of the county. and trades (in decline or still practiced); specific The rural museum heritage does not show this products, cultural events and their importance in kind of concentrations or gaps: in most of the rural terms of local development; the role local cultural communities described in this article, museums are centers, museums, libraries, schools, local authorities classified as museum corners or author museums or the resource-persons from the community and are supported by local authorities or by the play in the preservation and promotion of local enthusiastic museum initiators. As for the level customs. This article is based on the qualitative data of museum collection digitization, the situation is collected during our research (through unstructured almost identical across the surveyed sites: most of interviews, photo and video documentation and the rural museums surveyed are either non-digitized desk research). The main limitation is the insufficient or are barely in the incipient digitizing stage. spread of our research (confined to 26 communes
Village museum collections: transition from physical space to cyberspace
In half of the 26 villages analyzed in Dambovita county Table 1. Types and distribution of museum collections there are communal museums and private/“author” across rural settlements in the county Dâmbovița included in the survey museums that are either operational or shut down (see Type of communal Rural settlements in Table 1). The cultural center in the village community Nr. is the main “host” of the rural museum collections, museum collection Damboviţa by virtue of the role it plays or it should, ideally, play Cârlănești Village, Vârfuri Private and Commune; within the rural community. There are many cases 1 “author” museums Petrești Village, Petrești though, when rural museums, and in particular the Commune. museum collections housed by the village cultural Initiatives to set up Vișinești Village, Vișinești centers, suffer from gradual degradation due to their 2 a village museum Commune. poor organization and storage conditions (see, for collection example, the museums in the villages Moţăieni and Nucet Monastery, Nucet 3 Monastic museums Văcăreşti). The private/author museums, the museum Commune in Pietroşiţa, curated by the National Museum Complex Communal museums/ Bezdead, Pietroșița, “Royal Court” Targoviste and placed in the custody 4 museum points/ Moroieni, Runcu, Valea of the Romanian Literature Museum (Moroieni) museum corners Lungă, Lucieni, Vișina and a collection of Nucet Monastery appear to be Văcărești Village, Văcărești Closed communal Commune; in a better condition in terms of storage and object 5 exposure (free of moisture, mold and other degrading museums Moțăieni Village, Moțăieni Commune exogenous factors). Villages with no Iedera, Buciumeni, Dobra, museum initiative, Băleni, Răscăieți, Şelaru, 6 operational Mătăsaru, Dragodana, museums or closed Mogoșani, Gura Şuții, museums Produlești, Uliești and Perșinari.
7 The field research was conducted by team Trend Ethnography, agency social research and ethnographic Bucharest, and covered the following areas: the territory of the Local Action Group (LAG) Hills Sultan Vişineşti, tips, Long Valley, Ivy and Provita de Sus ( related Prahova county); LAG territory Bucegi Leaota: Runcu, Pietroşiţa Moroieni Bezdead, Buciumeni, MOTAIENI and Fieni; Micro GAL Dambovita territory South West: Lucieni Dragodana, Mătăsaru, MOGOSANI, Produleşti, Gura Şuţii, PERSINARI, Văcăreşti Nucet Uliesti, Petreşti Sârbeni (related Teleorman county) and Găeşti city; Dobra whale territory GAL: municipalities Dobra and whales; LAG territory Răscăieţi-Vişina-Selaru: municipalities Răscăieţi, Vişina Şelaru
64 Most of the village museums identified during the their collections consist of household and domestic research were set up through the efforts of a few industry tools, such as looms and homespun, distillers, resource-persons at the local level, with the support traditional shirts, quilts, fabrics, towels, traditional folk of the inhabitants and, sometimes, of the local costumes and old pictures (with variations depending governments as well, with the latter providing the space on the locality and the local specifics). Differences for the exposure of museum collections, most often on were identified in the case of specialized museums the premises of the community cultural centers. The – the Nucet Monastery Museum and the Memorial museums in question are mainly ethnographic and House of Alexander Ciorănescu in Moroieni. Author/private museums in Cârlănești (Vârfuri) and Petrești
The Museum “Parental Home – the Altar”, aka the Gioni Badea Museum, is located in the village of Cârlăneşti, Vârfuri, in a house that is the property of the museum originator. The museum displays over 100 objects (collected by Gioni Badea and the inhabitants of the village and its neighborhoods): traditional household tools, home decorations and peasants’ outfits. The museum is in the care of several locals, who open it upon request to local school children and to occasional (rather few) tourists who wish to visit the museum. It is the only museum out of the museums surveyed that has a webpage listing and showing pictures of the museum exhibits. The private museum in the village of Petreşti, called, generically, “Traditional Clothes and Weaving Tools”, as a reflection of the items collected, is placed in a room of a villager’s house. The initiator Figure 1. Exhibits from the “Parents’ Home – The Altar”, comuna Vârfuri (research by Trend Ethnography, 2014) of the museum has managed to collect an array of traditional costumes and weaving tools from all around the country.
Monastic museum: Nucet Monastery Museum
Nucet monastery in the Nucet commune is part of the defense fortification of the Citadele. The monastery was built around the year 1500 and was dedicated to Saint George. The monastery museum is located in the monastery’s courtyard and contains showcases displaying old religious books, archaeological and architectural documentation and archival documents about the founders, as well as icons and liturgical objects. The ground floor of the museum accommodates the tombstones of the founders of the monastery, discovered in the narthex of the Church during the restoration works.
Figure 2. Exhibits from the Nucet Monastery Museum (field research Trend Ethnography, 2015)
65 Collections points and museum corners
Figure 3. Interior from the Museum of Folk Art and Figure 4. Exhibits from the museum in Vișina Traditional Crafts, Valea Lungă Cricov (field research commune (field research Trend Ethnography, 2015) Trend Ethnography, 2015)
In the case of three out of the total localities included in our field research, the collections were set up through the sustained efforts of the local people and are housed by the community cultural centers. It is the case of the museums in Valea Lungă (The Museum of Traditional Arts and Crafts, opened after 2001), in Vişina (a museum point) and in Lucieni (the Museum “People, Places and Customs”). In Vişina, the collection is under constant expansion, with museum initiators continuing to collect items for the permanent exhibition. At the time of our fieldwork, the museum point, which is located inside the village library, was exhibiting folk costumes, old icons, a lamp and a traditional peasant’s skirt. The collection of the “People, Places and Customs” Museum Figure 5. Exhibits from the Village Museum in Lucieni (field research Trend Ethnography, 2015) (inaugurated in 2007), displayed on the first floor of the cultural center of Lucieni, is thematically spread across four exhibition rooms called: the “The Big House”, “The Artisans”, “The Dowry Chest”, plus one room showing objects that illustrate the village-to-town transition.
The village museum in Runcu was opened in 2008 on the premises of the village cultural center, at the initiative of the members of a local organization, called the Cultural Association “Runcean Women”. At the time of our research (December 2014), the exhibition had been relocated to a room on the premises of the kindergarten in the Brebu village, pending rehabilitation of the community cultural center in Runcu.
“The heart and soul of the association is Mrs. N. Figure 6. A Loom at the village museum in Runcu (field (...), who married in the city of Oradea and who, research Trend Ethnography, 2014) as a retiree, came to live here, in Runcu. She loves
66 Figure 7. The building of the Ethnographic Museum Figure 8. Interior from the Ethnographic Museum “Prof. Dumitru Ulieru”, Pietroșița (field research by Trend “Prof. Dumitru Ulieru”, Pietroșița (field research Trend Ethnography, 2014) Ethnography, 2014)
folk costumes, in general, and the traditional “Yes, all [exhibits] come from this area. Almost all costumes from this part of the country, Muntenia. of them were collected by the late village teacher, At her proposal, we started to collect old traditional and only a few are more recent additions, brought objects from the villagers, and mostly from the from the museum in Targoviste (...) These, here, old women of the village, because young people were discovered by myself, a couple years ago do no longer care for this sort of things (...) We (...). Most exhibits were bought from villagers, as I have managed to gather together a lot of objects: used to go round and about the village, looking for a loom, peasant’s costumes (woman’s and museum objects, and, you know, people liked the man’s outfits), baby swings, towels, traditional idea of making a few bucks from selling old things. kitchenware etc.” (Museum curator, interviewed Occasionally, they would donate them, as, for in December 2014). example, these curtains, here, that were given to me by a woman in the village.” (Museum curator Unlike the museum collections in Lucieni, Vişina, Runcu in Pietroşiţa, interviewed in December 2015) and Valea Lungă, which have a relatively recent history, the Ethnographic Museum “Prof. Dumitru Ulieru”, in The museum’s collection, containing over 800 items, Pietroşiţa, was inaugurated in 1973, being located in a is almost entirely devoted to the region-specific folk 2-story historic building dating back in the nineteenth arts, crafts and trades: wood and stone processing, century, through the efforts of the later teacher Dumitru animal husbandry, orchards growing and especially Ulieru and his students. Later, the museum was closed weaving (towels, rugs, pieces of folk costumes), and then reopened in 1997, being currently curated by Pietroşiţa being famous for carpet weaving.8 the National Museum Complex “The Royal Court” in Targoviste:
Public museums closed The museums in two of the villages included in the “The museum’s ceiling has collapsed, so rain analysis - Moţăieni and Văcăreşti – were closed for penetrates from all the building joints; the reasons beyond the will and control of the museum museum needs complete rehabilitation, and that initiators or museum curators. In the case of the takes time. (...) Hopefully, it will be rehabilitated village museum in Moţăieni, due to the serious eventually (...) We do not have an extraordinarily degradation of the community cultural center, the well arranged exposure space, and we would like exhibits were kept in totally improper conditions. to acquire, let’s say, a traditional folk costume, if I could only find a genuine one, we would preserve
8 CIMEC Village Museum Guide. Accessed online on 5 November 2016: http://ghidulmuzeelor.cimec.ro/id.asp?k=274&-Muzeul-Etnografic-PIETROSITA-Dambovita
67 Figure 10. Medals from the closed exhibitions of the Museum “Traditions and Customs in Văcărești” (field research Trend Ethnography, 2015)
Figure 9. Interior of a shut-down village museum, Moțăieni (field research Trend Ethnography, 2014)
it, just as I saw they did in the city museum, placed inside a showcase; that would be something, you, know, that is how these things should be kept! Here, we only have a simple room, and we’ve arranged it as we could, though things are crammed as they are now, stuck between the book shelves a colleague of mine discarded right here, at the museum, claiming she has no other place where to put them, so, here they Figure 11. Exhibits from the collection of the Museum are, all packed in one room.” (Museum curator, “Traditions and Customs in Văcărești” (field research by Motainei, December 2014) Trend Ethnography, 2015)
The Museum “Traditions and Customs in Văcăreşti cooking pots and pans and old land work tools. Shortly Village” was inaugurated in 2007. The objects on after its inauguration, the museum was closed, due to display, collected by the museum’s founder or donated start of the rehabilitation works to the building of the by residents of the area, included folk costumes, a community center. The exhibits were kept in place, so loom, old postcards, a dowry chest, homespun, gas that some of them have started to deteriorate. lamps, an ox yoke, a fountain bucket, a churn, stove Virtual space: (Non) Digitization of village museum collections in Dâmbovița Across the rural areas included in the analysis, in the beginning of this article, the village museums digitization of museum collections is more a question of surveyed are somewhere between the stages non- the future, with no foundation in the real needs of the digitization - incipient digitization – digitization (www) local museum initiatives. Judging in relation to the stages (Figure 2). Thus, the Museum “Parental Home – Altar”, of moveable cultural heritage digitization, as described in the village of Cârlăneşti, is the only museum in the
68 research, that has a presentation webpage9, containing and images of exhibits) and that they have a dedicated a brief description of the exhibits, the museum history static webpage, describing the museum’s collections and images of the objects on display. Almost half of the (basically, providing information about the museum’s museums analyzed are in the non-digitization stage. history, types of exhibits, images and contact details). Thus, given that the organization of these museum collections is closely dependent on a number of factors The next damaging factors that threaten the integrity that often endanger their very existence, a discussion of the village museum collections are the repeated about digitization may seem superfluous at this point. relocation of the exhibition space, following The worst conditions are those that are affecting the renovation works carried out on the buildings of very integrity of museum collections: the poor state the community centers housing the collections. The of the premises that host the collections, namely the human factor is also one of the weak links: despite buildings of the community cultural centers, which the enthusiasm and determination manifested by are closed for renovation purposes, and the storage of the museum initiators, their initiatives will eventually exhibits in damp places, exposed to mold, rodents and be compromised, in the absence of local and county other pests (as in the case of the collections in Moţăieni (logistical, financial and material) support. The and Văcăreşti). The other museums investigated (Figure passion and enthusiasm of the museum initiators 2) are in the incipient stage of digitization, meaning that and/or of the museum curators are an essential, yet museum data is entered in databases such as the CIMEC insufficient condition for the sustainable and proper Museum Guide (in the form of summary information management of a rural museum collection.
NON-DIGITIZATION: INCIPIENT DIGITIZATION WWW (data entered in CIMEC database or brief DIGITIZATION • Museum “Folk Costumes STAGE: and Weaving Tools”, descriptions hosted by other webpages): Petrești (private museum) • Nucet Monastery Museum • The museum • Museum point, Vișina • Museum “Traditional Arts and Crafts” Valea „Parental House • Runcu Museum Lungă Cricov – The Altar”, sat • Moțăieni Museum (closed) • Ethnographic museum “People, Places and Cârlănești, Vârfuri • Museum “Traditions and Traditions”, Lucieni commune (private/ Customs in Văcărești • Memorial House Alexandru Ciorănescu, Moroieni author museum) (closed) • Ethnographic Museum “Prof. Dumitru Ulieru”, • Pietroșița • Museum point, Bezdead
The museum in Văcăreşti is a living proof of this state of Seen from a different perspective, digitization may facts: in spite of the efforts made for years on end by the be a good opportunity to revitalize and support, museum initiators and supporters with collecting and at least in the medium term, the village museum acquiring a significant number of ethnographic objects, collections. Their inclusion in the digitizing process and in spite also of its well-organized exhibition, the may raise concern about the conservation of museum was closed. At the time of our field research, museum exhibits and revive the interest of the the museum exhibits were in an advanced process of villagers in cultural initiatives. Accession of the decay. Limited financial resources and the inability to village museum collections at least to the www setup and manage a village museum exhibition are stage of digitization (creation of websites, containing two more factors to be considered with priority when complete information on exhibits, images etc.) can it comes to discussing the role and need for movable give impetus to promoting the collections locally and, heritage digitization. If the current state of affairs ideally, regionally. Nevertheless, the success of such continues as it is in the medium and long run, digitizing an approach requires a complementary approach, the rural moveable heritage might never be considered which sees heritage digitizing as a useful tool within a far-fetched issue. a coherent local development strategy encompassing the cultural sector as well.
9 Accessed on November 4 2016: http://www.muzeulcasaparinteasca.sitiwebs.com
69 References
1. Complexul Național Muzeal Curtea Domnească. 13. Muzeul sătesc „Casa Părintească – Altarul”, sat Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://www. Cârlănești, comuna Vârfuri. Accessed on November muzee-dambovitene.ro/ 4, 2016: http://www.muzeulcasaparinteasca. 2. Creștin Ortodox: Mănăstirea Nucet. Accessed on sitiwebs.com November 5, 2016: http://www.crestinortodox. 14. Negru, Natalia (coord.) 2014. Studiul zonei Grupul ro/manastiri/manastirea-nucet-117481.html de Acțiune Locală Dealurile Sultanului. Istorie, 3. Biblioteca Națională a României. 2007. Studiu de tradiții și scenarii de dezvoltare socio-economică. fezabilitate privind digitizarea, prezervarea digitală București: Coresi. și accesibilitatea online a resurselor bibliotecilor, 15. Oberlander-Târnoveanu, Irina. 2005. „Identitatea București. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http:// culturală și patrimoniul digital: proiecte, rețele www.bibnat.ro/dyn-doc/Studiu%20Fezabilitate/ și portaluri”, în Cibinium 2001-2005. Identitate Studiu-de-fezabilitate-digitizare.pdf culturală și globalizare în secolul XX. Cercetare și 4. Floarea, Bianca (coord.) 2015. Cultura deschisă: reprezentare muzeală. Sibiu: Astra-Museum, pp. context european și național. București: 41-48. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http:// Rapoartele Societățtii Deschise. Accessed on www.cimec.ro/Muzee/Oberlander-Identitatea- November 4, 2016: http://www.fundatia.ro/ culturala/Oberlander-Identitatea-culturala-si- cultura-deschisă-context-european-și-național-0 patrimoniul-digital.pdf 5. Legea muzeelor și colecțiilor publice nr. 311 din 8 16. Proiectul TOMIS. Accessed on November 4, 2016: iulie 2003, Publicată în Monitorul Oficial, Partea I http://tomis.cerva.ro nr. 528 din 23 iulie 2003. Accessed on November 17. Schweibenz, W., 1998, November. The “Virtual 4, 2016: http://www.cimec.ro/muzee/lege/index. Museum”: New Perspectives For Museums htm to Present Objects and Information Using the 6. Marinescu, Angelica Helena, „Digitizarea Internet as a Knowledge Base and Communication patrimoniului muzeal. Colecțiile online ale System. In ISI (pp. 185-200). Muzeului Național de Artă al României”, în Revista 18. Trend Ethnography. 2015. Raport de cercetare muzeelor Nr. 1/2015, pp. 17-25. Accessed on Patrimoniu cultural, produse locale din zona GAL November 5, 2016: http://www.culturadata. Bucegi-Leaota și scenarii de dezvoltare locală. ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Revista- Disponibil online la: http://bucegileaota.ro/ Muzeelor-2015.pdf subpagini/51-studiul-zonei-grupului-de-acțiune- 7. Marty, P. F., 2008. Museum websites and museum locală-bucegi-leaota.html visitors: digital museum resources and their use. 19. Platforma Conect Cultura. Accessed on November Museum Management and Curatorship, 23(1), 4, 2016: http://www.conectcultura.org pp. 81-99. 20. ProTV. Vom avea Bibliotecă Digitală peste 8. Mihalache, Carmen (coord.) 2008. Robii frumosului. 12.000 de ani. Modul absurd în care marile cărți Muzee și colecții sătești din România. București: ale culturii române ajung pe net. Accessed on Martor. Accessed on November 5, 2016: http://www. November 4, 2016: http://stirileprotv.ro/special/ cimec.ro/Colectii-Muzeale/pdf/Robii-frumosului- in-12-000-de-ani-vom-avea-biblioteca-digitala- Muzee-si-colectii-satesti-din-Romania.pdf cultura-romana-nu-se-grabeste-sa-treaca-pe- 9. Ministerul Culturii și Cultelor. Plan de acțiuni. online.html Varianta 2: Asigurarea unui cadru unic și unitar în 21. Ziarul Lumina. Centenarul Alexandru Ciorănescu. domeniul digitizării resurselor culturale naționale 13 noiembrie 2011. Accessed on November 4, și creării Bibliotecii Digitale a României – Instituirea 2016: http://ziarullumina.ro/cultura/centenar- unui program multianual, pe o perioadă de 7 ani. alexandru-cioranescu Available at: http://www.cultura.ro/uploads/files/ PlanDeActiuniDigitizare.pdf 11. Ministerul pentru Societatea Informațională. 2015. Strategie Națională privind Agenda Digitală pentru România 2020. Accessed on November 3, 2016: https://ec.europa.eu/epale/sites/epale/ files/strategia-nationala-agenda-digitala-pentru- Natalia Negru, romania-20202c-20-feb.2015.pdf researcher, Trend Ethnography (Bucharest). 12. Muzee și colecții din România, ghid CIMEC. Data E-mail: [email protected] Base accessed on November 4, 2016: http:// ghidulmuzeelor.cimec.ro
70 Cultural Marketing Conference The Bucharest Municipality Museum
iNTRODUCtion.
The third edition of the Cultural Marketing Conference took place during the period 10-11.11.2016 on the topic ”Cultural Audiences and Organisations: practices and trends”, an event organised by the Bucharest City Museum, in partnership with the National Institute for Cultural Research and Training and the Faculty of Administration and Business, University of Bucharest and moderated by Mrs. Carmen Croitoru, PhD – NICRT Manager.
The conference programme, which continued the range of annual meetings started in 2014 on the topic “Visual Identity in Museum Marketing” and followed in 2015 on the topic “Museum Education – from the Exhibition Concept to Educational Activities”, included:
The first day
“Cultural Marketing Specificities”, Carmen Croitoru, “The Profile of the Current Visitor at Peleș National PhD, National Institute for Cultural Research and Museum”, Daniela Voitescu, Peleș National Training Museum “The National Museum of the Romanian Literature: “The New NMRH (National Museum of Romanian Between Normality and Abnormality”, Ioan History)”, Iulia Stanciu and Florian Stanciu, STARH Cristescu, PhD, National Museum of the Romanian – architecture studio Literature “Children@the museum”, Alexandra Zbuchea, “Museum as a Cultural Product: From Interest to Faculty of Management, National School of Retention”, Coralia Costaș, PhD, Moldova National Political Science and Public Administration Museum Complex, Iași “Theatre at the Museum”, Raluca Băceanu, Faculty “Museums and the Community”, Valer Rus, PhD of Administration and Business, University of “Casa Mureșenilor” Brașov Bucharest “The Fair – New Approaches and Perspectives in “Alternative Audiences and Spaces”, Horia Iova, Museum Education”, Raluca Ioana Andrei and Bucharest City Museum Ovidiu Baron, PhD ASTRA National Museum Complex Sibiu
71 72 The second day
The presentation of the exhibition “The Museum of Research and Training), Alexandra Zbuchea, PhD Ages – the Story of Each of Us, from Childhood (National School of Political Science and Public to Old Age”, Adrian Majuru, PhD, Bucharest City Administration), Adrian Majuru, PhD and Angelica Museum Iacob (Bucharest Metropolitan Museum). The organising committee of the event was composed The Cultural Marketing Conference 2016 was of: Angelica Iacob, Dan Pîrvulescu, PhD and Horia organised under the careful coordination of a Iova (Bucharest Metropolitan Museum). Scientific Board composed of: Carmen Croitoru, PhD, Ec. Oana Duca (National Institute for Cultural
For additional information, please visit: www.muzeulbucurestiului.ro https://www.facebook.com/MuzeulMunicipiuluiBucuresti www.culturadata.ro https://www.facebook.com/culturadata/ https://www.facebook.com/culturadata.ro
73 Cultural Marketing
Marketingul Cultural
“The most intelligent and effective marketing will not be identified as such”
Cultural marketing is a subject that has been tackled only recently by many of the public cultural institutions, which realized quite late that culture has switched from the status a “propagandistic tool” to that of a “public service”. This shift in paradigm, which occurred, in theory, after 1989, has not been fully understood or applied effectively so far, for various and complicated reasons, dealing mostly with the administrative and political approach to employment in the cultural sector, which maintain the confusion between culture and the “one- stop” public services.
Culture, alike any other sector, defines structures, institutions, mechanisms and organizations, yet with the fundamental difference that it undertakes the obligation to convert individual works and artistic expressions into public consumer goods, for which demand and expectations have to be generated by the producer itself, since there is no formal request as such.
The concept of marketing as a way of thinking is a business philosophy, centered around the consumers’ need and satisfaction,1 given that it produces what the customer wants and seeks for, in exchange for a profit; however, the lack of demand for cultural goods is the main distinction the cultural marketing is required to take into account when formulating its own concepts. The demand for culture, unarticulated and inexplicit as it is, is substituted by an expectation horizon that 1 W.J. Stanton – Fundamentals of marketing – fourth edition, Mc Graw – Hill Book Co., New York 1975 (p.14)
74 needs to be formulated, cultivated and even created, possible. This objective is coupled with the principle in the case of certain types of cultural consumer of cultural policies, according to which the value of goods. a cultural asset increases proportionate with the number of consumers. Culture manifests its role as a shaper of the social conscience of the individuals, while at the same time If we look at all the elements of the marketing mix, it produces organizational and hierarchy rules within we can see that cultural marketing behaves quite the society it represents. This feature determines the differently, if we judge by the classical marketing borrowing of marketing techniques and methods theories: from the social sphere, taking into account the aesthetic rules specific to each type of cultural The product – the discussions about the cultural activity. product start with the identification of the cultural goods, which are extremely varied in their forms of The most famous definition of marketing is that given manifestation (tangible and/or intangible), but which by Philipp Kotler, according to whom “Marketing is originate from an act of creation, a cultural asset or a a human activity directed at satisfying needs and work of art. A work of art is not normally created on wants through exchange processes.”2 demand, nor is it a service generated by a social need; an artwork is rather the expression of an individual In her paper The Basics of Marketing3, Sica Stanciu creative response (of a more or less social nature). distinguishes between two types of definitions, that Simply put, we can say that the work of art becomes are normally used by Romanian theorists like, for a cultural asset after it has acquired validation (not example, C. Florescu and I. Popa4: necessarily an axiological validation) and it becomes a cultural product only after it has been made known The first type refers to the classical or traditional to the public. definitions, having a limited scope, according to which marketing means the performance of business Price – price is never fair in relation to its material activities that direct the flow of goods and services value or to the sum of cost items incorporated in from producer to consumer. According to this the pricing. Depending on the nature of the cultural definition, the primary concern of marketing is to sell product, price may vary to such a large extent and distribute goods and services. In other words, that, often, it cannot be completely identified or the overriding marketing principle is: “Sell what you associated with the number of products it refers produce”. to. The demonstration would be no less absurd, if we take into account a combination between a The second type of definitions are more up-to-date cultural product and a service the price of which is and explain marketing as a complex social and not only impossible to cover entirely and directly by business process, focused on consumer behavior, consumers, but it is also unreasonable in relation whose guiding principle is: “Produce only what you to the effect of consumption. A few clarifications can sell.” are required here about the impact generated by However, none of these definitions refers to those the cultural products, which is extremely delayed cultural goods that are consumed/purchased/visited compared to the time of distribution of the products, mostly for the intangible value associated with a set and whose only consequences are the establishment of features that are difficult to quantify in economic of a consumption habit. Regarding the success of the terms. cultural product, things are even more complicated because, even in the case of a collective consumption Apparently, the classical marketing mix - the four in dedicated places, the reception and decryption of “Ps” – does not work in the case of cultural marketing; the cultural messages is a personal process, based on cultural marketing does not seek to valorize goods/ one’s own knowledge, emotions, codes and aesthetic services, but to attract an as wide an audience as preferences.
2 Philipp Kotler - Principles of Marketing – Third Edition, Prentince – Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1986 (p.4). 3 Sica Stanciu - Bazele generale ale marketingului - http://www.unibuc.ro/eBooks/StiinteADM/sica/index.htm 4 C. Florescu (coord.) – Marketing, Marketer, Bucharest. 1992 p.18-20; I. Popa – Tranzacţii internaţionale, Recif Publishing Bucharest, (p.133-134).
75 Thirdly, the distribution channels do not always work It seems that the most serious problems when it by the well-established recipes, insofar as a cultural comes to marketing are the ones that we are not market may exist or not, depending on the type of actually aware of and are usually dealing with the product discussed; yet, most often than not, this consumer’s behavior, expectations and taste, which market will not react to values, but to trends, and are never fully identified and analyzed. Likewise, a direct relationship between price and popularity there are insufficient studies on the supply of cultural cannot be established. products, the messages and aesthetic functions they generate and their adequacy to the needs of the Therefore, the only “P” of the 4Ps that functions within contemporary consumers, given the common trend the established parameters is “Promotion”, seen as a of resorting to indistinct segmentations and to a sort tool that cultural marketing may use along with other of laxity of our aesthetic requirements, driven by the instruments from its own arsenal. Unfortunately, widespread idea that a simpler product is necessarily when it comes to culture, promotion initiatives are more accessible. often inconsistent, weak, unfocussed and confused, especially when they mimic indiscriminately the Unfortunately, it seems that it is precisely this kind aggressive commercial promotion techniques. of attitude that widens the gap between consumers’ demand and expectations and the quality of the Therefore, cultural marketing should take into cultural products they are presented with. The result, account of these fundamental differences, and as already identified by the qualitative analyzes of so should the public cultural institutions, which cultural consumption, is a decrease in the quality are required to change completely their strategic of the audiences, armed as they are with symbolic approach and become aware not only of the decoding tools, a decrease that is not necessarily specificity of the cultural products they supply, but compensated by the growing number of newcomers also of the specifics of cultural consumption. joining the community of the ordinary consumers of culture. It is not very clear whether their choice is The issue dealing with the cultural product/cultural a conscious or an experimental one or whether it is service divide has not been seriously dealt with by barely the effect of poor management and marketing public cultural institutions. The reasons for this state of practices, applied in the absence of solid theoretical affairs are various and practice has already identified knowledge. considerable gaps in the theoretical approach to the peculiarities of cultural management and marketing, In any case, the main purpose of the cultural judging in particular from the perspective of the marketing is to attract consumers, a fact that should publicly financed cultural initiatives. by its nature generate significant interest in acquiring authority and management powers. Unfortunately, To a considerable extent, cultural marketing is very the empirical marketing practices and the confusing 5 much like social marketing, a concept introduced theories as to why culture should or should not be in theory Ph. G. Kotler and Zaltman since 1971. financed from the public money will not help; quite Social marketing uses market segmentation and the contrary, they will only make matters worse. market research, highlighting the concepts of communication, facilities, stimuli and trade theory, Perhaps one solution could be a return to research to get maximum response from target groups, as the key function based on which any decent being, from this standpoint, very close to what the organization should start constructing its business marketing of cultural products could and should do. development strategies. A research that shows not only the quantitative effects of the public culture, but To culture, it is important to study the dynamics of also what mechanisms are activated in the process of consumption, and in particular the behaviour of cultural consumption. cultural consumers and their preferences, expectations and the messages they respond to, as well as the whole We will probably eventually be forced to recognize set of habits associated with this kind of consumption. that not everyone is a consumer of culture and
5 Philip Kotler and G. Zaltman - Social marketing, an approach to planned social change - Journal of Marketing, July, 1971
76 to recall a statement by Derrick Chong, in “Arts • Should surveys be conducted on the public Management”: “Merely offering the public what upon their entering or upon their leaving the it wants is an abdication from responsibility. Arts building? organizations should be in the business of helping to • Quantitative or qualitative measurements? shape taste [..].” • Who exactly is the “competitor” in cultural marketing? From this perspective, one of the most important • Does cultural marketing have a financial roles of cultural marketing is to grow, educate and purpose? build new audiences, because education is a more • What are the most effective methods applicable powerful facilitator of access to art and culture than in cultural marketing? And the most effective individual income. In the process, we will probably marketing tools and techniques? be forced to accept that the contemporary members • Quantitative promotion? of the general public do no longer perceive art • Excessive promotion on any channel? consumption as a cultural duty linked to their social • PR? status, but as the manifestation of their pleasure to • Commercials? decipher the meaning of their own existence. • TV spots? • OOH? I have not intended to encompass in this article In closing, I only wish to propose further investigations all the issues dealing with cultural marketing on what Cultural Marketing should actually be to that public institutions are called for to consider, public cultural institutions and to remind one golden because I believe that this topic requires a much management and marketing rule: “if you can’t deeper analysis and more revealing examples. I will measure it, you can’t improve it.” nevertheless list some of the questions that should capture our attention and on which we will have to ponder in the near future: Carmen Croitoru, PhD • What is the level of visual or musical literacy a Manager public or a private artistic organization should NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR seek to infuse its audience? CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING • Can marketing be an “in-house” activity, carried [email protected] out using the resources and the specialists of the cultural organization/institution? • What kind of research would be more appropriate?
77 Image 1. Perspective from the entrance
The Museum of Our Ages, from Childhood to Old Age
Muzeul Vârstelor, de la copilărie la senectute
We all carry within us our personal museum, where we collect and preserve traces of our manifested or desired attitudes, our hopes and accomplished goals or our many assumed or denied personal failures. This museum is the reflection of our own image.
In other words, we, on the one hand, will gather in our personal museum, whose showcase is our own face, everything we encounter as we grow up and everything that unfolds before and around us, from school years to our career. On the other hand, we bear the mark of a horizontal chronology of what we wish to become, not by the force of events and circumstances, but as a consequence of the changes we ourselves set in motion.
The sum of all the nowadays’ manifestations of the Romanian mentality is the continuation of similar manifestations coming from the past. The changes that happened are dealing with the everyday accessories, imported and adapted to the tastes of each individual or each community, from legislation to personal behavior. We gather together in our private
78 Image 2: Interior reconstruction (eighteenth century)
museum the extensions coming from the older endeavor. For an old person, the awareness about his generations – besides our genetic card, we carry a or her age is maintained not only by the signals sent cultural card that is as powerful and long-lasting as the out by his or her body. The other people around him or former, with the latter being often capable to influence her are also behaving in way that constantly maintains the former. the old individual’s awareness about his or her old age. But things have happened and will continue to happen Everything that happens in our life, from childhood to this way for ever. And they cannot possibly happen in adulthood, matters for how we will be like when we any other way, simply because this is how life stages grow old: our lifestyle (eating, working, resting habits unfold, each age having its specific condition. It would etc.), our philosophy and each and every instance of our therefore be totally unnatural for a young man to be behavior, all contribute to the quality of our life as old or skimpy with the treasure he possesses, that is his youth, even very old people (albeit the genetic premises, the thinking that he will frolic when he is old. Young people so called “potential longevity”.) Everything that we feel simply do not think about their old age, as if they were and experience when we are young is revealing for our never ever going to grow old. And that for the simple youth as a state of mind we are not always well aware reason that we live and are aware of only the life stage of. Everything we do when we are young is a sign of our we are in at a given moment in time, despite the fact normality. Young people are not, as I said, fully aware that we are collecting in our “personal museum” the of their youth and worth; as such, they not ignore that cultural extensions coming from the older generations. precious thing called youth, with its infuse of strength, courage, permanent zest and inexhaustible energy, but Nevertheless, understanding one’s life stage in relation they are sometimes even wasting all of these precious to similar life stages other generations have lived assets unwittingly. through in the past is not only possible, but necessary.
In contrast, everything an old man feels is a kind of “The Museum of Life Stages – From Childhood to Old telltale of his aging. An old man is constantly well Age” is as much a story about privacy as it is about aware of his old age. Actually, an old man never stops the evolution of the relations amongst generations feeling old. As such, the signals the elderly receives over the past three centuries in the Romanian urban about his condition as an old individual forces him environment, with Bucharest standing for a case study. to acknowledge his age and to restrict his efforts to A story about how a day in our life would have looked his limited capacity and thus refrain from any risky like from the eighteenth century and up to the present. 79 Image 3. Interior reconstruction (nineteenth century) Image 4. Interior reconstruction (nineteenth century)
The Bucharest Municipal Museum has proposed internal modeling factors (the intimacy of their family a theme and has chosen a title for the permanent and entourage). exhibition in the Cesianu-Filipescu House, based, inter alia, on a questionnaire designed to assess if and to Second objective: to help adolescents and young people what extent the Bucharest inhabitants are interested in understand their age through understanding similar life having a museum of urban anthropology established in stages as the older generations have lived through in their city. The questionnaire has revealed that the public the past, and in particular to develop their ability to at large shows a strong interest in such a museum. cope with the next stages in their life, as the case may be (adolescence, adulthood, old age), in close relation Thus, the Museum of Life Stages could be the first with social exigencies, professional projects and moral museum of urban anthropology, organized not on modeling. the classical principle of chronology, as most museum displays are designed today, but on intersecting Third objective: how can we build a life project based on chronologies, where history becomes an accessory, and similar models, whose path has already been travelled not a singular scientific foundation. by past generations? The success of one’s life project – which is simply the balance between one’s career The proposed exhibition theme for the Cesianu and private life – will always depend on the adaptation Museum is the History of Family and Private Life. tools one builds on one’s own in order to stay on top and keep abreast with technological advancements, on We, humans, have essentially remained the same for the one hand, while also bringing something new and hundreds of thousands of years, yet the ever changing adding value to one’s profession, thereby making one’s cultural and socio-professional environment and the life more comfortable for the years to come. technological developments have modified not only our body (weight, height, look, various diseases), but Adrian Majuru, PhD also our mentality, behavior, skills etc. The Bucharest Municipality Museum [email protected] Information will be provided about the evolution of these elements, which are inextricably linked to human nature, over the last three hundred years.
First objective: to show and familiarize adolescents and young people with what they are going to become in the next thirty or forty years and explain them that they will have to continually adapt themselves to the pressures exerted by various external factors (evolution Image 5. of society and professionalisation), as well as to some Cesianu House 80 Image 1. Authentic vs kitsch - tornado values
The Fair as a Socio-cultural Event and a Public Education Tool
Târgul – eveniment socio-cultural și metodă de formare a publicului
The fair was once a major event in the life of the traditional village, being reinterpreted as such by ASTRA Museum, which has reconstructed the atmosphere that gives the impression of a live museum. ASTRA Museum has highlighted the documentary evidence about urban and rural fairs of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, with field research being continuously conducted from 1963 until present. The database containing information about active craftsmen in Romania is an essential resource for both the fair-like activities and for cultural manifestations, functional households and for the cultural events associated to trade fair pavilion exhibitions.
The fair was once the place where people used to gather, an opportunity for them to socialize and trade goods. Trading involved both personal possessions and goods that were representative of a bigger or a smaller community. As a special event, the fair served at the same time as a multilevel working tool. The ways in which goods were displayed at the fair, the masks behind which craftsmen used to sell their products at the old traditional fairs, most of the time by practicing their trade live in front of a diverse audience, were in fact marketing tools, even if they were not seen as such. The craftsman at the fair was not only his own representative, but
81 Image 2. Sampler - the relationship key between Image 3. Neusauser Franz - Annual Fair in Sibiu. master - apprentice - fair - public National Museum Brukenthal the representative of a whole socio-economic category, Being very attractive, fairs have also acted as an effective of an ethnic category and so on. The craftsman was tool for attracting and training the audience, including therefore an entity wearing different masks, and, in museum visitors. The close relationship between the fact, the traditional folk mask was one of the “exhibits” craftsman and the traditional craft workshop and/ put on display during events of that kind and many or rural households exposed by the museum and the were sold as a commodity. permanent linking of the collection items to the items on the craftsmen’s workshops have helped the public In the first decades of existence of ASTRA Association, its understand not only the how old folk traditions and leaders organized or participated in exhibitions where customs circulate in different communities, but also the emphasis was placed on the representation of the how certain objects have acquired a higher degree of Romanian ethnicity, whose main identity symbols were representativeness than others, turning into heritage the folk costume and the traditional handicrafts. The goods. The open nature of the fair and the ability of an Romanian folk costumes were shown on puppets or event of this kind to attract and educate the public, to “live”, worn by representatives of the various divisions expose genuine as well as, inevitably, “trendy” objects, of the Association. Thus, identity-related values were coupled with the direct contact with artisan, are only transferred from the communities of origin towards a few of the many strengths owing to which the fair the exhibitions, which were real fairs were exchanges of all kinds were inevitable, simply by participating. Over continues to rank amongst the most popular outdoor time, fairs have retained this ethnographic exhibition events organized by museums. dimension, turning into veritable outdoor exhibitions, Fairs have evolved with the world. Of course, fairs had to with stands that revived, by old and modern methods, keep abreast with all the “fopperies” of fashion, if they the traditional identity traits and values of the Romanian wanted their goods to be sought after. The research people, exploiting some of the most ingenious exposure conducted at fairs across the country has revealed methods. the fair’s tendency to update, refocus and reinterpret For open-air museums in particular fairs were places traditional values. Even the best organized folk fairs will of exposure, (re) activation of traditions and of (re) inevitably expose objects which, though presented as habitation of the village (a synthesis village, such as the authentic or traditional, are partly or completely fake. ASTRA Museum). A live museum lives through its ad Circulation of traditional themes and patterns from a hoc inhabitants, through its employees or volunteers local community to another should be seen now from acting as hosts, through the authentic atmosphere a global or globalizing perspective. Values circulate created by the exhibits, as well as through the live much faster than in the past and their combination is village events it recreates. Craftsmen were and will be seen either as a proof of a higher (re) interpretation amongst the ephemeral inhabitants of ethnographic ability, as an artistic rendition of the reality, or simply museums, animating the village household replicas by as kitsch. Fake objects may include from pottery made cultural manifestations and many other specific events. in other countries and glazed in Romania, to items of 82 “traditional” Romanian folk costumes, manufactured God knows where. Almost any traditional item may be manufactured in non-traditional ways. The traditional raw materials, working methods and tools, all have changed... It becomes increasingly difficult for specialists to distinguish between what is traditional and authentic and what is fake, and the selection area gets ever narrower.
Normally, an outdoor museum operates its fairs with a few hundred craftsmen. While fairs organized by museums are largely based on a very strict selection of craftsmen and objects on display, those that are held in villages and towns Image 4. Folk artists’s fair around the county are, from a certain point of view, a stark reflection of the community, the real world, the purchasing power, the desire or need for representation and of all sorts of interactions between communities and values, from here and from whatever other places in the world. Whether we are talking about products “made in China”, which seem to have invaded the fairs and the shops from all around the globe (even those in the richest countries), or about the re-leverage of old traditional objects from all possible sources, the movement of goods has become much more difficult to assess and track, while counterfeits Image 5. Folk artists’s fair are increasingly hard to tell from originals. People gather at the fair as always, in search for the genuine and the traditional, whether they want to satisfy immediate needs or simply for the fun of it.
Recently, the “Open Heritage” Project, run by ASTRA Museum under EEA Grants, has chosen the Fair as its central theme, with the fair seen as both an arch over time, given the available documents in the archives of the museum, and as the meeting point of ethnic communities from various regions of the country. The exhibitions conducted under this project cover themes like Transylvanian fairs as Image 6. Potters fair, Sibiu 2015 illustrated in the paintings of Neuhauser, documents about Daneş was intentionally shocking, by the way the genuine the evolution of traditional fairs over time, seen in relation cultural heritage goods were exposed amid kitsch items to today’s active fairs, whose potential as heritage values from contemporary fairs, all “dumped” to form an art are shown in the form of an exhibition, organized on the installation in the form of a swirl of values. Seen as an basis of a more than two-century old model, using devices open-end project, the ASTRA Museum’s exhibition and installations that replicate the tree-of-life symbolism, plans to show as many heritage objects as possible, while making inexhaustible connections between by regularly changing the exhibits, within a historically craftsmen’s workshops, objects, traditional motifs and and socio-culturally relevant contextualization, and by authentic (or fake) values, as a reflection, obviously, of a constant reference to the kitschy contemporary mass- the contemporary fairs. The core human value remains, of produced art and to contemporary social phenomena, course, the craftsman, each visitor being invariably directed thus giving the public the chance to decipher them towards the handiworks of the most talented artisans. using a new key code. One of the ideas of the team who worked on this exhibition Ovidiu Baron was to present the genuine traditions and values in contrast Deputy General Manager with the confusion and the mixed values that are typical of The “ASTRA” National Museum Complex [email protected] most of the today’s fairs. The vision of the curator Ovidiu 83 Fairs and Museums - Economic and Educational Outlook
Târgul și muzeul. Perspective economice și educaționale
Museums can provide significant opportunities for the economic growth (Gutsche, Hoschler Kendall Pagel, 2015: p. 49) of the society, along with the support and the passing over of educational, heritage and social values. Revitalization and promotion of traditional crafts by organizing fairs at museums and in various other locations, as well as the involvement of craftsmen in live handicraft workshops organized by ethnographic museums for all categories of public, are ensuring the sustainability of the craftsman profession. Moreover, by educating the young and very young audience with the help of craftspeople, the museum may facilitate the professional orientation to those who want to engage in craftsmanship and promote traditional values. In 2016, I prepared a interview guide addressed to the craftsmen participating in the XXXIII-rd edition of the Romanian Artisans, organized by ASTRA Museum (14 to 15 August 2016) and in the 50th edition of the Potters’ Fair, in Sibiu (organized by the County Center for the “Cindrelul-Junii” Traditional Culture Preservation and Promotion Center in Sibiu, in partnership with ASTRA Museum, 3-4 September 2016), where we interviewed 45 of the total of approximately 200 craftsmen present at the fairs.
Through the interview guide I intended to find out how craftsmen learnt their trade and how it influenced their lives, the place where they practice it, the authorities supporting them (if any), the way they promote and sell their products, the significance of the FAIR to them, the way they pass on their skill to younger generations, the type of audiences interested in their craft, what old traditions and customs mean to them and what the identity traits of a nation are, in their opinion. The 45 artisans interviewed represent a total of 14 traditional crafts (pottery, jewelry, weaving, wood and glass processing, musical instruments, rush processing, leather processing, sewing, clay modeling, popular masks, folk costumes, wicker baskets, painted eggs). Most of the artisans interviewed had an experience of over 20 years in practicing their craft and had started to learn it from a very young age, usually from the older members of their family (and mainly from their parents), which is how traditional crafts are passed on to the young generation even today.
With respect to the economic value of the handicraft, when asked about the means they use to promote their products all the craftsmen interviewed said that the best promotion channel was the participation to fairs organized by the museum, by local authorities or by various associations engaged in the leverage and transmission of the old traditional handicrafts. A relatively small number of the craftsmen interviewed said they promoted their products via their own social media page or via specialized websites; less than 12% of all the craftsmen
84 participating in the study said they promoted their to a very large extent the educational institutions work via radio/TV channels (interviews) or print as their preferred collaborators, another 26.7% media (e.g. newspaper ads, presentations etc.). mentioned the nongovernmental organizations and Also, when asked about the main fairs where the community, and 24.4%, the local administration; they sell their items, the craftsmen indicated as Culture Preservation and Promotion Centers, as their preferred marketplace the fairs organized by the institutions dealing directly with keeping track museums, followed by fairs and events organized of and supporting the artisans, were mentioned to by other institutions. So, the museum represents to a very large extent by 33, 3% of the craftsmen who them the main promotion and marketing channel, a responded to the interview as the collaborators of fact also sustained by their answers to the question their choice. regarding the entities with which they believe they should cooperate, so as to better promote their For more than half of the artisans, their craft is their craft and products. Thus, over 73% of the craftsmen main income source and, as such, they practice it on interviewed said the museum was to a very large a daily basis. extent their main collaborator, 26.7% indicated
Chart 1. Time allocated by artisans to practicing their craft
every day at least once a week occasionally, when I have time it is a hobby for me
The fair is the main market on which craftsmen earn artisans to sell their products, pass on their skill, their living. This can be seen in the chart below, which meet and socialize with other craftsmen and share shows the extent to which participation tofairs helps information about their work.
Chart 2. Main reasons why craftsmen participate to fairs
a very small extent to a lesser extent or in large or small extent to some extent a heavily extent
craft craft selling binding products exchange craftsmen information information transmission meeting other meeting friendly relations friendly relations
85 Moreover, craftsmen pointed out the educational instruments, leather processing, bulrush processing impact of their participating to fairs, with 28.9% of and by the makers of traditional folk masks. Among them indicating as their main reason for taking part the reasons for their concern they indicated: the in this kind of events the opportunity they have with long time it takes to make the kind of products they such occasions to show the interested members of manufacture, the loss of public interest in the old folk the public how to practice old crafts. Their audience customs that imply the use of their handicrafts and consists, in this order, of adults, family groups and the wide availability of the market of mass-produced organized groups of visitors. The audience that is artisan items, which are less cost- and time-intensive least interested to interact with the artisans at their compared to their products. live craft demonstrations are the young people, as the artisans declared. It is important to note that Museums’ involvement in the promotion of craftsmen believe that their trade will continue traditional crafts and craftsmen can also attract to resist in time, though it will see some sort of tourists, owing to both their heritage and to adaptations, in the light of the future tendencies and their programs, thus contributing the economic the changes the society is expected to go through growth of the community the museums belong (Globalization – data circulation, the changing nature to and boosting cultural tourism. The Network of learning and knowledge, new acquisition methods, of European Museum Organizations (Gutsche, wide cultural diversity and cooperation; Localization – Hoschler Kendall Pagel, 2015: p. 48) believes learning behavior values and rules applicable to the that creativity and innovation are fundamental local context, development and assertion of the local dimensions of human activity and are essential to values, support for community development and economic prosperity. Museums are the institutions development of traditional culture; Individualization) which, by implementing projects based on (The International Forum on Quality Education for innovation and creativity, will be able to build and the 21st Century, Beijing, China, 15-21 June 2001) . Only retain audiences, thereby improving the quality 17.8% of the craftsmen surveyed believe that their of life and asserting the identity of the Romanian craft will disappear in time, an idea expressed mostly cultural heritage on a global scale. by the craftsmen engaged in weaving, making musical References: Cheng Yin Cheong – “Paradigm Shifts in Quality Improvement in Education: Three Waves for the Future” - Plenary Speech Presented at The International Forum on Quality Education for the Twenty-first Century, Beijing, China, 15-21 June 2001 Gutsche, Anne Sophie; Hoschler Mira; Kendall, Geraldine; Pagel, Julia. 2015. NEMO four Values. Published by NEMO (The Network of European Museums Organizations). Rada, Cornelia. 2013. Identity Values of the Contemporary Romanian Family in a Globalized World. Edited by the National Literature Museum, Bucharest. http://www.traditiisibiene.ro/festivaluri.html?obj_ id=5 accessed in October 2016.
Raluca Ioana Andrei The “ASTRA” National Museum Complex PhD candidate at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Sociology [email protected] 86 Museum as a Cultural Product: From Customer Interest to Customer Retention
Muzeul ca produs cultural: de la interes la fidelizare
In 2009, Dunod Editeur was publishing the book Le Marketing de l’art et de la culture, written by Dominique Bourgeon-Renault, Stéphane Debenedetti, Anne and Christine Petr Gombault-Le-Huérou, inan attempt to determine the characteristics of the process that brings together two fields which, at that time in Europe, were still perceived as having no connection with each other: marketing and culture, and the strategic approaches that this combination involved. In an interview with the editor, Dominique Bourgeon-Renault defined cultural marketing as “the set of tools available to the cultural organization to generate, on the part of its public, behaviors conducive to the achievement of its organizational objectives.” The central tool of marketing is – as the author argues – the study of the public, which makes it possible to describe and understand their behaviors and thus to work effectively to achieve the goals that the organization has set for itself. In this context, the objectives of the organization are to improve its relationship with the public, in order to increase customer’s satisfaction by providing value and, thus, creating the conditions for retaining it.
As a science guiding the organization to its customers, giving it the main task of meeting their expectations and needs, marketing is the ability of the organization to increase the number of customers that are interested in its products, while also maintaining margins, even in a market characterized by fierce competition. We may therefore define marketing as that branch of activity of an organization that makes it possible to adapt the offer to customer needs and ensure maximum benefit to both parties by applying specific techniques (market research, annual marketing plan etc.).1
1 Marc-Alexandre Legrain, „La démarche marketing”, at www.leclientestroi.be
87 Although initially regarded with suspicion, the relation dense and diversified cultural base necessary for future between marketing and culture has proven over time domestic cultural production.3 to be a viable one, involving coordination among several policy areas and a large number of actors across Obviously, the approach and application of the the community, all for the benefit of the latter, as a concept of cultural marketing varies by the type of happy society is one where administration, economy, cultural product placed on the market. A specific education, culture and tourism work together so element of cultural marketing is that a cultural that every offer may be appreciated by the target product is not always marketed in response to beneficiaries at its fair value. As its very name indicates, market demand, but it requires a reverse approach cultural marketing consists of the application of specific whereby the cultural product is adapted to certain marketing techniques, more specifically of the rules market needs. This happens in the case of museums, of the real free market, to culture in general and to which are created primarily for the purpose of cultural products in particular.2 The definition of the preserving cultural goods which, unless they are kept cultural product comprises a wide range of examples, in good storage conditions, degrade very quickly and from a book, a CD / DVD, a wooden spoon or a picture disintegrate due to ignorance or other reasons, which to a theater or opera performance, a concert, a festival, of course would make it impossible to pass on the an exhibition or even a museum, which in economical cultural heritage to the future generations. In the last terms fall into two main categories: goods and services. decades, museums have changed their attitude. They have come to understand that their primary role is Considering the idea expressed by UNESCO (Objective to serve the community, for which reason they have 3 (12), The Stockholm Conference, 30 March-2 April to identify community needs first and then provide 1998) according to which “cultural goods and services solutions to meet those needs - in other words, should be fully recognized and treated as being not like museums have reoriented their attitude towards, on other forms of merchandise”, we may say that cultural the one hand, catering for the interest of the society, goods contribute to the existence and functioning of and, on the other hand, towards making the society the so-called “social goods”, such as social cohesion and responsible for the shaping of its own future. national identity. In economic terms, the consumption of domestic cultural products generates important and Cultural marketing strategies pursue the same heretofore unrecognized externalities (benefits or costs objectives as any other marketing approaches, imposed on third parties). There are at least four types namely that of attracting and retaining customers. of such spillovers caused by one person’s consumption As with any product, it is necessary to fix a price, to of a domestic cultural product: 1. Network externality promote the product and to satisfy the customers. - part of the value of consuming a cultural product is This nevertheless means that you should know sharing the experience with others (friends, family); what the expectations and needs of the public are. one more consumer raises the number of people “Culture is not a necessity for the consumer, it is a among whom the experience is shared. 2. Cross- pleasure”, warns us Emilie Moronvalle. Therefore, product externalities - consumption of one domestic cultural products are generally not accessible to cultural product (e.g., visiting a heritage site) raises the everyone, because they usually involve spending value of the consumption of other domestic cultural money and time. For example, even when the visit products (e.g., reading a historical novel set at that to an exhibition is free of charge, not everyone site). 3. Commercial externalities – occur when the is willing to go and spend time seeing it. In other consumption of a cultural product raises the commercial words, cultural marketing has to find the audience viability of industries associated with that domestic that is interested in the cultural product offered and, cultural production. 4. Intergenerational externalities if necessary, to adapt the offer to the needs of that – supporting today’s production contributes to the audience.4
2 Emilie Moronvalle, „Marketing culturel: deux concepts qui s’opposent?”, disponibil pe http://www.expertinbox.com/marketing-culturel/ 3 Jeff Dayton-Johnson: “What’s different about cultural products? An economic framework”, Strategic Research and Analysis (SRA) Strategic Planning and Policy Coordination Department of Canadian Heritage, November, 2000, p. 3, available at http://publications.gc.ca/site/archivee-archived.html?url=http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2010/pc-ch/CH4-150- 2010-eng.pdf 4 Emilie Moronvalle loc.cit.
88 Cultural products differ from consumer goods by consumption, as well as a question of one’s social the way they are designed and made. As opposed relations.7 to standardized products that are uniformly manufactured in large volumes, they are characterized The place of cultural organizations in the community by experimentation, uniqueness and diversity, though, is also worth taking into account, because it is closely like any other product, they follow a production- linked to the behavior in terms of cultural consumption distribution cycle.5 of the society within which they operate. Cultural enterprises “are an important part of our society. In the case of the museum institution, it is absolutely They reflect our cultural identity both by the content obvious that there will never be two identical of the works they propose (value, purpose, subject, collections, and much less two identical exhibitions, taboos), and by the forms they use (technology), the whatever their field and their theme, or two identical intensity of their presence (number of theaters in a conferences or museum education workshops, for city) and by the consumption patterns they involve that matter. Given the uniqueness or the rarity of the (e.g., dancing can be an event to which everyone is heritage objects that make up an exhibition and, of involved or a show to watch).”8 In other words, any course, the original vision underlying the organization marketing strategy is based on the analysis of the of the exhibition, displaying an object that is not, if external environment in particular, that will require taken individually, necessarily unique in its own right or even dictate the internal adjustment. (as it happens with technical museums, for instance) within the logical sequence of the exhibition, will After a timid and slow debut, though initially regarded confer that object its cultural, making it stand out with reluctance, particularly in Europe, applying the from the usual consumer goods. The uniqueness cultural marketing concept to cultural institutions, of the work has “important consequences on both enterprises, projects and specific activities is no longer the supply and the demand for cultural products: a novelty for anyone these days. It is now widely on the one hand, it creates economic, psychological recognized that marketing plays a decisive role in the and social risks for the producer and distributor, market success of a cultural product, around which and, on the other hand, it generates uncertainty in true industries are being built. Expressions such as the consumer’s choice.6 The latter is determined by cultural industries, creative industries, entertainment the need for constant reference to standards, which industry, culture and leisure industries, cultural characterizes the daily life of every individual, i.e. the and media industries and culture and intelligence need for certain functioning and reasoning patterns, industries are being currently used, all of which are, in in contrast with the cultural experience, which fact, “economic growth drivers” inspired by a cultural ignores any kind of established patterns. product or service.9
Regarding the motivations behind cultural consumption, Given their positive economic impact, the role these may, to some extent, have a symbolic meaning, of cultural and creative industries has rapidly centered on oneself or on others. In the first case, increased, causing their recognition by the highest cultural consumption is primarily an aesthetic emotion fora, especially in terms of social cohesion and felt by the individual visiting an exhibition, participating identity. Thus, Martin Schulz, EP President, stated to a workshop, a conference or a show; an experience in 2014, in the “Foreword” to a market study on where the individual appreciates the cultural product creative industries conducted by Ernst & Young, for itself and for the thrill it generates, and not for the that “Europe has a shared history and a richly utilitarian functions it could fulfill. In the second case, diverse cultural heritage. This heritage is cherished the cultural product may be a question of status and by the people as a common value that gives our prestige, put on display in the form of conspicuous Union its identity and binds us together. […]the
5 Isabelle Assassi, „Spécificités du produit culturel. L’exemple du spectacle vivant”, Revue française de gestion 2003/1 (no 142), pp. 129, 131 6 Ibidem, p. 134 7 Ibid., pp. 135-136 8 François Colbert, „Les éléments du marketing des arts et de la culture”, p. 5, available at http://www.gestiondesarts.com/media/wysiwyg/documents/Colbert__lementsmarketing.pdf 9 Raluca-Nicoleta Radu, Manuela Preoteasa, Economia mass-media, Polirom, Iași, 2012
89 creative and cultural industries account for 4.2% million people, with the first three positions occupied, of the GDP of the Union, nearly 7 million jobs […]. with rather small differences, by performing arts, Culture is therefore one of Europe’s great hopes..”10 visual arts and music. Compared with other sectors of the economy, cultural and creative industries Cultural heritage, which is found in various domains ranked third in the European Union.12 Also, from of the cultural and creative industries, plays an another Ernst & Young study, published in 2015, we important role in enhancing social cohesion by learn that in 2013 cultural and creative industries creating a sense of belonging to the community, an revenues in the EU stood at 709 billion dollars and idea stated in the Conclusions on cultural heritage as the total number of CCI employees amounted to a strategic resource for a sustainable Europe, at the 7.7 million people.13 Also in 2013, as the 2014 Ernst Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council meeting & Young Study says, visiting a museum or a gallery Brussels, 20 May, 2014. ranked 5 out of 9 leisure options of the EU citizens, with the 4th place occupied (yet with a considerable “5. Cultural heritage plays an important role in creating percentage difference) by visiting a monument or a and enhancing social capital because it has the site.14 In terms of visitor’s motivation, the same study capacity to: a) inspire and foster citizens’ participation shows that, though museums account for only a in public life; b) enhance the quality of life and the small part of the overall visual arts turnover (6.1%) well-being of individuals and their communities; and employment (8.8%), they play a particularly c) promote diversity and intercultural dialogue by important role in making art accessible to all. When contributing to a stronger sense of “belonging” to questioned, visitors to several European museums a wider community and a better understanding and told one study they seek entertainment and pleasure respect between peoples; d) help to reduce social (28%), education and training (26%) and a gateway disparities, facilitate social inclusion, cultural and to history (17%).15 social participation and promote intergenerational dialogue and social cohesion; e) offer possibilities to When speaking of motivation, we should also speak develop skills, knowledge, creativity and innovation; of the degree of visitors’ satisfaction in relation to f) be an effective educational tool for formal, non- their expectations and hence of the concept of loyalty formal and informal education, life-long learning and (customer retention). The chart below was proposed training. by Hermann Diller in his paper “Kundenbindung als Marketingziel”, published in 1996. We can see how, 6. Cultural heritage has an important economic based on a survey on customer experience within a impact, including as an integral part of the cultural cultural institution (in our case, a museum), one can and creative sectors, because, among other things, estimate the customer’s behavior in the future in it: a) constitutes a powerful driving force of inclusive relation to both himself and others. local and regional development and creates considerable externalities, in particular through the Evelyne Lehalle defines loyalty as the art of building enhancement of sustainable cultural tourism; b) a sustainable relationship with the visitor and points supports sustainable rural and urban development out that loyalty may be: the solution in a highly and regeneration as illustrated by initiatives by many competitive context (local, national, international), European regions and cities; c) generates diverse a political necessity (to demonstrate the utility of types of employment.”11 the institution to the financier ), an obligation to adapt training to the needs and expectations of According to the study conducted by Ernst & Young, the public, a visitor reception strategy, focused on published in 2014, total CCI revenues in the EU in the quality and image of the institution and based 2012 amounted to 535.9 billion euros, with visual arts on a dual dialogue between the institution and the (museums inclusive) ranking first; the total number visitors and, respectively, amongst visitors, being of CCI employees across the EU exceeded, in 2012, 7 conducive to creation of emotional ties with the
10 Creating Growth. Measuring Cultural and Creative Markets in the EU, EY, decembrie 2014, p. 5. 11 Available online at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/educ/142705.pdf 12 Creating Growth..., op. cit., p. 10 13 EY Analysis of Cultural and Creative Markets, 2015 apud Cultural times. The first global map of cultural and creative industries,Y E , decembrie 2015, p. 44 14 Creating Growth..., op. cit., p. 31 15 Ibidem, p. 82
90 public, who will gladly return to live a pleasant and implemented by any cultural institution. Not experience again. surprisingly, the communication of the customer retention initiatives determines the success of Some of the customer retention solutions the projects undertaken by cultural organizations. recommended by Lehalle are: the starting point Without proper communication, the expected should be the “already loyal” customers (schools, impact of customer retention programs across associations etc.), that gladly return to the museum the community will be compromised. That is why for new experiences, particularly in their sphere knowledge about the expectations and wants of the of interest; before they leave the museum, visitors public is essential when proposing customer retention should be asked “Would you like to come back another programs that are adapted to the taste and interests time?” “Would you want to be informed about our of the target audience that is already convinced of offers?” (thus obtaining contact details, that are very the quality and usefulness of the cultural product useful in disseminating information about the future they are offered. actions of the museum); the museum should provide places of interaction between the visitors and the museum or amongst visitors; the museum should carry out customized activities; museums should make themselves present on the Internet, especially Coralia Costaș, PhD on social websites.16 “Moldova” National Museum Complex of Iasi [email protected] Customer retention is at the core of the long- term success of the marketing program proposed
16 Evelyne Lehalle, „Fidéliser les visiteurs culturels”, available at http://www.scoop.it/t/musees-et-museologie/p/4058467791/2016/01/19/fideliser-les-visiteurs-culturels-tourisme-culturel
91 Figure 1
Alternative Spaces and Audiences – The Bucharest Municipality Museum
Spații și publicuri alternative – Muzeul Municipiului București
Museum Strategy
The Bucharest Municipality Museum is currently undergoing a transformation process, following the model of a public-oriented museum, trying to satisfy the cultural and social needs of the community. The museum is housed by The Suţu Palace, located in The University Square, in Bucharest, a location that enjoys a deep significance in the public consciousness. The museum heritage also includes other visiting spaces, which come to add to the potential of a diversified cultural offer: the Filipescu-Cesianu House, The “Nicolae Minovici” Museum, the “Theodor Aman” Museum, the “Ligia and Pompiliu Macovei” Art Collection, the “Frederic Storck and Ceilia Cuţescu-Storck” Museum, the “George Severeanu” Museum, the “Victor Babes” Museum and the “Amiral Vasile Urseanu” Astronomical Observatory “, with the latter to be reopened in December 2016.
For the efficient use of the before mentioned spaces and their smooth integration into the cultural circuit of the city, the management plan for 2014-2017, based on which the institution operates, provides for “the development of information materials to promote cultural products and services that represent the visual identity and the cultural branding of the institution”1, a goal transposed in the marketing strategy
1 Project for the management of The Bucharest Municipality Museum in the period 2014-2017, accessed online http://www.muzeulbucurestiului. ro/proiect-de-management.html , p. 8
92 through the building of a modern and coherent visual Beyond the experiences which the museums and identity for all the museums within the Bucharest memorial houses offer to their visitors in terms Minicipality Museum structure (see Figure 1). of architecture and interior design, theories on contemporary museum practices suggest a different The impressive 19th century building of the Şuţu approach to the audience: “People usually think of Palace, with its monumental staircase and grand a museum as a physical entity located in a specific mirror in the foyer, the vivid atmosphere of the former place, whose benefits are primarily available to house of art collectors Ligia and Pompiliu Macovei, those who make the effort to visit its building. But the creative spirit of the workshop designed by the this is too limited a view. […] museums can deliver great Romanian painter Theodor Aman and the former their offerings and services far beyond the bounds of house of the artists of the Storck family offer visitors that physical structure.”3 a memorable immersive experience. The aesthetic experience of visiting a museum, defined as “the sense In its effort to build new audiences and diversify its of delight, euphoria, and in some conditions a sense offer so as to meet the demands of the contemporary of disquiet evoked by qualities inherent in natural cultural consumer, the Bucharest Municipality or created objects or events, focusing on objects for Museum experiments with taking the museum their beauty, rather than their utility””, ranks among outside its physical boundaries and using its premises the six types of museum experience proposed by in alternative ways for both its exhibitions and its contemporary studies.2 cultural and artistic events.
Alternative exhibition spaces
The exhibition project “Neighborhood Stories”, in social stratification and consumer culture […] coordinated by the Bucharest Municipality Museum Shopping centers serve as museums of fashions, and co-financed by the National Cultural Fund tastes, and therefore lifestyles and habitus.”4 In Administration, sought to harness the memory of addition to their role as potential exhibition spaces the southern area of Bucharest, bringing together for the display of contemporary cultural products, images from different epochs, maps of the area with questionable effects on the genuine public and stories told by residents of this neighborhood, dialogue, these spaces fulfill a much more important belonging to different generations . Between the role incultural communication, in that they bring 2nd and the 15th of November 2016, the exhibition together in a public space the local community was opened to the public in the Sun Plaza Shopping members. Seen from this perspective, Sun Plaza Center, a major shopping center in the area. Built Shopping Center is a very promising exhibition space, as a workers’ neighborhood in the communist capable to ensure that the exhibition message of the era and nowadays considered as a “dormitory- project “Neibourgood Stories” can reach the target neighborhood”, Berceni district confronts with audience, i.e. the residents of the neighborhood, a the lack of active cultural spaces. Therefore, the message that would otherwise have been difficult two large and modern shopping malls in the area, to convey in a meaningful manner at the museum, built in the first decade of the 2000s, were used to whose spaces are located at a considerable distance emulate a meeting and socializing public place.Anna from the neighborhood in question. Zhelenina argues that: “In former socialist cities, the rapid transition to a capitalist economy has led to a The open-air exhibition “The Lost Hospitals of radical change in the organization of consumption Bucharest”, conducted in partnership with the College as well as attitudes toward it. Shopping centers have of Physicians in Bucharest andopened initially in the become a symbol of these transformations, as well courtyard of Şuţu Palace, was an itinerant exhibition, rd th as the locus for city dwellers to experience changes held between the 3 of August and the 30 of
2 Neil G. Kotler, Phillip Kotler, Wendy I. Kotler, Museum Marketing and Strategy, second edition, San Francisco, Jossey Bass, 2008, p. 303. 3 Ibid., p. 325. 4 Anna Zhelenina, „«It’s like a museum here». The shopping mall as public space. Summary”, Laboratorium, www.soclab.org, accessed online http://www.soclabo.org/index.php/ laboratorium/article/view/252/597, 16.11.2016, 13:49
93 Figure 2. Figure 3.
October 2016 in the courtyard of the “Filantropia” lawsuits. The exhibition was yet another experiment Hospital. Its purpose was to offer the public (and on the alternative use of the space (Figure 2). The mostly the health care recipients) an overview of setting as such has also enhanced the relevance of the hospitals’ activity in Bucharest and on the way the exhibition, given that “Filantropia” Hospital is their functioning t was interrupted or desisted by 200 years’ old and was founded in the same epoch as earthquakes, WWII bombings, demolitions and most of the lost hospitals of Bucharest, a fact which restructurings of the Communist period, or by the lack offered the public the chance to reflect even deeper of finances and post-December 1989 retrocession on the theme of the exhibition.
Alternative space for artistic events
The study-show “Meeting Shakespeare”, which a complex process of renovation and restoration, the brought together famous plays like “Romeo and house was reopened at the end of 2015 and, starting Juliet”, “The Taming of the Shrew” and “The Merry from December 2016, it hosts the Museum of Ages”. Wives of Windsor”, performed by young actors and During the preparations for the new exhibition, the students, directed by Irina Movilă, was hosted in “Meeting Shakespeare” show allowed, along with different spaces on the premises of the Filipescu- other artistic events, such as the opening of the Cesianu House (Figure 3). During the cold season, International Living Statues Festival, organized by the the show was held in the attic of the house, ona “Masca” Theatre, for the use of the available space two-level modern and unconventional scene, while, in an alternative way and the connection between during the summer, the performances took place on the museum spaces and an audience coming from a the stone platform in the courtyard of the house, different area of the cultural sector. richly ornamented by vegetation and statues. After
Real/virtual space
The multimedia show called “Time”, designed as environment and the historical with the fictional- video projection which uses the mirror in the foyer mythological space, exploiting facts from the city’s of the Sutu Palace, casting images on the walls of history, with reference to the personality of Irina Suţu. the upper floor, enhanced by classical music and A similar artistic endeavor is the show called “The ballet dances, offers the audience a multi-sensorial Clavier”, designed and interpreted in the courtyard experience by combining the real with the virtual of the Filipescu-Cesianu House. The variety of artistic
94 Figure 4. Figure 5. means of expression involved facilitates the access the cooridnation the ACCUMM Foundation. This to a diverse public, made up of people of different approach is intended to build further audience, so ages and with a varied range of artistic tastes and as to attract people who cannot go to the museum sensitivities (Figure 4). because of a poor health condition or a busy schedule. The virtual tour available on the museum Another confluence between the real and the virtual website - a journey through the exhibition “The Time environment is the dissemination through live- of the City” - serves as an up-to-date promotion streaming of the classical music concerts held every channel that is likely to reach a large audience in a Wednesday in the foyer of the Suţu Palace, under very meaningful manner (Figure 5).
Development
In the prospect of the opening of the two more Municipality Museum plans to continue building new alternative spaces, the Museum of Ages, at the audiences and experimenting with innovative events Filipescu-Cesianu House, and the Astronomical held in unconventional alternative spaces. Observatory “Amiral Vasile Urseanu”, The Bucharest
References
Kotler, Neil G., Kotler, Philip, Kotler, Wendy I., Zhelenina, Anna „«It’s like a museum here». The shopping Museum Marketing and Strategy, second edition, mall as public space. Summary”, Laboratorium, San Francisco, Jossey Bass, 2008 www.soclab.org,http://www.soclabo.org/index. Zhelenina, Anna „«It’s like a museum here». The php/laboratorium/article/view/252/597 shopping mall as public space. Summary”, Project for the management of the Bucharest City Laboratorium, www.soclab.org,http://www. Museum in the period 2014-2017, accessed online soclabo.org/index.php/laboratorium/article/ http://www.muzeulbucurestiului.ro/proiect-de- view/252/597 management.html Project for the management of the Bucharest City Museum in the period 2014-2017, accessed online http://www.muzeulbucurestiului.ro/proiect-de- Horia-Ioan Iova management.html Public Relations, Marketing and Cultural Projects Kotler, Neil G., Kotler, Philip, Kotler, Wendy I., Museum professional - Communication and Public Museum Marketing and Strategy, second edition, San Francisco, Jossey Bass, 2008 Relations Specialist
95 MISCELLANEOUS
The Museum of Mineralogy at its 40th Anniversary
Muzeul de Mineralogie, la 40 de ani de activitate.
ABSTRACT
This year the County Museum of Mineralogy „Victor Gorduza” Baia Mare is celebrating 4 decades of activity. The Natural Science Department was founded as part of the Maramureș County Museum on January 17th in 1976, this department represents the Mineralogy Museum’s ancestor, the structure on which the Museum developed. During the 40 years of activity, the Museum managed to establish a name for itself, in the country and across the borders, through the continued development of the collection, by organizing temporary exhibitions in Romania and in Europe and by continuously improving our way of interacting with our public. The purpose of this paper is to underline the defining moments that contributed to what the Museum represents today and to highlight the importance and the value of the Museum’s heritage.
Key-words: Baia Mare Mineralogy Museum, heritage, educational programs, custody of protected natural areas.
1. Introduction
The County Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” in Baia Mare is one of the largest geologic museum in Romania and one of the most important regional museums in Europe, owing to the fact that all its entire collection comes from the Baia Mare mining basin.
Northwestern Romania is famous for its Neogene volcanic rocks, and in particular for its over 20 polymetallic and gold-silver deposits, comprising more than 150 types of minerals. In addition to the large quantities of minerals extracted by mining, geodes containing exquisite mineral associations were discovered in the area, some of which are now part of important European collections, while others make up the collection of the Museum of Mineralogy in Baia Mare, which cares for this unique heritage. 96 Figure 1. The Building of the County Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” Baia Mare
2. Brief history
The year 2016 is the 40th anniversary of our Museum. and constantly on elaborating the theme of its core Four decades ago, the Department of Natural Sciences exhibition, designing the deposit furniture and was set up within the Maramureş County Museum, by fittings, and activity that ended with the official Decision no. 26 of the Popular Council of January 17, opening of the Permanent Exhibition of the Natural 1976, which later became the Museum of Mineralogy. Sciences Department, on 6 November 1989, an The department was allocated as its headquarters the exceptional cultural event, extensively covered by “Iancu de Hunedoara” House, in the city center the press of that time.
The establishment of the Department of Natural On 10 December 1992, following the decision of the Sciences was called for by the need to manage the fund Permanent Delegation of Maramures County Council, of mineral samples then existent (approximately 6,000 the Museum of Mineralogy “Baia Mare” was officially items) and by the great success of the first exhibitions established, located at 8, Traian Blvd. In 2001, in of crystal clusters organized in Baia Mare in 1974. recognition of the success of the museum in organizing Once established, the Department of Natural excellent exhibitions, the Ministry of Culture awarded Sciences proceeded to inventorying and classifying the Museum of Mineralogy in Baia Mare the “Grigore the samples stored in the deposit of the Museum Antipa” Prize, the first prize of this kind ever awarded to and continued to purchase crystal clusters and to a museum of natural sciences in Romania. organize temporary exhibitions in various places in the country and abroad. On 27 August, 2014, Maramures County Council approved that the Museum be named the Museum The decisive moment for the future of Museum of of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” in Baia Mare, in the Mineralogy was its relocation to its current venue, honor of the late Victor Gorudza, whose contribution on 8 February 1988 (Fig.1). Settled down in its new to the building up of the mineral collection of the building, the Museum started to work intensely Museum was paramount. 97 3. Museum Heritage – Development and Leverage
Sampling categories
Minerals Fossils Rocks Ore
Figure 2. Museum Heritage – Samples Figure 3. Temporary exhibitions organized in Romania
The permanent exhibition, inaugurated in 1989, houses more than 1,000 pieces and is organized in four sections. The first three sections, located on the ground floor of the museum building, expose the petrographic profile of the area, the properties and classification of minerals and the main characteristics of the ore deposits.
The fourth section, located on the second floor of the building, displays in an original way, placed into four large hexagonal showcases, the most beautiful mineral samples – called crystal clusters (or mine flowers).
In its 40 years of existence, the Museum of Figure 4. Temporary exhibitions organized in Europe Mineralogy has organized a total of 158 temporary exhibitions, 43 of which were organized in foreign countries, 14 on the Museum’s premises, 67 in The heritage of the Museum of Mineralogy “Victor various places around the country (Figure 3) and Gorduza” is the result of acquisition of samples 34 were exhibitions of other museums, hosed by and of donations made mainly by miners from Baia Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza”. Mare mining area. The Museum’s current heritage The Museum’s presence in Europe with temporary comprises a total of 20,395 samples, grouped into exhibitions has been a consistent one, as one can four collections: minerals, fossils, rocks and minerals, see on the map in Figure 4. In 1982, the Museum illustrated in Fig. 2. organized its first ever exhibition of crystal clusters The museum heritage was leveraged through the in a foreign country, namely at the Culture House permanent exhibition opened at the Museum’s in Vienna, Austria. Later, the Museum organized headquarters and through many temporary exhibitions temporary exhibitions in Hungary, Germany, organized in Romania and abroad. Austria, Monaco, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Republic of Moldova.
98 4. Evolution of the Number of Visitors
Evolution of number of visitors
Figure 5. Evolution of number of visitors
Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” is visited every peak figures recorded during the two national mass year by people in the Baia Mare, Maramures County, as cultural events “European Night of Museums” and well as by a large number of tourists from Romania and the “Extramural School Week”. abroad, especially from Western European countries. The peak figure, i.e. 27.484 visitors in 2012, has The statistics on the number of annual visitors, already been exceeded at the time of this article and shown graphically in Figure 5, reveal a relatively it is estimated that the number of visitors will exceed steady growth in the number of visitors, with two 30,000 in 2016.
5. Museum Research and Education
Research at the Museum of Mineralogy “Victor and leverage the natural heritage, and in particular Gorduza” in Baia Mare focuses on studying mineral the protected areas and areas held by museums. samples from collections, in order to better understand the physical and chemical characteristic Museum education focuses on collaborating with and the genesis of minerals and discover, if possible, educational institutions through partnerships, new species. Dissemination of research results directed towards promoting geological education consists of participation in scientific manifestations and enhancing awareness of the importance in the field of Earth science and in of publication of mineral resources among students. Also, the of articles in specialized journals such as Marmaţia Museum organizes a series of educational modules Proceedings of Wissenschaftliches Symposium “Der at its headquarters, on natural sciences themes. Bergbaubezirk Baia Mare (Rumanien)” Mineralogy The Museum also intends to involve in organizing and Petrology, Acta Mineralogica - Petrographica, field trips to the most important geosites in the Studia Universitatis “Babes – Bolyai”. northwestern Romania. Another major objective Since 2015 the Museum organizes in May every year, pursued by the Museum is to organize in partnership during the “Maramureş Days Festival”, a symposium with ISJ Maramures a summer school for school pupils called The Natural Heritage, which aims at publicizing and students, with practical courses on geology and the research results, designed to promote, preserve trips to Izvoare Resort, in the Gutâi Mountains.
99 6. Management of Protected Natural Areas
The role of the Museum of Mineralogy “Victor In this respect, the Museum’s current management Gorduza” as a custodian of protected natural areas program incorporates a project that engages the is a legacy passed over to the museum ever since Museum in the management of protected natural the establishment of the Department of Natural geological areas. Following the procedure conducted Sciences, when the Museum was assigned the duty by the National Agency for Environmental Protection, to coordinate all the activities of the nature reserves in the first half of this year, the Museum of Mineralogy and of other protected sites in the county. “Victor Gorduza” became the custodian of three protected areas: The Columns of Limpedea, the White Stone Rosace “Ilba” and the Fossil Reserve “Chiuzbaia”.
7. Conclusions
Although, compared with the age of the items held European level, as a one-of-a-kind symbol of the in the museum’s collections, 40 years may seem like former mining region of Baia Mare. Non-ferrous a very short time, the evolution of the Museum of and gold-silver ore mining in the Baia Mare has a Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” during this relatively tradition of over 650 years and has been the pillar short period is remarkable, given the considerable around which the town developed over time. Today, increase in the number of samples in its collections nine years after the closure of the last mine in the and in the number of visitors, as well as in the amount area, the only edifice that reminds of those times is of scientific research and exhibitions organized. the County Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza”.
One of the most important attributes of the Museum is its representativeness at local, national and
References
1. The County Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza”, 2014: 25 from the inauguration of the core exhibitions, Eurotip, 56 pp, Baia Mare.
2. Museum of Mineralogy Baia Mare, 2009: 1989- 2009: Museum of Mineralogy Baia Mare, Eurotip, 68 pp, Baia Mare.
Ioan Denuț, Alexandra Sîngeorzan, Elisabeta Fodor, Anca Cociotă ”Victor Gorduza” Baia Mare County Museum of Mineralogy
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