Romanian Journal of Museums – Volume 1 / 2016 – Digitization

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Editorial team

- dr. Virgil Ștefan Nițulescu – Editor in chief;

- Raluca Iulia Capotă – peer-reviewer;

- Mircea Victor Angelescu – peer-reviewer; Proofreading: Radu Vasile Graphic Concept: Gheorghe Iosif Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Proin posuere Cover: Cătălin Toma Desktop publishing: Aurora Pădureanu efficitur tortor quis venenatis. Nam non dui elit. Donec congue ipsum et Translation: Mina Fanea-Ivanovici scelerisque volutpat. Pellentesque interdum malesuada neque non Corresponding address:Morbi in nunc et massa ullamcorper commodo rutrum at elementum.

No. 22, Unirii Blvd., 2nd Floor, Sector 3, Postal Code 030833, Bucharest placerat aliquet Tel: 021 891neque.

91 03 |Fusce Fax: 021 893 31 75 | malesuada. Phasellus non http://www.culturadata.ro/categorie-publicatii/revista-muzeelor/ www.facebook.com/RevistaMuzeelor © National Institute for Cultural Research and Training ISSN 1220-1723 ISSN-L 1220-1723

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING

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No.

ROMANIAN JOURNAL OF MUSEUMS

D I G IT I Z AT I O N

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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 Effective Communication with the Audience by Reviewing the Museum Websites in Romania 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 Č˜tefan NIČšULESCU, PhD Editor in Chief

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.

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The issue of cultural heritage digitizing (and this phrase is purely conventional; in fact, it refers to cultural resources, and not just to what the Romanian law typically defines as property) has been discussed before in “Revista Muzeelor� (Romanian Journal of Museums) and has been reiterated more and more frequently in the last two decades.

Romania, unlike many European countries, enjoyed the initial advantage of having a centralized cultural goods record system, which facilitated a smooth transition to the digitization process. However, the decentralization of cultural institutions in Romania did not work as expected, fact that adversely impacted on the process of collection, management and optimization of cultural goods databases.

Under the circumstances, despite the efforts made by the former Institute for Cultural Memory and a few enthusiasts in the cultural field, when Romania joined the European Union, the gap between our country and the other Member States, where digitization had been a priority since the end of the last century, became evident.

Efforts to resume cultural heritage digitization and take it to the next level intensified for a short while, more specifically in 2007 and 2008, only to be de facto abandoned in the next six years, due to the reorganization (by a merger) of the Institute for Cultural Memory. By the time the National Heritage Institute finally managed to get the process up and running again, a lot of precious resources had been lost, not only in terms of time, but, worse even, in terms of people and field-related expertise.

Meanwhile though, some of the museums in Romania had taken over the digitization task, either on their own initiative or in response to impulses coming from abroad. Besides europeana, which continues to 6

be the most important platform of cultural resources on the continent, several other initiatives, such as Google Art Project, have succeeded to resuscitate the interest of major holders of movable cultural heritage.

On the other hand however, one should not overlook the efforts undertaken by other institutions that, though they are not museums, they are important cultural heritage managers, as it is the case, for example, of the National Archives of Romania, the National Library of Romania or the Romanian Academy.

At this moment, I do not believe that there are still people or institutions in Romania to question the need for digitization of the cultural heritage, in a world where the first impulse we feel when we want to find out more about a certain cultural good from anywhere in the world is to search the databases available online. Instead, someone might ask why cultural heritage digitization needs a national integrator, for that matter. I will briefly answer this question below.

Firstly, the big international databases, including europeana, have put in place specific data uploading rules, which imply a degree of standardization that the museums cannot always achive by themselves .

Secondly, before data get to be known at continental or global level, it would be desirable that they be available to the users in Romania – who are the first people interested to get to know more about their national heritage, be they specialists or members of the general public. And this is precisely the role of the National Heritage Institute, among others.

Finally, the technical possibilities of Romania in terms of digitization are limited. The Therefore, a

national integrator would facilitate the exchange of information among institutions and would help streamline the heritage digitization process.

Now, what are the major constraints the Romanian museums are facing with respect to heritage digitization?

Without claiming to make an exhaustive list of problems here, I would first of all mention the lack of human resources in general and of field-related expertise in particular. In a situation where museums Romania are forced to operate based on outdated staffing structures, their only chance to take up and successfully fulfil the challenge (or the duty, I would say) posed by the digitization of their own heritage is to win projects or grants, either at national or at European level, which would enable them to hire specialist staff on a temporary basis. Secondly, the chronic lack of up-to-date equipment is yet another reason why museums in Romania are still lagging behind the museums in most of the other European countries. Thirdly, museums in Romania are in short supply of adequate spaces for the digitization operations. In fact, they even lack spaces for the storage of their current heritage, let alone for future acquisitions they would want to make in the future 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 before digitization. Last but not least, digitization has never been the target of any financing priorities of the government or of the central bodies, which simply disregarded the allocation of special funding

lines to digitization. Finally, I as I said before, the lack (or, more exactly, the disregarding of) a national integrator generates serious inconsistencies in terms of individual digitization activities.

The articles in this issue of Revista Muzeelor are describing a few initiatives of museums in Romania, along with some views on the cultural heritage digitizing methodology. Our publication can only raise a red flag and convey a warning message that, hopefully, will be heard and understood by all stakeholders, and in particular by regulators, whose involvement is crucial for the saving and promotion in digital format of our national cultural heritage at, at least, a reasonable speed compared to the other European countries. At the moment we cannot possibly draw up the picture of the nationwide state of digitization. As such, a better cooperation among the National Heritage Institute, the National Institute of Cultural Research and Training and the holders of cultural goods could provide, in a few years from now, the big picture of what has been done so far and what the future direction is on this front. That is why we hope to see some practical arrangements in connection with heritage digitization incorporated in both the central strategies and in the local development plans.

Virgil Č˜tefan NiČ›ulescu, PhD Editor in Chief vsnitulescu@yahoo.co.uk

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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 19141918, 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 is only 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 threedimensional 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 cultural heritage, namely that of building a common, information-rich international repository and making it available to the public in a user-friendly manner, has been achieved following creation, in November 2008, of the Europeana (www.europeana.eu), the online digital library, museum and archive of Europe. Bringing together digital content on a multimedia online environment, accessible to anyone interested in European culture, in order to facilitate the discovery of ​​multilingual and multicultural European values, Europeana is currently providing access to over 53 million digitized items, gathered together from over 3,300 European cultural heritage organizations. Europeana website, available in 31 European languages, collects and indexes descriptive metadata associated with digital objects, thus giving the chance to view digitized books, artifacts, artworks, videos and sounds, photographs, paintings, maps, manuscripts, newspapers and archival documents.

Realizing the importance of contributing actively, with its own resources, to a European project of this scale, the “Octavian Goga” County Library in Cluj assumed the role of national coordinator of the project called EDLocal - Making local and regional content accessible through the European Digital Library, funded by the European Commission under the eContentPlus Programme - Best Practice Networks, conducted in the period 2008-2011. Besides the library’s own contribution, consisting of 1,106 digital documents, structured thematically into five distinct collections (Photos from the old Cluj, Archival documents from the collections of the County Library Octavian Goga in Cluj, Correspondence belonging to important cultural figures in Cluj, Books on Cluj County and Photos illustrating great cultural personalities from Cluj), the contribution to Europeana included another 6,771 digitized documents provided by the 13 national project partners (9 county libraries, the National Archives Cluj County, the County Centre for Conservation and Promotion of Traditional Culture in Cluj, Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization in Deva and the Tribuna Magazine, Cluj). The immediate consequences of this contribution were the enhancement in the visibility of the Library and in the use of its information resources, proven by the increased traffic volume recorded on the library’s website, given that Europeana provides links to the online resources of the content providers.

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In an attempt to make Europeana known to users, decision makers, politicians and to the cultural organizations in every Member State, while encouraging its use, attracting new content and increasing awareness of the role of cultural heritage as a driver of economic growth, the Europeana Foundation has developed the European best practice network, Europeana Awareness, with the Cluj County Library continuing to act as the national coordinator of the project (which ran from 2012 until 2014). In parallel, starting from 2013, our library has also acted as local partner in the LoCloud Project, dedicated to the development of cloud-based technology and services and to helping small and medium local enterprises to put together their digital resources and make them available online.1 Continuing to play an active role in everything that Europeana means at regional and national level, the “Octavian Goga” Cluj County Library has also involved itself in the Europeana 1914-1918 project, which focused on revealing heartfelt testimonies from the First World War, managing to provide access to over 600,000 of digitized items collected from 20 countries, available to the public via a multilingual thematic portal. The project website, http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/ ro, brings together documentary resources, structured as a unique archive where library collections are mixed with family stories that give viewers a unique insight into the First World War. This original combination of objects, personal memories, memorabilia, public documents and audiovisual materials is not the only innovative aspect of the project. The approach as such represents a novelty, given the use of crowdsourcing – i.e. collecting and posting personal family memories and memorabilia online, to be used by researchers and communities.

To help achieve the objectives described above, our library has organized one of the two document collecting campaigns carried out in Romania (the other one was conducted by the Romanian Academy Library in Bucharest) under the Europeana 1914-1918 project, which resulted into collection of 35 family stories and a total of 1,015 digital documents from 383 contributors.

Moreover, documents form the Special Collections section of the Library have also been presented and posted on the Europeana website, including a remarkable collection of 92 stereo photographs.

Stanca, Sorina (2015), pp. 131-132.

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Stereo photography Stereoscopic photography is based on binocular vision, allowing the three-dimensional rendering of the reality.

The earliest type of stereoscope was invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) in 1838. It used a pair of mirrors at 45 degree angles to the user’s eyes, each reflecting a picture located off to the side. It demonstrated the importance of binocular depth perception by showing that when two pictures simulating left-eye and right-eye views of the same object are presented so that each eye sees only the image designed for it, but apparently in the same location, the brain will fuse the two and accept them as a view of one solid three-dimensional object. Later on, Wheatstone asked the two portrait photographers, Daguerre and Talbot, to make photos that could be seen through his stereoscope. Stereoscopy has not been received with much enthusiasm until David Brewster (1781-1868) invented a new device.

Wheatstone, in turn, had brought changes to the device, so that its model, introduced in 1838, was using mirrors.

Brewster’s personal contribution was the suggestion to use lenses for uniting the dissimilar pictures, in 1849, replacing the mirrors by lenses and prisms. Brewster’s device consisted of a small wooden box, equipped with pairs of lenses, which was used to view drawn landscape transparencies, since photography had yet to be invented.

In 1851, at the Great Exhibition in London, Brewster’s device has sparked the interest of Queen Victoria. As a result, shortly after, the opticians in London began manufacturing the device. Within three months, almost a quarter of a million sterescopes were sold in Paris and in London.2 Transposition of stereo photos on paper started to gather speed. The first commercially available stereoscopic camera was manufactured by Quinet and placed on the market in Paris. As the stereoscopic photography was gathering momentum, many other models of stereoscopes were built, used equally by professional and amateur photographers.3 In 1854, the first specialized company, London Stereoscopic Company, was founded in England, 2 3 4 5 6 7

Szilágyi (1982), pp. 57-58 Szilágyi (1982), p. 58 Comănescu, Constantinescu, (s.a.), p. 12; Szilágyi (1982), p. 58 Szilágyi (1982), p. 58 Szilágyi (1982), p. 59 ForteBlog (2012)

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whose slogan was “A Stereoscope in Every Home”.

The company managed to sell over 500,000 devices in the span of only four years, thus making stereoscopes affordable even to people with lower incomes.

Under the circumstances, the making and the sale of stereoviews grew and the number of collectors of such images started to increase.4 London Stereoscopic Company has come to own a catalog of 100,000 stereoviews and was sending photographers to as far as the United States and the Middle East.5 The stereoscope enabled people to watch and admire pictures which they had read about in travelogues. The pictures were not illustrating buildings only. Very quickly, shops started to sell photos of nature landscapes and series of thematic photos like The Joys of Marriage, Life’s Ups and Downs.6 An article published in the Kolozsvári Közlöny issue of November 1860 argued that stereo photography could be an educational and an entertainment tool at the same time, and that it could also be used as teaching aid for history, statistics and geography classes, helping students to better understand and memorize the lessons taught and acquire solid knowledge.

Many began buying and collecting stereo photos showing images from other countries, which could thus be “visited” by way of virtual and free of charge travels. Photos and stereoscopes were sold in book shops, specialized stores, general stores or by sale reps, or they could be ordered by mail. Thus, stereoscopic photography reached its peak popularity in the early 1860s.7 At the turn of the century, the public could admire not only stereoscopic photographs they used to make or buy, but could also visit exhibitions of stereoscopic photographs. The German August Fuhrmann invented the Kaiserpanorama. In 1890s, the device was up on the market in Budapest as well, much to the delight of the locals. The memories of manufacturer Pál Granasztói allow us to understand the way the Kaiserpanorama operated after the First World War: in a corner of the Franciscans’ Square (Ferenciek tere), there was a board

Figure 1. Kaiserpanorama9

displaying the weekly schedule of the picture show the people could watch for a fee. Some of the most popular Kaiserpanorama shows were London, The Swiss Mountains, The Blue Sky of Italy, The Middle East etc. People walked into a shop-like building and into a large waiting room equipped with a few chairs and a table where tickets were sold. The waiting room was separated by a thick curtain from a dark room where people were guided to their places by a person carrying a flashlight. In the middle of the large dark room there stood a polygonal wooden structure, equipped with about 25 viewing stations, each with its pair of viewing

lenses, through which people would peer through a pair of lenses showing a number of clockwiserotating stereoscopic glass slides showing numerous stereoscopic images on rear-illuminated glass, giving a 3D effect. Images were shown at a speed of one image every 1 or 2 minutes; after each photo, a buzzer would go off, announcing the display of the next photo by the rotating mechanism. A Kaiserpanorama used to show between 30 and 40 images in a row. When the show was over, people had to leave the room or were 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 by the “Octavian Goga” County Library collections in 1991, through a purchase from an antiquity store, together with a stereoscope engraved with the AustroHungarian coat of arms. The photographs were made

by Neue Photographische Gesellschaft (NPG)10, the largest German producer of stereoscopic photographs of WWI. The company made standard-size stereoscopic photographs on photo paper for the German and the Austro-Hungarian markets. NPG also sold stereoviews to American firms Keystone and Underwood & Underwood, which purchased stereoviews from NPG

as early as 1915. The NPG logo was not used on the American versions. Several years after the war, Keystone purchased from NPG’s successor the rights to more than two dozen additional NPG images for its definitive 1932 World War set of 400 stereoviews.11 NPG photographs and stereographs almost always bore NPG logos. On stereographs, a 3 mm logo appeared in the lower left corner of the image. The style of the logo changed over time. During the World War One period, the company used the style at right.12

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)

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The stereoviews from the collection of the “Octavian Goga” Library in Cluj carry the NPG logo in the lower left corner of the first picture.

Photos from the County Library’s collection bear the NPG logo and are part of the World War 1914-1916 collection, with the captions written in Hungarian.

NPG printed stereographs on heavy photo paper and did not mount them on cardboard, although retailers occasionally did.13

NPG’s extensive coverage of Austro-Hungarian troops not only served propaganda purposes for the German home front, but it gave NPG another major market. NPG sold standard German-language stereoviews in Austria and published stereoviews in Hungarian to reach other areas of the Dual Monarchy. The stereoviews in the “Octavian Goga” County Library Collection are part of the set of images intended to be sold on the Austro-Hungarian market, with captions written, as I said, in Hungarian. The structure was similar to that of the German sets, but the largest section covered the Austro-Hungarian war theaters of Galicia, Bukovina and Wolhynia. For the other sections, NPG selected images showing mostly the Austro-Hungarian troops, while minimizing the number of images showing the German troops.

The first NPG war set was issued shortly after the war began in 1914. It consisted of 100 cards, each marked Krieg 1914. The cards were numbered 1-100. In 1915, the name of the series was changed to Krieg 1914-15 and cards 101-231 were added. The zenith of the NPG World War set occurred in 1916, when the collection was renamed Krieg 1914-16 by adding stereoviews 232411 and including a large prisoner of war (POW) section.

The latter bore the POW Camp (Gefangenenlager) name instead of the series name. Fewer cards were added in the last two years of the war, and those appear not to have had series names. Probably in the immediate postwar period a revised set with the name Weltkrieg (World War) was created; many earlier cards were republished with that name. The final NPG Weltkrieg set, identified by a distinctive font and an “S” prefix to the numbers, may have been produced after the remnant of the company relocated to Dresden.14

The ninety-two stereoscopic photographs from the Octavian Goga Cluj County Library are in black-andwhite. As a matter of fact, standard NPG stereoviews were in black-and-white, but some retailers made colorized versions as well.

Descriptions of the photographic images of the collection Photography has made a difficult entry in the military world of the late nineteenth century, as battle representation was still the privilege of painters. On the eve of World War I, the photography entered the civil society thanks to technical advancements, being finally able to dethrone traditional ways of representation such as painting and engraving.

Photography transforms the way images are produced and consumed.

War photography as a genre came of age during the First World War. Despite many constraints and limitations, professional and amateur photographers of all nationalities combined to create a significant body of work, which informed the public about the war. In subsequent years, further photographs, unpublished in wartime, served to fuel debate, shape perceptions and inform contemporary understanding of the War.15 13 14 15 16 17

Great War in 3D.org (2007) Great War in 3D.org (2007) Roberts (2014) Guillot (2010) Roberts (2014)

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WWI became an unprecedented catalyst of the photographic phenomenon, helping photography to acquire its status as a mass medium of visual communication. With it, the way the war image was perceived changed for good. Germany seems to have mastered the possibilities afforded by photography, so that, starting from 1914, Germany turns photography into an instrument of international propaganda.16 Authorities were consistently reluctant to permit photography in the war zone for any non-military purpose and, while quick in acknowledging the value of written propaganda, they were slow in recognizing that of the photography. Censorship of photography was introduced immediately. In Germany, censorship was controlled entirely by the military authorities.17 Between 1914 and 1918, masses of photos were taken at the front and at home, making the First World War a highly visual war. From its beginnings there was a

Figure 2. Trenches made of wood and sand bags23

growing demand for authentic representations of what was going on “out there”. Photographs in particular were considered an “objective” medium depicting the realities of war. As a matter of principle, any visual representations of a military kind were subject to censorship prior to their publication. Shooting photographs and movies with intent to publish them had to be authorized by the censor. In Germany, censorship authorities admitted photographers and cameramen to the theater of war starting from October 1914.18 Most published photos did not show any actual fighting, but only the fighting outcome: the effects of artillery, destruction, prisoners and wounded people.

They focused on motifs located behind the front, far off from the actual battlefield. At the same time, amateur photographers were allowed to take photos at the front. Their photos were then circulated among soldiers and tolerated by military authorities.19 Representing war met immense difficulties, not only from the censorship authorities. The battles on the Western Front were waged over dozens or hundreds of kilometers, with battlefields showing nothing but destruction and devastation. If a camera reached the front lines, it could not show anything but the emptiness of the battlefield. Last but not least, the technical limitations imposed by bulky, heavy cameras made it almost impossible to take photos of the combat.20 German authorities were under the illusion that censorship and propaganda could be a surrogate for victories, bread, and coal or for anything else that missed on the home front. Censorship was a framework set up by the military authorities and enforced by editors, journalists, photographers, painters and graphic artists.

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It is hard to distinguish between this kind of censorship and self-censorship.21 The NPG photos come to support these assertions.

The World War One set of photographs covered three major sections: A. Pictures from the Front; B. Pictures of German POW Camps; and C. Landscapes of the Occupied and War Zones. The latter were standard prewar travel scenes and appear to have been only rarely sold with the actual war stereoviews.

Section A illustrates that, as was the case with the other major combatants, Germany had stringent censorship regulations. The German General Staff used NPG stereoviews to reassure the home front and to counteract the Allied propaganda. Recurrent themes included: “Our troops (“Unsere Feldgrauen”) are wellcared after, well-equipped, well-led and happy.” In fact, the Germans eschewed images of the gritty reality of life in the trenches in favor of those portraying life in combat as akin to camping in the outdoors. Another theme was that “Austro-Hungarian allies are capable, loyal, true comrades of the Germans.” In fact, the reality was that, apart from providing the heavy artillery that helped reduce enemy fortresses, Austro-Hungarian involvement in the war was largely negative for the Germans. Nearly one-quarter of the NPG set portrayed Austro-Hungarian forces, including more than 80 images from the Galician and Balkan theaters, which were overwhelmingly Austro-Hungarian. Another theme of the NPG photographs was trying to induce the idea that the Russians were wantonly destroying the German territory. Lastly, the photographs were trying to make people believe that the Germans treated the defeated civilians kindly.22

Altenhöner (2014) Altenhöner (2014) Altenhöner (2014) Altenhöner (2014) Great War in 3D.org (2007) 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.

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Figure 3. German Light Cruiser “Blucher”

Figure 4. Soldiers Bathing in Barrels at a Dye Factory

The collection of stereoscopic photographs of the Octavian Goga Cluj County Library appears to be built around these specific themes of the NPG series.

Primarily monitoring the Austro-Hungarian troops in Galicia and the Balkans, the collection was obviously intended for this market, and in particular, judging by the Hungarian translation of the captions of the images, to the Hungarian market.

The war photographs in this collection, alike those in the larger collection of origin, do not capture battle scenes.

There are, however, many images showing the troops on the move or while resting or in recognition missions.

Air-raid shelters, trenches and observation posts are other settings where soldiers are photographed, often focusing on the background, rather than on the protagonists.

Other fortifications or military sites are illustrated by panoramic photos, although it is a well-known fact that authorities were reluctant to promoting such images for fear of the enemy and of the risk of exposing secret locations. However, photos of this type are few, even in the collection. Other photographs show howitzers, machine guns, armored trains and battleships: German 24 The photo was published in A világháború képes krónikája, October 1915. Pálffy (2015) 25 Great War in 3D.org (2007)

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Light Cruiser “Leipzig”, German Battleship “Blucher”, German Naval Squadron or Troops and Horses during Shipping to Serbia.

Besides these specific battlefield scenes, the photographs show snapshots of everyday life of the soldiers: Campsite Bakery in the Bukovina Mountains24, Food Collecting for Trench Soldiers, Soldiers Transporting Food to Trenches, A Campsite Laundry or Religious Sermon on the Day of the Dead on Battlefield amid Gunfire. Accidentally, a photo was captured, showing a trench soldier hunting lice.

In the NPG photographs, treatment of the dead not only reflected stringent censorship, but may have revealed traditional German prejudice against Russians.

No dead German or Austro-Hungarian soldiers were shown, only soldiers’ memorials and cemeteries of the heroes. French and English dead were similarly not in evidence, but a sub-series of eight views showed Austro-Hungarian soldiers collecting Russian dead and placing them in mass graves.25 In the ninety-two photographs from the collection in Cluj, death is only suggested, even in the photographs

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 during collection of bodies or Storage of coffins destroyed in Belgrade26). Respect for the dead enemy is shown by two photos: Cemetery of Russian Soldiers and German Soldier Preparing an Inscription on the Tombstone of a Russian Officer. No images of dead German soldiers are shown, but only a monument made of projectiles, erected as a tribute to the German soldiers who died on the battlefield.

Instead, more present in the war photographs are the wounded, as a proof of their sacrifice and heroism.

Very eloquent in this regard are photographs such as: A Soldier Wounded in the Battles of Campulung Moldovenesc Carried by His Comrades in Arm; Wounded Soldiers Arriving at Királymező; Wounded Soldier Carried on a Sledge in the Carpathians. On the other hand, the photographs reveal the concern for the wounded, as, for example, the photos called: Tea Offered to the Wounded in the Battles in the Carpathians, Feeding the Wounded at the Storalya-Újhelyi Train Station, Transportation of the Wounded by Sledges to Iacobeni27. The fact that the wounded were well cared after is also evident in several photographs taken at a field hospital or in a hospital

train. Hospital trains included a surgery wagon, a kitchen wagon and an officer wagon.

More than 100 NPG war images showed prisoners of war (POWs). This sizable coverage of this theme constituted a rebuttal to Allied claims that their prisoners were treated badly. NPG, no doubt at the behest of the General Staff, produced a series of photographs showing three of the hundreds of POW camps. The three (Wünsdorf, Döberitz and Müncheberg) appear to have been purpose-built and were probably the best of the lot. The series reflected propaganda themes countering specific Allied complaints. They had to convince that the POWs: were housed in comfortable, clean barracks with access to kitchens, theaters, hospitals and fire stations; in those inevitable circumstances where Allied prisoners died, they were given decent burials in well-kept cemeteries; the camps offered gainful employment for those prisoners desiring to work; all of the various nationalities and races were treated equally and fairly; and every prisoner, whether Christian, Jew, Hindu, or Muslim, had access to an appropriate religious 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)

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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 prisoners of war (POWs). One of them suggests the power of the troops who captured the prisoners, namely the one portraying 2,800 Russian soldiers taken prisoners in the fight in eastern Galicia. Other two photos show two prisoners of war working: French Prisoners on Their Way to the Work Site and Russian Prisoners Building Roads for the Austro-Hungarian troops in Volyn.

There are quite many images of destroyed buildings and monuments: castles, fortresses, churches, train stations, bridges (Side View of Destroyed Zukov Castle; Destroyed Bridge Over a Mountain River near the old Polish Fortress “Lowicz”; Overview of the Bridge Destroyed in Zemun, Belgrade; Bridge Over

Drina Rebuilt in a Few Days; Interior of the Church in Zandvoorde,, Belgium, Destroyed by Bombardment, Main Train Station in Lemberg-Lviv, Ukraine, after the Bombing, Castle Destroyed in Hollebeke, Belgium; Side View of the Church in Gorlice).

Victories are immortalized in photos such as Victorious General Beseler and His Staff of Generals in Antwerp; Victorious Austro-Hungarian Troops Entering Lvov (June 22, 1915)29 or Austro-Hungarian Cavalry Arriving in a Russian-occupied Polish Village. Other photos are symbolic: Captured Russian Flags, Sorting Out War Spoil on the Battlefield in Limanova or View of the Battlefield in Masovia (Poland), where Part of the Russian Troops Perished in the Marshes.

Conclusions By digitizing and posting on the Europeana 1914-1918 website its collection of stereoscopic photographs, the Cluj County Library contributed the completion of the archive of WWI stereoviews.

A detailed investigation of the presence of documents of this type on the said website reveals the existence of four compact collections, coming from different

countries (France, Belgium, the UK and Romania) and presenting certain peculiarities.

French contributors added 343 such photographs to Europeana, most described as glass plates, illustrating life in the trenches on the Western Front. Among them is a collection of 172 photographs taken from 1915 to 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)

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Figure 9. Victorious Austro-Hungarian Troops Entering Lvov

in August 1914, who was part of the official team of photographers of the French army.

The one hundred and six stereoscopic photographs posted by Provinciaal Centrum voor Cultureel Erfgoed (Regional Centre for Cultural Heritage) from the Belgian province of Limburg are different from the rest, in that they are hand-colored and are accompanied by a Holmes-Bates stereoscope manufactured by Underwood & Underwood.

The official collection of documents about the First World War of the Ministry of Intelligence in the UK, owned by the Imperial War Museum in London, consists of 185 black-and-white photographs, taken towards the end of the war and showing, in particular, war spoils and German prisoners.

While all the other collections mentioned above are revealing for the situation of the Allies, the Romanian contribution is a unique one, because it consists of snapshots taken by the Germans and the AustroHungarians on the Eastern front. In other words, the archive of stereoscopic photographs of the Great War was completed by digitizing and posting on the Europeana 1914-1918 website of the collection of stereoscopic photographs held by the Cluj County Library, as an addition to the other collections available on Europeana platform, with which it makes up a complete set of three-dimensional testimonials regarding the real life of the people fighting on the WWI battlefields, in vivid contrast with the propaganda of those times, whose purpose the photographs were intended to serve.

References Altenhöner, Florian. 2014, 8 October. Press/Journalism (Germany), în 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued

by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin. http://dx.doi. org/10.15463/ie1418.10404 (20 September 2016).

Comănescu, Sylviu, Constantinescu Alexandru. s.a.

Fotografia în relief. București: Editura Tehnică.

ForteBlog. 2012, 30 August. Nemzeti kincs, amit a Fortepan fedezett fel. http://fortepan.blog. hu/2012/08/30/nemzeti_kincs_amit_a_fortepan_ fedezett_fel. (16 September 2016).

Great War in 3D.org. The Great War in Stereoviews.

German Stereoviews. 2007. http://greatwarin3d. org/GermanViews.htm. (16 September 2016).

Great War in 3D.org. The Great War in Stereoviews. Neue Photographische Gesellschaft (NPG), 2007. http:// greatwarin3d.org/NPG.htm. (20 September 2016).

Guillot, Hélène. „La section photographique de l’armée et la Grande Guerre. De la création en 1915 à la nondissolution”, Revue historique des armées. Les corps expéditionnaires, 258 (2010). http://rha.revues. org/6938. (19 September 2016).

Pálffy Lajos. 2015 February 10. A Nagy Háború sztereóban és 3D-ben. http://mandarchiv.hu/cikk/3710/A_ Nagy_Haboru_sztereoban_es_3DbenChromeHTML. S4TLASPU47EPVFWZXLOCFRJCPE/Shell/Open/ Command. (20 September 2016).

Roberts, Hilary. 2014 October 8. Photography, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer and Bill Nasson, publicat de Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin. http://dx.doi.org/10.15463/ ie1418.10142. (20 September 2016).

Stanca, Sorina. „Acces facil la documente digitale locale”, Biblioteca, 5 (2015), pp. 131-132.

Szilágyi Gábor. 1982. A fotóművészet története. A fényrajztól a holográfiáig. Budapest: Képzőművészeti Alap Kiadóvállalata.

Ghizela Cosma „Octavian Goga” County Library Cluj ghizela.cosma@bjc.ro Anca Ioana Docolin „Octavian Goga” County Library Cluj anca.docolin@bjc.ro 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 of the 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 of the 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 a deep paradigm shift2 in digital libraries by merging traditional digital library (exposing mostly textual content) with the digital archive (exposing mostly textual content) and the virtual museum (exhibiting mostly digital reproductions of tangible artifacts). In other words, europeana.eu (and its national pendants) displays together texts, images, sounds, films and 3D virtual objects. This merger is an important innovation, with a significant impact on the cultural world The European Digital Library prototype was launched on 20 November 2008. At that time, the European Digital Library portal was showcasing over two million digital cultural resources. Upon its launch, the Council of the European Union formulated the Conclusions of the Council of 20 November 2008 on the European digital library EUROPEANA3, whereby the Council: “[…] INVITES THE MEMBER STATES AND THE COMMISSION, within their respective competences, to: • encourage the development of EUROPEANA and work alongside stakeholders, in particular through the Member States’ Expert Group on Digitization and Digital Preservation, to define 1 2 3

www.europeana.eu We call them “libraries”, in the absence of a generic terms to encompass libraries + museums + archives eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52008XG1213(04):EN:NOT

an economic and governance model ensuring its success and sustainability, • actively promote EUROPEANA in Europe and throughout the world and encourage the establishment of public-private partnerships which might help its development, particularly as regards digitization and the online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation.”

The public launch of the portal took place on November 27 in Paris, during the French Presidency of the European Union, at the conference “Numérisation du patrimoine culturel – Bibliothèque numérique européenne”4.

In recent years, several national clones of Europeana have been set up, such as: • USA: Digital Public Library of America (dp.la)5 (mind that Europeana is one of the very few major innovations adopted by the Americans!); • Germany: Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek6; • Italy: Culturaitalia7; • Austria: Kulturpool8; • Finland: Finna9.

4 5 6 7 8 9

www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/editions/r-cr/cr118-119.pdf www.dp.la www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de www.culturaitalia.it www.kulturpool.at www.finna.fi

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Figure 3. Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek portal homepage

B. And yet again: what is good about museums?

Angelica Helena Marinescu10: explains what is today a widespread mentality of the entire museum world, and not just art museums: “The main function of an art museum is to preserve works belonging to the moveable heritage.”

So, is “conservation” an end in itself? Why would it be? And A.H. Marinescu explains things further through a reference to Dominique Poulout: “Dominique Poulot stresses out that «assertion of human rights leads us to claim access to works of art as a legitimate right that must be effectively and fairly granted”.

I agree with Poulot: we “preserve” museum collections so that we may enjoy them. I mean, so that the public (as wide as possible) may enjoy them! (By “enjoyment”, I understand aesthetic and intellectual satisfactions, of course.) It follows that museums should (always) be audience-oriented.

C. How about the virtual museum? What is a virtual museum good for?

From the public’s perspective, a “virtual museum” – i.e. the online display of museum items – is major gain because: 10 Angelica Helena Marinescu. – “Museum Heritage Digitization”. The Online Collections of the National Art Museum in Romania”, Revista Muzeelor, no. 1, 2015. www. culturadata.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Revista-Muzeelor-2015.pdf

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• it counteracts to some extent the geographic urban vs. rural and metropolitan vs. provincial discrimination; • it shows museum objects that would otherwise never surface from the museum deposits; • it allows the display of information-rich legends.

And the fear that virtual museums lead to as drop in number of their offline visitors is completely ridiculous! We should not lose sight of the fact that the virtual museum is (still) but the ersatz of the physical museum! And often, if you dislike the surrogate, you go for the original. I wonder: How many millions of reproductions of the Mona Lisa painting are available around the world? One? Ten? And yet people throng in front of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, at the Louvre Museum.

And how about the people going to the Philharmonic, to listen to Mahler’s 5th symphony? I bet they listened to it at home, recorded on a CD!

D. Why is Europeana generating a sock amongst memory institutions?

Europeana is an online platform open to the general public. As such, the exhibiting memory institutions publishing their heritage on Europeana see themselves forced to (re) orient the fact sheets describing the cultural resources they are exposing to the eye of the plan customer, and not to that of the expert viewer. In other words, the metadata associated with a work of art, for example, that are traditionally intended to the

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 reinterpreted, i.e. placed a historical and geographical 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.

Figure 5.Poussin. “The Abduction of the Sabine Women” (Louvre website13)

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_ 3000117228919.html 13 www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/l-enlevement-des-sabines

Figure 6. Poussin. “The Abduction of the Sabine Women” (Louvre website, continued)

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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

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Figure 10. “Adolph Hitler” (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek17)

No are archivists’ records too helpful, for that matter.

For example, the fact sheet of a photo showing Hitler, among others, from Deutsche Fotothek, does not say anything about who the other people next to Hitler are, nor does it explain where and on what occasion the picture was taken. Sure, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, as the saying goes; yet, sometimes a picture without a few explanatory words does not worth much.17

E. How can we adapt ourselves to the new circumstances?

The coming back of the memory institutions – museums, in particular – from the “culture shock” is an emergency. The comeback will no doubt require a shift in our mentality, which is not quite easy.

On the other hand, it should not be very difficult either, because curators are used with extensive interpretations of the museum pieces in their exhibition catalogues. So the easiest solution would be to proceed to recovering the descriptions from the 17

old exhibition catalogues and transfer them onto the relevant online cards. The same method could apply to the old audio descriptions that are still available in some museums.

Another useful way to satisfy the needs of the audience is to “collaborate” with the Wikipedia. Many professionals treat Wikipedia articles with distrust, if not shear 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 it on Wikipedia, on top of other links, this simple fact should determine museums to consider Wikipedia as a possible communication vehicle. And let’s be honest: the public will first go searching on Google. Therefore, if possible, it would be good to provide for a link between the museum exhibit and the corresponding Wikipedia article. Especially because, in many cases, the article says more than the exhibit fact sheet. Let’s compare, for example, the description of the artwork “The Wisdom of the Earth” as contained in the sculpture’s catalog card (Fig. 11) with that in the Wikipedia article (fig. 12):

www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/AS7B544RVMYQSC43YFF24LX2Q6L7SIYC

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Figure 11. Brancus. “The Wisdom of the Earth” (National Heritage Institute18)

Figure 12. Brancus. “The Wisdom of the Earth” (Wikipedia19) 18 19

http://clasate.cimec.ro/detaliu.asp?k=31744B0AE0944252A6C8AD6FFC95D9A0 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumin%C8%9Benia_p%C4%83m%C3%A2ntului

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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 wellestablished 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.

Figure 13. A page from “Codex Aureus” with a fiducial marker

Below are a few possible use cases for professionals that will be using the shared catalogue: • before crating a card about a cultural resource (a book, an article, a museum piece etc.), the cataloguer checks whether the resource is already recorded or not; if yes, the cataloguer may use that record and may, if necessary, add to / alter its content; • when crating the record card of a cultural resource (having no previous record card), the cataloguer reuses records of contextual entities (people, places, time periods, concepts etc.) already developed; • a museum digitizes a piece in its collection, displays it online, draws-up (assisted) the digital object fact sheet (card) starting from the correspondent analogue record thereof and then marks it for exposure on Europeana; • an archaeologist records (assisted) in the National Archaeological Register a newly discovered archaeological site; • a curator designs a thematic exhibition, looks for relevant pieces held by other museums and then sends out an inter-museum loan request.

Finally, another important way in which a museum can make itself even more useful to the general public (and to the museum community, for that matter) would be to share its knowledge with both other museums and with the libraries or the archives of all sorts. The most obvious examples are the descriptions of the so-called “contextual entities”, i.e. people, places, epochs, concepts and institutions, i.e. of what are traditionally called “authority files”.

Moreover: although museums are usually holding unique items, meaning that, apparently, they could not possibly (re)use metadata produced in other institutions, in practice there are plenty examples to the contrary, such as, for example, numismatic material, old books, specimens and lithographs.

Luckily, sharing metadata amongst memory institutions in Romania will become much easier with 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), action 2.3.3: “Improving ICT infrastructure and digital content in the field of systemic e-education, e-culture, e-health and E- inclusion”

21 22 23

www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/aat/ www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/tgn/ www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/

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Note that culturalia.ro platform will serve at the same time as the portal of the Digital Library of Romania, the national counterpart of the European Digital Library (europeana.eu).

In summary, Romanian museums should make an explicit effort to adapt themselves to the contemporary

environment, where modern technologies, knowledge and the intensive use of digital libraries are of essence.

A more audience-centered approach from the part of the museums will make them even more meaningful social-wise.

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 dan.matei@patrimoniu.gov.ro; dan@cimec.ro

24 25 26 27 28 29

www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/9200166/BibliographicResource_3000117228919.html www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/l-enlevement-des-sabines www.mnar.arts.ro/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&catid=76&Itemid=243 www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/AS7B544RVMYQSC43YFF24LX2Q6L7SIYC http://clasate.cimec.ro/detaliu.asp?k=31744B0AE0944252A6C8AD6FFC95D9A0 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumin%C8%9Benia_p%C4%83m%C3%A2ntului

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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, on the 1 2

Camarero & Garrido (2008), pp. 413-434 Parry (2013)

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revenues gained by the museum. In other words, museums resort to technological innovations in order to better protect and preserve their heritage, while enhancing the attractiveness of their exhibitions, thus increasing the proceeds they gain directly from beneficiaries, in a situation where subsidies allocated to museums are insufficient compared to current needs.3 Statistics show a high number of museum nonvisitors in Romania. For example, in 2014, 70% of the Romanians did not visit any heritage objective located outside of their place of domicile.4 This means that the traditional ways of promoting the museum heritage are not capable enough to capture public attention, which may result in the failure of museums to successfully fulfill their mission to contribute the development of the society5 by using the their heritage as a driver of cultural, social and economic value.6 Under these circumstances, museums are required to apply strategies that are designed to increase their market competitiveness.

Given that the technological innovation strategy facilitates the achievement by the museums of their functions related to heritage conservation, research and promotion, we believe that studies are needed, to show the practical ways in which museums can successfully use such strategy. The need for these

studies lies also in the fact that some museums perceive modern technologies as a threat rather than an opportunity. Thanks to technology, the Internet and the increased remote access to information and products, many museum professionals are concerned that audiences in the future will become more interested in digital images and virtual experience, rather than in the static nature of works of art.7 This duality, this mixture of advantages and possible disadvantages linked to the use of modern technologies, causes many museums to be reluctant to embracing technological innovation. According to Marchetti & Valente8, technologies are not broadly adopted, because a clear vision about their role within the troubled process of museum innovation is missing. The authors argue that most museums prefer to stick to low-tech settings, which are perceived as (almost) equally captivating, but less disturbing, cheaper and easier to maintain.

Based on these considerations, the first part of this article summarizes the ways in which technology can be used by museums to increase accessibility and attractiveness of their heritage. The case study included in the second part of this article describes the steps taken by the County Art Museum “The Artistic Center of Baia Mare” to digitize heritage and the strategic directions envisaged for the next period.

Technological innovations in the museum sector Innovativeness in business refers to the degree to which a firm creates new products and services using accumulated knowledge from consumers, competitors, and technology.9 Applying this definition to museums, we may say that museum innovation is “the new or enhanced processes, products, or business models by which museums can effectively achieve their social and cultural mission.”10 In other words, the development of new products, services and processes or the improving of the existing ones through the implementation of new technologies11 is

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Camarero & Garrido (2011), pp. 39-58.

Becuț (2015), p. 116.

Pop & Borza (2016).

Centrul de Cercetare și Consultanță în Domeniul Culturii (2013).

Anderson (1999), pp. 129-162.

Marchetti & Valente (2012), pp. 131-143.

Camarero & Garrido (2011), pp. 39-58.

Eid (2016), p. 2.

Camarero & Garrido (2011), pp. 39-58.

Vicente, Camarero & Garrido (2012), pp. 649-679.

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one of the main ways in which museums can show their innovativeness. To improve their performance, the museums may resort to technological innovations in management, to organizational innovations and, last but not least, to innovations aimed at improving visitation experience.12 As visitors are an important criterion by which museums are evaluated and funded, specialists have constantly sought for new ways to provide attractive visitor experiences through the use of technology. In

this regard, it was found that visitors want to spend a nice going out and socializing, while also discovering new things and broaden their horizons. For this reason, many museums have developed participative content, which combines learning with relaxation, conversation, social interaction, participation and collaboration.13 The main types of technologies that are used in museum exhibitions for an improved visitation experience are:14 • Audiovisual media used for passive presentation in an appealing way. This generally consists of video presentations on simple monitors or wall projections.

• Guided presentation with the help of audio guides, video projections and other means to accompany visitors throughout their tour, offered as alternatives to tours given by museum staff.

• Interactive browsing stations, with information on museum collections and educational programs (usually, in the form of touch screens and user-friendly interfaces).

• Environments that provide opportunities for direct creation or production, take-away experiences and interactive experiences.

Thus, the multimedia employed in exhibitions perform multiple functions, such as provide explanations; display exhibits that the museum cannot actually show, either because of lack of space or because of their fragility and special handling requirements; induce visitors a certain emotional state and facilitate their involvement and interaction with the exhibits in the museum.15 To enhance their attractiveness, in recent years more and more museums have been focusing on creating exhibitions that allow visitors to interact in different ways with the content of the exhibition, and not to just passively receive information.

For this reason, museums resort to: exhibits offering visitors the opportunity to learn different things while interacting with them, simulation environments, interactive movies, 3D graphics and, last but not least, a virtual reality, allowing 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

visitors “to travel through space and time without stepping out of the museum building”16.

Museums can also use the new technologies to develop edutainment (education through entertainment) content and to improve the quality of their services. In this regard, Lepouras & Vassilakis17 propose the use of 3D game technologies for the purpose of developing affordable, easy to use and pleasing virtual environments. For example, the Museum of Science in Boston has been experimenting with a variety of public engagement approaches designed to help visitors think and talk about the societal implications of nanotechnology. These approaches are generally interactive and two-way, allowing for the collection of data about what people think, in addition to simply disseminating information about technology to them.18 In another case, an immersive virtual museum provides a virtual environment that lets students assume the persona of an adolescent gorilla and interact as part of a gorilla family unit.19 Even if such technologies were first used in science museums, Gül & Akmehmet20 argue that, at global level, there are more and more art museums, which are equipped with interactive spaces and objects.

This shows that museums, regardless of their type, can indeed use modern technology to offer their visitors an unforgettable experience.

Therefore, the advantage of virtual reality technologies is that they provide a vivid, enjoyable and realistic experience to museum guests.

Also, virtual reality technologies are very useful because they allow visualization and simulation of environments, structures or objects that no longer exist or are difficult to visit.21 Despite these advantages, the successful implementation of virtual reality environments requires is effort and time consuming. On the other hand, though, we cannot speak of interactive exhibitions as long as the museum heritage is not digitized. This is precisely why digitization of heritage museums is a step that all museums should go through, if they want to move forward and provide interactive exhibitions.

Black & Skinner (2016), p. 3.

Roussou & Efraimoglou (1999), pp. 59-62.

Mamrayeva & Aikambetova (2014), pp. 33-35.

Roussou & Efraimoglou (1999), pp. 59-62.

Lepouras & Vassilakis (2004), pp. 96-106.

Bell (2008), pp. 386-398.

Lepouras & Vassilakis (2004), pp. 96-106.

Gül & Akmehmet (2015), pp. 141-155.

Lepouras & Vassilakis (2004), pp. 96-106.

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The advantages of museum heritage digitizing, i.e. converting heritage objects to digital format, consist of proper heritage conservation, collection management and enhanced public access to museum collections. Museum heritage digitization can be accomplished in many ways, such as photography, scanning, and panoramic display or by saving the 3D coordinates of the art object.22 Besides being the starting point of many forms of interactivity that can be provided in exhibitions, the transposition of the heritage in digital format and its organization within databases makes it easier to manage, collect, store and generate reports on: (1) movement of objects inside and outside the museum, (2) the exposures of each object and (3) any restoration procedures performed on an object. In turn, this information simplifies the research of museum collections.23 Also, the development of digital images in 3D format is particularly useful for the conservation, research and restoration of heritage objects.24 As Pieraccini et al. argue, the scientific community’s attention to the 3D heritage digitizing techniques is driven by the multiple benefits they offer, as for example:25 • digital archives of three-dimensional models are durable and unalterable, and thus can be used as reference for degradation monitoring and restoration of works; • 3D images allow the construction of high resolution models of valuable artworks; • 3D digital images allow for remote fruition and digital restoration of the cultural heritage.

Once their entire heritage is digitized, museums can use the Internet to facilitate public access to images and information about their collections. From this point of view, many museums are reluctant to going online, for the following two reasons: firstly, because 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 23 24 25 26 27 28

Cakir & Karahoca (2015), pp. 101-106.

Mamrayeva & Aikambetova (2014), pp. 33-35.

Guidi, Beraldin & Atzeni (2004), pp. 370-380.

Pieraccini, Guidi & Atzeni (2001), pp. 63-70.

Lagrosen (2003), p. 132.

Marinescu (2015), pp. 17-25.

Lewis (2012), pp. 8-11.

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subjected to online registration/ subscription. In other words, following their digitization, museums could develop databases, either individually or centralized at national level. The advantages of creating a national database are manifold: (1) all museums will be included in the database, even if they lack the resources (human, material etc.) required to set up and manage such databases; (2) from the users’ point of view, the value provided is much higher, which is an important factor for the market success of the project; (3) museums will not have to individually manage their revenues, as these will be the task of team that manages the database, following that, every year, each museum should receive a share of the revenues, commensurate with to number of accesses to /visualizations of objects from its collection.

In turn, each museum can use the Internet as a distribution channel, to increase access to museum heritage and to the scientific resources resulting from the research thereof.26 This can be achieved by allowing virtual visits to the museum and its collections27 and by distributing images (e.g. via Instagram), video content (YouTube), podcasts (Soundcloud, iTunes or TuneIn), short messages (Twitter) and by publication of documentary material on blogs and / or social networks (Facebook, Google Plus, etc.).28 Based on these theoretical considerations, below is a description of the steps taken by County Art Museum “The Artistic Center of Baia Mare” towards digitizing and promoting its heritage through methods and products designed to broaden indirect accessibility of the audience to the museum collections.

Digitization of the Art Museum “The Artistic Center of Baia Mare” It should be noted from the outset that the argumentative scenario presented in the first part of the article is, in our view, the projection of an ideal casuistry. We mean a utopian, and not an ideal casuistry, because the international trend in this field is clearly advocating the updating of existing museums through a process of “transfiguration” of their look and their professional activism, which is expected to shape the identity traits of the museums of tomorrow. Placed in this context, the reality depicted by the Romanian museums today is extremely diverse and, to some extent, lacks consistency and homogeneity, being no doubt positioned somewhere in the early stage of the change process. Moreover, it would not be far-fetched to say that our today’s museums are presented with a list of urgent issues, that is in stark contrast with that of the museums from the Western European countries, in particular - where emergencies like conservation and restoration, primary records and secondary records (databases), coherent collectionspecific definition and the like were solved a long time ago. However, given the extremely fast pace at which international museology has evolved in last two decades, the Romanian museum sector is faced with the “mandatory task” to “burn some stages”, which means that their “updating” is a challenge they must take in parallel and simultaneously with the task of “catching up”.

If we were to accept the logic of such a dualist journey, a formula we are advocating for in the case 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

may be moderate, yet sustained and continuous.

This would mean that it would be desirable to avoid joining radical programs at the moment - such as, for example, transferring digitization initiatives to “open source” projects through a massive dissemination of heritage digitization formats before all the databases have been researched and introduced in the public domain, even if only by specific primary tools (catalogs, directories, studies, etc.).

Seen from this perspective, the situation of the County Art Museum “Baia Mare Arts Center comes to prove the aforementioned positioning (quantitative and qualitative) somewhere in the early half of the “updating” process. We substantiate this assertion by the statistics that follow.

The County Art Museum “Baia Mare Arts Center” (MJACABM) was established on 1 October 2006 as an independent institution, subordinated to the Maramures County Council, by the MCC Decision no.

82 / 19.09.2006, following the reorganization of the Maramures County Museum.

The heritage of County Art Museum “Baia Mare Arts Center” is structured into two main categories: fine arts & visual arts, and documentary fund. In turn, the fine art and visual art section comprises collections from various domains: painting, sculpture, easel and reproduction graphic art, decorative art and art photography. According to heritage inventories, as at 31.12.2015 the museum’s collections are structured as follows:

Table 1. Structure of the museum moveable cultural heritage goods as at 31.12.2015

Collection No. of items Share

Painting Graphic art

Sculpture

Decorative art

Art photography

Documentary fund

Total

56

33

2.269

6.381

1.366

2.508

149

21,41%

39,30%

2,34%

Graphic works hold the largest share of the museum collections, i.e. 39.3%, followed by documentary fund collections, accounting for 35.56% of total

0,88% 0,52% 35,56% 100% Source: heritage inventory registers as at 31.12.2015 collections, and by easel paintings, representing 21.41% of the museum’s cultural heritage 31

Figure 1. The structure of the Documentary Fund as at 31.12.2015.

3.1. Digitization of the Documentary Fund The documentary section of the museum contains a total of 2,269 items and is structured as follows: 1,953 objects in the public domain (pieces acquired by purchase) and 316 objects in the private domain (items acquired by donations and by accessioning).

The most important collections of the documentary fund are: Zoltán Bitay , József Balla, Louis Slevensky and Elijah Cămărăşan Archives. The documentary fund also includes vintage documents and photographs, personal correspondence, memorabilia, catalogs, exhibition publications, clichés and medals that belonged or are related to the life and the work of artists who worked over the time with the Baia Mare Arts Center, starting from 1896. The structure of documentary fund by types of objects is shown in Figure 1.

Given that some of the documents are more than 100 years’ old, their frequent handling for research purposes may damage their physical integrity and conservation state. As such, to allow access to the information contained by these documents without exerting a negative impact on their physical condition, the museum proceeded to their conversion into digital format through scanning. Thus, from the total of 2,269 objects of the Documentary Fund, 1,244 have been scanned so far, i.e. 54.83%.

Scanning was performed in the order of importance of the documents and taking account of their level of exposure to the risk of damage, starting with the oldest documents, continuing with the photographs and ending with exhibition leaflets and catalogs.

The database resulting from the scanning – the Documentary Fund Digiteque - was transferred to an external hard drive, to be accessed whenever the need to view these museum items arises. At 29

http://www.muzartbm.ro/centrul-artistic-baia-mare-1896-2007/

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the same time, the museum is gradually proceeding to transposing the color print scans on medium density cardboard (160-200 g/ m2), thus creating the Documentary Fund Faximiloteque – a collection of documentary copies, which will duplicate all the collections of original documents and will eventually be available for primary access and research. Besides the fact that digitization will, thanks to the byproducts it generates, have a beneficial effect on the conservation state of the original objects, which will thus be protected against damage caused by direct and frequent use, the scanning of the Documentary Fund is expected to: • speed up access of museum professionals to documents and their content, thereby contributing to increased work efficiency and productivity; • facilitate access of potential users of the documentation resources of the museum; • provide the opportunity to enhance the cultural harnessing of the collections by online dissemination of the collection items.

The scanning of the Documentary Fund lasted from December 2011 until June 2012 and was carried out under a partnership agreement between the museum and the Team for Youth Association, with the latter providing project volunteers from Serbia, Macedonia, Poland, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Spain, Estonia and France, who worked for a total of 800 hours on this project. In addition to the scanning of the museum documentary fund, a task handled

by Predrag Radivojevic (volunteer from Serbia), the international volunteers carried out tasks such as: (1) translation of the presentation brochure of the Baia Mare Arts Center in their native languages and posting it on the Center’s webpage29, fact that facilitated the dissemination of information about the Baia Mare Arts Center and the worldwide

Figure 2. Level of artwork digitization

promotion of local cultural values; (2) organization of the temporary exhibition “Forms of Beauty: Beauty from the Outside, Beauty From Within”30; (3) organization of a series of events under the name of “International Evenings at the Museum”.

Digitization of the museum’s fine arts and visual arts heritage As for the museum’s easel paintings, easel and reproduction graphics, decorative art, sculpture and artistic photography collections, some of them were digitally processed by photographing. Out of the total of 4,112 artworks, 2,302 were digitized, i.e. 55.98%, and a total of 3982 record cards were entered in the DOCPAT record application (for 96.84% of the artworks – some of them without photographic documentation). The level of digitization by collections of is shown in Figure 2.

Measures taken to enhance public access to the museum’s heritage In carrying out further heritage digitization and, hence, the preservation, processing, internal research and public exploitation of its heritage, the museum must find additional ways and tools to broaden the dissemination to the public of the museum heritage in traditional formats (catalogs,

repertoires, postcards, posters, invitations etc.), in electronic formats (online databases, publications on virtual environments - website, blog, Facebook, Youtube etc.) and in intermediate formats that use digitization to produce “artisan-like” items to be sold to the public (transposition on canvas, ceramic and metallic support: e.g. reproductions of paintings, jugs, plates, bags, cloths, jewelry boxes, mirrors, bookmarks, visiting card boxes, fridge magnets etc.).

Implementing a genuine promotion and dissemination policy, focused on the basic rules of contemporary marketing, has been the strategic objective of the MJACABM since 2009. Until early 2011, the presence on the Internet of our museum had not been a major target, and had therefore been rather sporadic and unsystematic. In 2011, the museum decided to embark itself on a set of actions aimed at progressively increasing its visibility in the virtual environment. As 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 the institution. By linking its blog to Facebook and Twitter accounts, the museum was able to exploit the blog both as a free-of-charge online promotion channel, and as a substitute for the museum’s webpage. Likewise, the museum carries out most of its public relations activities via the Internet. Most often than not, the museum’s press releases are sent via email and are taken up by the media either directly 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/

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Figure 3. Extract from the statistics on the museum’s presence of Facebook

The year 2012 brought further improvements in the web-based activities of the museum, owing to the fact that the museum managed to transfer its database from the blog to the www.muzartbm.ro website, thereby allowing access of potential audience to virtual visits to the museum at http://www.muzartbm. ro/tur-virtual/, where the museum offers everybody, anytime and anywhere the possibility of a free virtual visualization of its permanent exhibition.

of the museum was visited by over 8,000 people and the material posted by the museums were accessed in just one month (18 October-14 November 2016) by 44 443 visitors (Fig. 3).

Also, the museum publishes each month on its website the image and an argumentative essay on an artwork, under the project “The work of the Month”, initiated in December 2011. Until November 2016, a total of 60 paintings and sculptures were posted on the website, representing the top of the fine art collection of the museum.

Museum’s Youtube channel31 is totaling 6083 views and 12 subscribers, given that, from its launch (July 2011) and up until now the museum uploaded 31 videos on Youtube. We believe it is worth mentioning that 21 of the videos were made by the museum staff, under the promotional program “Baia Mare Art Center. European Benchmarks between Traditions and Innovations”. The implementation and promotion of this program is, until now, one of the main objectives undertaken and achieved by the young and very active staff of the Department of Programs, Marketing and Museum Cultural Products Promotion – a new and innovative function of our museum, established in 2008.

Occasionally, the museum posts on its blog or on its website the digitized images of artworks from the various temporary exhibitions organized in or outside the museum. Thus, from the launch of its blog and until November 2016, the museum has published a number of 252 articles, 6 pages and 1,542 digitized image, totaling 1.8 GB, which recorded, by November 6, 2016, a total of 189 725 visualizations.

Regarding the other communication channels, the greatest impact was achieved by the museum through the Facebook platform. The official website 31 https://www.youtube.com/user/MuzeulDeArtaBM

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On Twitter, the museum has a number of 293 subscribers, a significant proportion of who are represented by other cultural organizations and media.

In summary, we believe that, during its ten years of independent operation (2006-2016), the County Art Museum “Baia Mare Art Center” has endeavored to adopt various measures to enhance public access to its collections, exhibitions and information, for

educational and promotion purposes, put at the disposal of the public in electronic format through a variety of virtual environment channels, fully free of charge.

However, further improvement of these distribution and public communication tools is recommendable.

In the medium and long term, the museum may consider the possibility of selling online its

promotional products, including the creation of a publicly accessible database containing digitized artworks from the museum’s heritage. Thereafter, the museum should start transferring its database to a national database, along with dissemination thereof at a transnational scale, subject, of course, to compliance with the intellectual property rights and related rights of the legal administrator - County Museum “Baia Mare Art Center.�

Conclusions We may say that, across the Romanian museum sector, there is a wide range of attitudes and opinions as to the use of modern technological solutions and the need for museum upgrading. Some museums choose to disregard the use of new technologies almost completely (nearly half of the museums listed in the database of museums and public collections in Romania, managed by CIMEC, do not even have an e-mail address), while other museums use almost exclusively the information dissemination technology, while ignoring modern technologies, design to provide and enhance interaction of the museum with its visitors.

At the opposite end, we see museums (usually, national museums) that are nearing completion of their heritage digitizing processes and are on the verge of making it accessible to the audience, while developing practices designed to adapt the exhibition content in such a way as to improve the visitation experience in line with the most advanced international standards.

The reasons that have led to the adoption of the measures described above are related not only to the financial, but also to the socio-cultural sustainability of the museum. From the economic point of view, implementation by the museum of a technological innovation strategy requires substantial investments, i.e. higher costs, but it also yields higher revenues for the museum, thanks to an increased number of visitors. In terms of the socio-cultural dimension, the impact is 100% positive, given the fact that

the making available of scientific information in an attractive and interesting way to the public at large will help them understand it much easier. In addition, the use of new technologies is likely to contribute in the future to stimulating the desire and interest of the community members to get involved in the activities of the museum. Last but not least, modern technological solutions are particularly useful for the conservation, management and research of museum cultural heritage. Besides, as technological innovation is also used for communicating educational content in use-friendly manner, the innovation strategy can contribute even to the improvement of the environmental sustainability of the museum, there where exhibits include materials / content focusing on natural environment protection.

Of course, before all these positive effects can occur, museums should first of all solve the problems related to their heritage digitizing. If the main reason for the reluctance of museums to employing ultramodern technologies in organizing their exhibition is and will remain for quite some time the high investment costs such technologies are involving, the development of digital databases is an affordable and feasible objective even under the current conditions, even if for now its achievement is hindered, especially in the case of small and medium museums, by the shortage of skilled professionals with competencies in this field and, not to a lesser extent, by the huge volume of museum objects still awaiting to enter the primary documentary processing stage and then the digitization process as such.

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References Anderson, M. L. 1999. Museums of the future: The impact of technology on museum practices. Daedalus, Vol. 128, No. 3, pp. 129-162.

Becuț, A. „Patrimoniul cultural construit. O analiză a percepției populației” în Croitoru, C., Becuț, A. (ed.). 2015. Barometrul de Consum Cultural 2014. Cultura între global și local, București: Pro Universitaria, pp. 99-138.

Bell, L. 2008. Engaging the Public in Technology Policy A New Role for Science Museums. Science Communication, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 386-398.

Black, G., & Skinner, D. 2016. The innovation in museum displays project. Online: http:// www.innovationinmuseumdisplays.co.uk/ uploads/1/8/9/7/1897065/full_report_innovation_ in_museum_displays.pdf Cakir, D., & Karahoca, A. 2014. The protection of cultural heritage through digitization using virtual museums — a proposed virtual museum model. Global Journal of Information Technology, 4(2), pp. 101-106.

Camarero, C., Garrido, M.J. 2008. The role of technological and organizational innovation in the relation between market orientation and performance in cultural organizations, European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 413-434.

Camarero, C., & Garrido, M.J. 2012. Fostering innovation in cultural contexts: market orientation, service orientation, and innovations in museums, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 39-58.

Centrul de Cercetare și Consultanță în Domeniul Culturii. 2013. Strategia Sectorială în domeniul Culturii și Patrimoniului Național pentru perioada 2014-2020.

Online: http://www.cultura.ro/ uploads/files/STRATEGIA_%20SECTORIALA_IN_ DOMENIUL_CULTURII_2014-2020.pdf.

Eid, H. A. 2016. The museum innovation model: a museum perspective on open innovation, social enterprise and social innovation, Doctoral dissertation, School of Museum Studies.

Guidi, G., Beraldin, J. A., & Atzeni, C. 2004. High-accuracy 3D modeling of cultural heritage: the digitizing of Donatello’s “Maddalena”. IEEE Transactions on image processing, 13(3), pp. 370-380.

Gül, S. N., & Akmehmet, K. T. 2015. Interactive spaces in art museums: A landscape of exhibition Strategies, Solsko Polje, Vol. 26, No. 5, pp. 141-155.

Lagrosen, S. 2003. Online service marketing and delivery: The case of Swedish museums. Information Technology & People, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 132.

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Lepouras, G., & Vassilakis, C. 2004. Virtual museums for all: Employing game technology for edutainment.

Virtual Reality, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 96-106.

Lewis, K. E. 2012. Navigating social media challenges with small museums be proactive, not reactive. Scitech Lawyer, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 8-11.

Mamrayeva, D. G., & Aikambetova, A. E. 2014.

Information technology in museums, Education and Science without Borders, Vol. 5, No. 10, pp. 33-35.

Marchetti, E., & Valente, A. 2012. Diachronic Perspective and Interaction: New Directions for Innovation in Historical Museums, International Journal of Technology, Knowledge & Society, Vol. 8, No. 6, pp. 131-143.

Marinescu, A.H. 2015. Digitizarea patrimoniului muzeal. Colecțiile online ale Muzeului Național de Artă al României, Revista muzeelor, nr. 1, pp. 1725.

Parry, R. (Ed.). 2013. Museums in a digital age.

Routledge: London.

Pieraccini, M., Guidi, G., & Atzeni, C. 2001. 3D digitizing of cultural heritage. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 2(1), pp. 63-70.

Pop, I. L., & Borza, A. 2016. Factors Influencing Museum Sustainability and Indicators for Museum Sustainability Measurement. Sustainability, 8(1), 101.

Roussou, M., & Efraimoglou, D. 1999. High-end interactive media in the museum, International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques: ACM SIGGRAPH 99 Conference abstracts and applications, Vol. 8, No. 13, pp. 59-62.

Vicente, E., Camarero, C., & Garrido, M. J. 2012. Insights into Innovation in European Museums: The impact of cultural policy and museum characteristics, Public Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 649-679.

Izabela Luiza Pop, PhD candidate (e-mail: pop.izabela.luiza@gmail.com) Economist County Museum of Art “Baia Mare Artistic Center” Tiberiu Alexa, PhD (email: tiberiu.alexa@yahoo.com) Manager County Museum of Art “Baia Mare Artistic Center”

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 by Law 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 information to a target audience, increased accessibility to heritage and the publication thereof on the Internet in much better conditions in terms of audience and costs than those offered by traditional publishing means; • inter-institutional collaboration, information sharing and research; • collections management - inventory, records, research; • digital preservation of the information carried by tangible items - the digitization as such of the heritage assets; • digital preservation of metadata related to cultural goods – e.g. digitization of the registration, conservation and restoration documentation related to tangible cultural assets; • production of digital-born materials, including cultural goods (such as digital art); • production of educational, exhibition and research packages, exclusively in digital format, online or offline.

We should always bear in mind the distinction between online and offline, when referring to digitalization.

There are materials intended for public use, which are designed to promote democratization and facilitate access to heritage, information and culture in general, and materials intended for a restricted use – whether professional or administrative – with limitations being mostly of a legal nature.

Up to this point, things are clear to everyone in the museum world in Romania, at least conceptually. In practice, however, very few museums have managed to go through the digitization processes listed above.

Most often than not, our possibilities are limited to developing a more or less comprehensive and updated website (rarely available in foreign languages), to making one’s presence in social media using one’s own unspecialized and unbudgeted resources, to using the ancient DOCPAT application to keep a digital track of the heritage and to publish it exclusively in conjunction with the classification procedure.

In other words, we have not managed so far to tick the boxes of collection management system digitization, information exchanges for collaborative 1

and scientific research purposes, development of digital packets - education, exhibition, research and we have failed to make significant progress in the elementary digitization of our cultural heritage – taking digital pictures of tangible heritage and digitizing related information.

From the standpoint of publication and accessibility of digital information, the European statistics show that we again rank amongst the last in line: according to europeana.eu portal, at the beginning of 2016, Romania’s contribution to this website amounted to 172 186 objects, accounting for 21, 8% of the target set for 2015 by European Commission Recommendation 2011/711 / EU. Only Ireland had a lower content contribution than Romania, i.e. 20.7%, but had a higher number of objects contributed - 256 0981.

In the same report, the Netherlands has the highest number of registered items - 6,295,413, exceeding the target by over 400%. Italy, France and Spain exceed the target by 4 million entries, while Germany has more than 5 million titles.

These are our failures at the present, but we hope to be able not only to catch up, but also to achieve objectives that seem unattainable at the moment.

But time is running short. We need to open ourselves to a different approach and to other imperatives: the museum is no longer just a preserver and a communicator; the museum is a service provider.

It seems that the role of the museum today is no longer linked strictly to educating and entertaining the general public; the museum must serve as a resource for the entrepreneurial sector as well.

Although acknowledged through the various initiatives dedicated to the development of the creative industries, people are less aware of this role of this new role of the museum, as defined under EU and national laws and regulations.

The European Commission has included, amongst others, the following considerations in the preamble to its regulatory initiative on the re-use of public sector information: “(15) One of the principal aims of the establishment of the internal market is the creation of conditions

Report on the Implementation of Commission Recommendation 2011/711/EU, 2013-2015 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/image/document/2016-27/ 2013-2015_progress_ report_9-06-2016_16531.pdf (Accesat: 7 octombrie 2016).

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conducive to the development of Union-wide services. Libraries, museums and archives hold a significant amount of valuable public sector information resources, in particular since digitization projects have multiplied the amount of digital public domain material. These cultural heritage collections and related metadata is a potential base for digital content products and services and have a huge potential for innovative re-use in sectors such as learning and tourism. Wider possibilities for re-using public cultural material should, inter alia, allow Union companies to exploit its potential and contribute to economic growth and job creation.

(16) There are considerable differences in the rules and practices in the Member States relating to the exploitation of public cultural resources, which constitute barriers to realizing economic potential of

those resources. As libraries, museums and archives continue to invest in digitization, many already make their public domain content available for re-use and many are actively seeking out opportunities to reuse their content. However, as they operate in very different regulatory and cultural environments, the practices of cultural establishments in exploiting content have developed in disparate ways.”2 Later in this article we will try to present the new obligation incumbent on museums by law following the entry into force of Law no. 299/20153, namely that to provide various informative materials, as these are available within public institutions, to be used for both noncommercial and commercial purposes by external applicants, upon request – the so-called “re-use of public sector information”

2. Re-use of Public Sector Information – A New Stage in the Digitization Process In 2007, by enactment of the Law no. 109, Romania transposed Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public sector information; Law no. 109/2007 was amended shortly after its publication by Law no. 213/2008.

The regulation expanded the scope of the obligation of the public institutions to provide certain information according to Law no. 544/2001 on free access to information of public interest, by adding the duty to provide information that can be reused by applicants to develop new information products and services, including of a commercial nature.4 In other words, the law goes beyond objectives like providing information to the general public or ensuring the transparency of the activities conducted by public authorities and institutions, which can be considered as objectives of public or general interest - in fact, looking for information does not 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

amount to the re-use of information5; supporting the commercial activities (activities which are not necessarily of a general public utility) of other natural or legal persons has now acquired legitimacy.

Requests for re-use of information may cover, subject to compliance with personal data and copyright protection laws, “any informational content or any portion thereof, stored on any support, whether paper, electronic, audio, video or audiovisual”6, generically defined by the law as “document”.

According to the provisions in its versions of 2007 and 2008, respectively, Law no. 109 was not to be applied to museums, if its application was likely to infringe any intellectual property rights.7 In 2015, Law no. 109/2007 is again amended, this time by Law no. 299/2015 transposing the Directive 2013/37 / EU amending Directive 2003/98 / EC on re-use of public sector information.8

Directive 2013/37 / EU of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2003/98 / EC on re-use of public sector information, Preamble - http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/RO/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32013L0037 (Accessed: 7 October 2016)..

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..

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.”

Law No. 109/2007, art. 4, lit. c).

Law No. 109/2007, art. 4, lit. b).

Ibid., art. 3, lit. f).

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 excludes museums, libraries and archives from the category of cultural institutions holding documents exempt from the application of the provisions of the said regulation.9 In addition, the earlier provision regarding the infringement of intellectual property rights is eliminated, leaving in force only Article 3 (b), which excludes from the scope of the law the documents covered by third-party intellectual property rights.

The situation where museums hold ownership titles in documents is regulated under a new paragraph inserted in Article 5, i.e. par. (6), which states that “the documents in which libraries, including university libraries, museums and archives hold intellectual property rights, where the re-use of such documents is allowed, shall be re-usable for commercial or noncommercial purposes in accordance with this law and the intellectual property laws.”

We wish to remind here the fact that, in the case of works created during the performance of individual employment contracts, the related intellectual property rights are held by the employer; therefore, documents produced by institutions using their own human resources fall within the scope of this piece of regulation.

In other words and by way of example, record files of movable cultural property, photos of cultural items, exhibition room texts, catalog texts and educational materials, all are documents that may be requested for re-use.

Article 5 (1) states that the re-use of documents is free of charge; however, Law no. 299/2015 adds a new mention in paragraph (4), saying that public institutions may establish the conditions for the reuse of documents.

Summarizing the above, we may say that any information material other than that covered by thirdparty intellectual property rights is reusable, subject to compliance with any intellectual property rights as the holder-institution might have over such material.

We wish to emphasize the fact that, as the law itself stipulates, reusable documents are not exclusively 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).

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those in digital format, but also those stored on a physical support.

The applicant may choose the format in which it wants the documents requested to be made available to it, but the public sector institutions holding the requested information do not have an obligation to create or adapt documents where this would involve disproportionate costs.10 However, where “possible and appropriate”, documents have to be made available through open and machinereadable formats together with their metadata (i.e. information about the data contained in the documents concerned). Both the format and the metadata should, in so far as possible, comply with formal open standards.”11 These provisions, together with the obligation to set up departments / sections designated to receive and deal with applications for supply of documents in a relatively short time (20 days, extendable by up to 20 days), will certainly involve further allocation of financial and human resources to museum establishments, even if the law requires the applicant to pay, as compensation, the charges for the provision of reusable documents.

Law no. 299/2015 introduced the possibility of adding an extra fee to the actual charge for the reuse of documents, provided only that such extra fee does not generate a revenue of more than “5% above the reference interest rate of the National Bank of Romania”12 to the provider of reusable documents.

A positive aspect of the new regulation is that museums are allowed to keep the amounts gained from supply of documents for reuse, in the form of revenues (previously, these amounts had to be transferred to the state budget).

Another practical aspect worth mentioning here is that the public sector body to which the request for reusable documents is submitted has to also indicate the way in which the charges for the supply of the requested documents have been calculated in relation to the specific re-use request.

Linked exclusively to the digital domain is the requirement that public institutions should publish on the data.gov.ro portal the lists of documents available

for reuse. Of course, the obligation to publish such lists is not limited to the governmental portal.13 From the Presentation section of the data.gov.ro website we learn that the website represents “the application of the European Open Data Initiative – making available to the public information that is accessible, reusable and redistributable freely and without restrictions in terms of copyright, patents or other control mechanisms (open data)”.14 For now, the portal data.gov.ro is, in terms of content, well below the standards of the models based on which it was developed: the British data.gov.uk, and the US data.gov.

The open database for the museum sector15 shows that: • out of 74 institutions registered, only 4 are museums; • two museums are registered as independent institutions – the National History Museum of Romania and The Romanian Peasant Museum; in the section dedicated to the Ministry of Culture, reference is also made to the National Art Museum of Romania and the National Museum of Natural History “Grigore Antipa”.

• another institution, besides the museums specified above, is the National Heritage Institute, with 26 sets of open data, including some that contain information about museums and museum heritage (note that all data included has already been published and managed by CIMEC - The Cultural Memory Institute, currently a department of the National Heritage Institute).

None of the four museums specified above has provided information about its cultural heritage; data posted are solely that falling within the scope of Law no. 544/2001 – contact details, organizational chart, balance sheet and the like, plus a curious selection of pay slips from 2016, of some of the staff of the National History Museum of Romania.

Data posted by museums are not open data in machine-readable format, but they are simply public domain information. The distinction between the technical term “open data” and the common 13 14 15 16

term “public information”, i.e. information that is accessible to the general public, should not be overlooked.

Recalling the objectives of the Open Data Initiative as stated by the European Commission16, namely: supporting the discovery of new and innovative solutions, achieving efficiency gains through sharing data inside and between public administrations, increasing transparency of government and fostering participation of citizens in political and social life - I think we can say that museums in Romania have not yet made a significant contribution to achieving these goals, at least not through the data.gov.ro platform.

So, what should we do next?

3. Conclusions, Red Flags and Encouragements I have made here a brief presentation of the regulations on the reuse of information held by public sector bodies, with a view to draw the attention of museums on a potential need to adapt their work to a social framework whose coordinates and imperatives are changing continuously.

Some of the possible immediate consequences of the aforementioned regulations are: • amendment of the regulation on the organization and functioning of the institution, so as to include, for the relevant department in charge, the duty to handle the requests received under Law no. 109/2007, as amended and supplemented; • changes in the job descriptions for the personnel in charge of public relations, or the assignment of new tasks, pursuant to Law no.

109/2007, to other categories of personnel; • modify the fees charged for supply of services like picture taking or filming or of the fees charged for allowing the publication of materials made available by the public institution; • training existing staff or recruiting personnel specialized in digitization and capable to operate databases, including the data.gov.ro portal; • drawing up the lists of documents available for reuse - an operation that requires careful planning and quite substantial time and human resources - and publication thereof;

Ibid., art. 9, para. (1), (2), (4). http://data.gov.ro/about. (Accessed: 8 October 2016).

On October 8 2016. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/open-data/ (Accessed: 8 October 2016).

41

• preparation of annual legal compliance reports, as may be required by the Ministry of Communications; • last but not least, establishing a consistent procedure to monitor and inform about regulatory changes and recommendations in the field of digitization.

These could be, as I said, immediate consequences of the enforcement of the law on re-use of public sector information.

However, a consequence on the long run should be a change in the way museums operate today, in the sense of increasing their willingness o collaborate with other sectors and, of course, to include the digital component in everything they do. The education and development of a digital “reflex” would be the ideal our museums should pursue.

We might succumb to the temptation to see all these European obligations as burdensome tasks for museums in Romania, which are understaffed, or as possible sources of new disputes and conflicting relations with the private entrepreneurial sector or, even worse, as a loss of informational and cultural capital. Fact is that, if we manage to fulfill all these requirements, we can turn what we might perceive as a loss into a gain for our institutions.

This new openness to society and these new ways of addressing the beneficiaries of the museum activities can be yet another means of promoting cultural heritage and each and every museum, a way to strengthen the status of the museum as a key provider of public, cultural and education services, and in particular the status of the museum as a resource and an engine for 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 to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – Open data An engine for innovation, growth and transparent governance – http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ. do?uri=COM:2011:0882:FIN:EN:PDF (Accessed: 8 October 2016).

Directive 2013/37/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 amending Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information – http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/RO/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32013L0037 (Accessed on: 8 October 2016).

European Commission Recommendation 2011/711/ EU on the digitization and online accessibility

42

of cultural material and digital preservation – http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ. do?uri=OJ:L:2011:283:0039:0045:EN:PDF (Accessed: 8 October 2016).

Report on the Implementation of Commission Recommendation2011/711/EU,2013-2015–http:// ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/ image/document/2016-27/2013-2015_progress_ report_9-06-2016_16531.pdf (Accessed on 7 October 2016).

Alis Vasile vasile_alis@yahoo.com

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

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I. Introduction Given the major impact that digital technology has on culture as result of the restructuring of not only its tangible size (such as cultural infrastructure or the means of distribution of cultural goods), practices and behaviors (consumption or interaction with cultural products and services), but also of the process of creation (incorporating new forms of expression, for example) - the culture digitization issue becomes a priority for many categories of actors involved. In particular, digitization of the cultural heritage ranks high on the EU agenda, being transposed into national strategies or programs and implemented in several cultural institutions. In general, public intervention initiatives in the cultural sector are subject to researches conducted in various stages and guided by multiple purposes, and cultural heritage digitization is not an exception to this rule.

This article describes certain features of the studies dedicated to cultural heritage digitization process.

Based on a review of a series of studies and research projects carried out at international level, I will show that the systematic analysis of the cultural heritage

digitization presents a few particular challenges to researchers in the cultural field.

Considering the importance of substantiating public intervention initiatives through dedicated studies and research, finding solutions for such challenges can be seen as a cross-cutting objective for the initiatives covering a systematic analysis of the cultural heritage digitization process.

I will approach the subject from the general level of digitization of cultural heritage, refining my considerations, where appropriate, by reference to the particular situation of the museum heritage.

Regarding the analyzed material, I have employed a similar strategy: I start from sources identified internationally and then concentrate on relevant examples from Romania. In selecting the research studies and projects analyzed herein I did not seek to attain completeness, but rather to capture the diversity and the points of complementarity that can facilitate the understanding of the prerequisites, approaches and challenges in this field.

II. Definition and interpretation of the digital object The use of digital technologies to activate, engage social participation and transform the cultural heritage is paralleled by shifts in the organizational and practice culture of the institutions entrusted with its care. Once adopted, these technologies are in turn adapted and transformed as result of their use in the specific context of a given institution.1 Thus, the relationship between digital technology and the environment in which it is used can be understood through a series of tensions that are most often contained by the virtual versus real and material versus immaterial divides. The building up of these tensions is linked to the features of the digital object and to the way they are understood by the institutions managing the cultural heritage.

1 2 3 4 5

Simply put, digital objects are representations of “natural objects” (such as images, sounds, documents), created by means of specific recording technologies (such as cameras, scanners).2 In a more technical sense, digitization is defined as the material process of converting individual analogue streams of information into a binary system that is specific to the digital environment.3 In both cases, digitization implies the existence of an original object, a digital representation thereof and of the means required to create the representation.4 In the case of cultural heritage, digitization is undertaken as part of a longer process that includes:5 • selection; • assessment, including of needs;

Cameron and Kenderdine (2007), 1.

UNESCO (f.a.).

Collin et al. (2015).

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.

UNESCO (f.a.).

44

• prioritization; • preparation of originals for digitization; • creation of collection structure; • digitization and creation of data collections; • submission of new digital resources to delivery/ repository systems.

Starting from the definition of the digital object in relation to what is considered an “original” object that is often characterized by materiality, many studies the observation that the digitization process has induced some anxiety within the cultural heritage management sector, and in particular within the museum sector.6 The reproducibility and the immaterial nature of the digital objects were viewed as “threats” against “real” objects and works of art. For example, Andrea Witcombe points out that, when it comes to the impact of digital media technologies in museum exhibitions, the existing discussions tend to be based on an opposition between the virtual and the material world: the virtual is interpreted either as a threat or as a radical process of democratization7 (of the access to culture, for example). For example, Witcombe recommends a different interpretation, namely one that takes digital objects as material objects in their own right. In another example, Fiona Cameron, after examining the prevailing institutional debates and discourses, shows how digital historical collections have been bounded by an object-centered museum culture and material

culture paradigm.8 Cameron concurs that these kinds of approaches to digital objects have constrained the value, meaning and imaginative uses of both the digital objects and related technology.

Another important distinction on this vein is that between digitization and digital preservation. The latter refers to the protection of digital objects over a longer period of time and takes account of the rapid pace of technological changes.9 Thus, for digital objects created in a given period and with certain technologies there is a risk that, once the technologies initially employed are discontinued, the digital objects concerned might become inaccessible. The concept of digital preservation applies also to the so-called “born digital” objects (created through a “digital production” process).

While the way digital object is defined and interpreted influences the activity of institutions that manage cultural heritage, and which, in most cases, are also those that are leading the process of digitization, the attempts to analyze the heritage digitization find in this point a first challenge they are expected to overcome. Digital preservation presents similar challenges, given that it circumscribes the relationship of the cultural heritage with technology, in the context of an increased pace of technological change.

III. Measuring the digitization process: applied studies and projects Digitization monitoring encompasses an important category of applied studies. They are guided by a clear practical purpose, represented by the need to substantiate public intervention policies. In this case, monitoring consists of measuring (i.e. conducting a quantitative survey on) the digitization process, using different indicators and data sources.

In early 2000s we witnessed a growth in the number of international and national initiatives designed to monitor heritage digitization process, in the form of measurements dedicated to a given sector (museums, libraries, archives etc.) and of crosscutting measurements as well.10 In this section I will review some features of the national initiatives 6 7 8 9 10 11

and go into more details about the projects aimed at achieving international comparability. At the end, I will discuss about the Romanian initiatives in the field of digitization process research. My intention is to highlight some types of indicators used, data sources and methodological challenges.

Characteristics of the national initiatives Basically, the national projects covering the statistical measurement of the digitization process are driven by what happens in this field internationally.11 For example, for Europe, an important role in the development of such measurements has been played by the initiatives undertaken by the European Group on Museum Statistics (through the instruments

Cameron and Kenderdine (2007), 4.

Andrea Witcomb (2007).

Fiona Cameron (2007).

Seamus (2000).

Bakker et al. (2011).

Ibidem.

45

EGMUS Standard Questionnaire and Abridged List of Key Museum Indicators - ALOKMI) ESSnet-Culture (notably through ESSnet Culture Task Force 1) or the ENUMERATE Project (implemented by the European Commission).

Several criteria may be used to rate these project:12 • temporality (the frequency with which they are implemented: one time, biannually, annually etc.); • area / sector (either transversal projects or projects dedicated to a specific field - museums, libraries, archives etc.); • the initiator (a public authority, a professional association, a private entity etc.); • issues addressed (cost of digitization, digitization expansion, access to digitized products, digital preservation etc.).

Data are collected by means of statistical questionnaires developed by the initiators of the monitoring and distributed to institutions managing and digitizing the cultural heritage. In general, the census-like approach is the preferred monitoring technique, in an attempt to collect data from all the bodies in charge with heritage management (either in a specific sector or crosscutting).

The types of data collected may include information on: • management of the institutions managing and digitizing cultural heritage; • the financial dimension of the digitization process; • human resources involved in the digitization process; • infrastructure available for the digitization process; • digitized collections (type, size, use); • conservation or preservation issues; • public access.

Although the number of projects that measure the digitization process at national level has increased, it is estimated that their number is still small compared to the needs of cultural heritage sector13 and that the pace of methodological innovation and of addition

12 13 14 15 16

of new contributions is rather slow.14 The reasons for such a situation are linked, on the one hand, to the methodological difficulties encountered in the process of creating a statistical framework (an activity that generally requires longer periods of time for the data collection systems to be well established) and, on the other hand, to difficulties of a more general nature implied by data collection in various countries (with the financial resources allocated to research playing an important role in this case).

International approaches: comparable data International initiatives take digitization process measurement one step further, because the focus is placed on data comparability, which is something that requires methodological harmonization at various levels (definitions and indicators, data collection methods, reporting forms). International studies and research projects are particularly important, especially in countries where digitization measurement is still underdeveloped.15 In this case, examples of best practices and the recommendations or the research results identified internationally function as knowledge resources for the start / improvement of digitization measurement process.

The objective pursued by The European Group on Museum Statistics (through the instruments EGMUS Standard Questionnaire and Abridged List of Key Museum Indicators - ALOKMI) covers the collection and publication of comparable statistical data.16 The Group reviews and centralizes data on the situation of museums, collected through national censuses or surveys. In addition, they developed a standardized questionnaire for data collection, in 2008, whose scope covers information such as: • museum identification details; • data about the types of museums and their legal status; • opening hours; • exhibitions and number of visitors; • income and expenses; • human resources; • ICT (Information and Communication Technology - a chapter that encompasses digitization as well).

Ibidem.

Ibidem.

Jan Nauta (2015).

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.

Ibidem.

46

The ESSnet-Culture Network, initiated by Eurostat, implemented the project “Cultural Statistics”, in the period 2009-2011, which included four working groups, one of which, called Task Force 1, was centered on creating a common methodological framework for cultural statistics and definitions. The results of this project, though not specifically dedicated to digitization, have contributed the domain through the clarification and operationalization of concepts or definitions.

The most important digitization measuring project is the ENUMERATE Project, an initiative of European Commission, which builds on the results of the pilot project NUMERIC (a groundbreaking initiative, which ran from 2007 until 2009) and is now (since 2014) part of EUROPEANA – an online platform of digitized resources in the cultural field.

The survey involves collecting statistics covering four major areas and several indicators:17 1. Digitization • digital collections; • types of digitized objects; • “born-digital” collections; • digitization strategies.

2. Digital Access • use of digital collections.

3. Digital Preservation • digital preservation strategies applied in institutions; • digital preservation strategies available nationally.

4. The cost of digitizing • cost components; • size of human resources involved in digitizing (employees and volunteers); • funding.

Regarding the data collection method, the survey follows the same route described above: self-

administered questionnaires sent to various institutions that manage and digitize cultural heritage. Nationally, the different partner institutions or expert groups are responsible for the translation of the data collection tool and its dissemination to cultural institutions. An important methodological aspect is that the survey attempts to sample institutions (a census-like approach would be difficult to implement). Based on the recommendations formulated by the expert groups at national level, the survey establishes a number of criteria designed to help identify the category of relevant institutions out of the total number of institutions in charge with cultural heritage management. Then, a sampling is made on the relevant institutions, based on a quota system, in such a way as to ensure representation of the different sectors and subsectors. Once the data is collected, a weighting factor is applied, to extract estimates that are applicable to the cultural heritage digitization field as a whole.

Romania The National Statistics Institute, through its instruments INS CULT 1 (libraries) and INS CULT 2 (museums and public collections), collects information about cultural heritage products available in digital format. Although they are not intended to capture the digitization process as such (and in particular heritage digitization), these data have not been yet harnessed by dedicated studies and analysis. As a matter of fact, in Romania there is a shortage of assessments and surveys on the state of the digitization process. Except for Romania’s participation in the NUMERIC project, in 2008, through the activation of the Center for Research and Consultancy in Culture18, no other similar initiatives exist in Romania.19 As the authors of the final survey report emphasized, the low rate of response to the survey suggested was an indication at the time of the absence of digitization programs across the sampled institutions (survey questionnaires were sent to a total of 105 institutions).

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.

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IV. Digitization analysis and interpretation In this section, I am giving some examples of surveys conducted based on data about the relationship between institutions and the digital technology (in particular, but not exclusively, the digitization process), obtained by qualitative or quantitative research methods, in order to discuss a few wider aspects of the cultural sector.

similar to using computers, the Internet and other ICT policy documents. On the other hand, digitization of collections and their publication online evolve at a much slower pace. The explanation given by Navarrete is that the national ICT adoption policies have focused on innovation based on new technologies, but missed to support organizational change or skill development.22

Examining the extent of adoption of open data strategies and the engagement in crowdsourcing practices for Swiss heritage institutions, Beat Estermann20 finds that, though very few organizations have an open data policy, the future may bring major changes, since an increasing number of organizations outweigh the risks associated with such practices with the development opportunities they perceive as more important. The main obstacles to the adoption of open data practices are linked to the concerns the institutions have with respect to the control over data.

Given that heritage institutions may be, at the same time, places where research is conducted, Borowiecki and Navarrete discuss the digitization process in terms of innovation.23 Cultural heritage remains digitally inaccessible, despite the huge potential of its digitization.

Looking at the situation in Europe at different levels, the authors show that institutions and organizations are more open to heritage digitizing when operating in an environment where cultural consumers are digitally literate. Equally important are the resources allocated to training the staff of the cultural heritage organizations.

Digital literacy is one of the most important positive determinants for digitization and innovation.

“Born-digital” products, and in particular the threedimensional (3D) ones, have given birth to a specific need, namely the need for digital archives – particularly, 3D archives.21 These digital cultural products and their archiving raise further challenges to museum practitioners, including: managing digital rights in 3D models, understanding the uncertainty that is specific to 3D reconstructions, creating specific metadata structures, long-term preservation, interoperability etc.

In his analysis of the history of the digitization of the museum heritage in the Netherlands, Trilce Navarrete argues that the pace of technological adoption is

As for digital preservation, it has been reported that the format in which documents, images, sounds or videos are stored depends on the software chosen by the different institutions.24 In other words, the preservation of digital products ultimately depends on standards that are no longer developed by the heritage institution, but by private vendors of software packages. This low level of control over standards affects the preservation and curatorial work. Therefore, we need innovative tools, designed to ensure quality benchmarks for assessing the archived collections.

V. Conclusions A major challenges presented by the assessment of the state of cultural heritage digitization process is the definition of and approach to the digital object. This challenge stems from the fact that the relationship between digital technology and the environment in which it is used can be understood through a series of tensions described by the virtual versus real and material versus immaterial divides. The building up of these tensions is linked to the characteristics of the digital object and the way they are understood 20 21 22 23 24

Estermann (2014).

Koller (2009).

Navarrete (2014).

Borowiecki and Navarrete (2016).

Fresa et al. (2015).

48

by heritage institutions. The problem of defining and approaching the digital object may occur both during the research design, at the time of data collection (at least due to the fact that the heritage institutions that manage are also the data sources, the providers of the “research material” for such initiatives ), or at the point of analysis and interpretation of the fact-findings.

In assessing the state of the digitization process, we should bear in mind that the methodological difficulties that are generally encountered when

creating a statistical framework hold true in this case as well. International measurement initiatives, in addition to the fact that they allow a comparative approach, they present the great advantage of providing examples of best practice, as well as recommendations and results identified as functional.

Most statistical measurements turn to data obtained by a survey conducted amongst heritage management and digitization organizations. In this case, sampling the respondent institutions encounters some difficulties, which are addresses only to little extent by the surveys and projects reviewed herein (in particular, the relevant institutions can be quite problematic, as are the methods of assessment/extrapolation across different cultural sectors).

Basically, most of the indicators used may be grouped under categories like: digitization, digital access, digital

preservation and digitization cost (see ENUMERATE Project).

The problem of digital preservation is presented separately from digitization, given that international research on digital preservation is still in its inception stage.

In Romania, the surveys and assessments on the state of the digitization process are scarce (in terms of both data availability, and the number of initiatives undertaken in this field). Data on the extent of cultural heritage digitization are currently collected by the National Institute of Statistics. The fact that such data do not actually monitor the digitization process as such is not necessarily justified by a methodological reason, but might be an indication of the weak manifestation of the phenomenon.

VI. References Bakker, S., M. de Niet and G. Jan Nauta., 2012. Overview of National and International Initiatives. ENUMERATE Project.

BarNir, A., Gallaugher, J. M. and Auger, P., 2003. ‘Business process digitization, strategy, and the impact of firm age and size: the case of the magazine publishing industry’. Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 789-814.

Becuț, A., Stroe, M., Chelcea, L., 2009. Diagnoza sectorului cultural: instrument pentru managementul culturii, Iaşi, Polirom.

Borowiecki, K.J. and Navarrete, T., 2016. ‘Digitization of heritage collections as indicator of innovation’.

Economics of Innovation and New Technology, pp. 1-20.

Cameron, F. and Kenderdine, S., 2007. Theorizing digital cultural heritage: A critical discourse. Cambridge, MIT Press.

Cameron, F., 2007. ‘Beyond the cult of the replicant: Museums and historical digital objects–traditional concerns, new discourses’. In F. Cameron and S. Kenderdine Theorizing digital cultural heritage: A critical discourse, Cambridge, MIT Press, pp. 49-75.

Collin, J. et al., 2015. IT leadership in transition-the impact of digitalization on finnish organizations.

Helsinki: Aalto University Estermann, B., 2014, ‘Diffusion of Open Data and Crowdsourcing among Heritage Institutions’ Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 15-31.

Fresa, A., Justrell, B. and Prandoni, C. 2015, ‘Digital curation and quality standards for memory institutions: PREFORMA research project’. Arch Sci, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 191–216.

Khan, S., 2016. ‘Leadership in the digital age: A study on the effects of digitalisation on top management leadership’, Disertație, Stockholm University.

Koller, D., Frischer, B. and Humphreys, G., 2009.

‘Research challenges for digital archives of 3D cultural heritage models’. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage , vol. 2, no. 3, p. 7.

Nauta, G. J. and van den Heuvel, W., 2015. Survey report on digitisation in European Cultural Heritage Institutions 2015. Europeana/ENUMERATE, DEN Foundation (NL).

Navarrete, T., 2014. ‘Becoming digital: A Dutch heritage perspective’. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 153-168.

Seamus, R., 2000. ‘Changing trains at Wigan: Digital preservation and the future of scholarship’. National Preservation Office, Occasional Papers.

Stroeker, N. and Vogels, R. 2012. Survey Report on Digitisation in European Cultural Heritage Institutions 2012. ENUMERATE Thematic Network.

UNESCO. (without year). Fundamental principles of digitization of documentary heritage. Available at: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/ HQ/CI/CI/pdf/mow/digitization_guidelines_for_ web.pdf and accessed on November 6 2016.

Witcomb, A., 2007. ‘The Materiality of Virtual Technologies: A New Approach to Thinking about the Impact of Multimedia in Museums’. In F. Cameron and S. Kenderdine (ed), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, pp. 35-48.

Andrei Crăciun NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING andrei.craciun@culturadata.ro 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 use of 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 2

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http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/2005/ http://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/#tab:rank

ceaselessly and are encompassing huge masses of people, with billions of users accessing the Internet daily. Around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today. While in 1995, only less than 1% of the world population was using the Internet, the number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013, to reach the first billion in 2005. The second billion was reached in 2010 and the third billion, in 2014.3 The incidence rate of this “virus” is increasingly higher, and it is only a matter of time before the whole mankind will be interconnected within the global network. According

to the Romanian Transmedia Audit Bureau, in 2015 there were 8.8 million internet users in Romania.4 The way the professional community in charge with protecting and passing on the cultural heritage of the humanity reacts in the face of this new global trend is still in the pioneering stage. The first action (perhaps, the easiest, given the huge technological leap of the recent years) was to start the heritage digitization process, as the inception stage of the wider heritage valorization (now in digital format as well) endeavor.

The Old Continent At European level, the largest database, www. europeana.eu, dedicated exclusively to the European cultural heritage, has been created, whose declared mission is: “We transform the world with culture!

We want to build on Europe’s rich heritage and make it easier for people to use, whether for work, for learning or just for fun.”5 Europeana portal was launched in November 2008 and, by October 2016, was already providing access to over 53 million artworks, cultural goods, books, films and music, collected from all over Europe.

Contributors to this huge database are over 3,300 cultural heritage organizations, mostly archives, libraries and museums.

However, the major challenge that lies ahead at the moment is to be able to pass on this wealth of information and emotions, whose role in strengthening our sense of belonging to the larger mankind community is paramount.

The consumption habits of the “new humanity”, which has emerged or adapted itself in recent years and which is expected to become stronger and stronger in the immediate future, are now totally different from anything we knew before. This new reality requires a customized strategy, especially when it comes to leveraging the cultural heritage, an activity that will become our only ongoing task, once the heritage digitization is over, and the ultimate form of heritage preservation.

3 4 5 6 7

At the European level, several strategic policies and action points in the field of cultural heritage have been recommended, which, unfortunately, have not been “absorbed” yet by the national heritage operators, simply due to that that they are unaware of the existence of such recommendations. Thus, in May 2015, the document Europeana for Education and Learning established the vision, the key recommendations, the context (the changing nature of learning, the use of digital cultural heritage in education and learning and the challenges), as well as the policy recommendations and the proposed actions in the field of learning and education.6 We will outline below the issues dealing with the changing nature of learning, namely the general recommendations formulated at European level, and then we will review the situation of the national museums and the current specialized literature, ending with the presentation of a case study on possible new approaches to digital heritage valorization.

The vision at European level with regard to digitized cultural heritage is defined as follows: “Digital European cultural heritage may be widely used for high-quality education and learning for the mutual benefit of all stakeholders.”7 The nature of learning is changing, with learning taking place increasingly outside of the classroom or formal institutions. The number of visual learners rises and, as such, the demand for visuals and moving images

http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ 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 http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en http://pro.europeana.eu/files/Europeana_Professional/Publications/Europeana%20for%20Education%20and%20Learning%20Policy%20Recommendations.pdf Ibidem, 3.

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grows. More attention is given to the development of transversal competencies such as cultural awareness and digital, social and civic competences. Educators need innovative educational resources that are engaging, reliable (see the questionable quality of many online resources!) and of high quality and help stakeholders to acquire competences and are easy to use, adapt and develop further. Educational systems are traditionally focused on the history and culture of the individual nations, rather than on the transnational links amongst them. Therefore, a transnational approach would be better suited to the current realities.8 There are some challenges in realizing this vision, such as the absence of instruments for a structured dialogue between all stakeholders. Many times we are faced with a lack of awareness among cultural heritage institutions about the needs of education and learning and with an insufficient knowledge amongst educators of the

digital cultural heritage that is available. Furthermore, suitability of the European digital learning resources for learning is reduced by language barriers. “There is still a lack of open digital learning resources that help students acquire transversal and subject-specific competences through the use of digital heritage”.9 The policy recommendations and action points contained by the aforesaid document are as follows: set up a Europe-wide structured dialogue between policymakers, cultural heritage institutions and educators to improve access and reduce duplication of effort; prioritize the provision of ‘Fit for Education and Learning’ content by cultural heritage institutions and ministries; emphasize the development of inclusive and accessible digital learning resources; promote open licenses and improve access and re-use conditions to underpin education and learning.10

Our World In Romania, the strategic directions in the field of digitization of cultural resources were outlined by the document “2014-2020 Sectoral Strategy on National Culture and Heritage11.

Section 9.2 - Digitization of Cultural Resources – of the said document describes the general and the specific objectives of the strategy and the courses of action to be pursued in the short, medium and long term. Among the specific objectives of this key strategic direction are the increase of the national contribution to the European Digital Library and the use of digitization to: enhance access to national cultural resources, preserve and promote national cultural heritage, transform the way arts and culture are created and experimented, create new forms of artistic and cultural expression and build and diversify audiences and consumers.12 As we can see, education and learning are not included in the specific objectives listed above. Taking a closer look at this otherwise very promising Section (section 9.2), we find that the last but one sentence of the text under the heading “Main Actions on the 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Long-Term” (not in the short and medium term!) reads as follows: “Promoting the use of digitized cultural resources in education”13.

Although the aforementioned strategic document (correctly) includes education and training among the transversal strategic objectives, in line with the common EU objectives (“making lifelong learning and mobility a reality; improving the quality and efficiency of education and training; promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship; enhancing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all levels of education and training.”14), the general and the specific objectives laid down by the document with respect to education and training make no connection whatsoever between heritage digitization and education.

In a somewhat declarative and ambiguous way, the main courses of actions established for the medium and long term recommend “support to programs and projects aimed at using mass-media (sic!) and ITC15, to build audiences, sustain interactivity and enhance the creative skills and abilities of the general public,

Ibidem, 4.

Ibidem, 5.

Ibidem. http://www.cultura.ro/uploads/files/STRATEGIA_%20SECTORIALA_IN_DOMENIUL_CULTURII_2014-2020.pdf.

Ibidem, 335.

Ibidem, 338.

Ibidem, 189.

Information Technology and Communications includes, generically, heritage digitization – n. n..

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and in particular of the vulnerable groups”16, and “diversify artistic practices (sic!) across formal education system and use ICT for this purpose”17.

Regarding the way the Romanian museum management sees valorization of the digitized heritage, we have to say that the main drawback is the lack of systematic approach. Starting from the formal tertiary education system, which is expected to provide qualified museum professionals, and continuing with staff recruitment and the training programs provided by the various education providers in the market, no one trains museum professionals in what digitization process implies.

The courses on teaching methodology, taught to most students enrolled in higher education in Romania, are totally unrelated to the today’s realities. Experience proves that young visitors of the museums in Romania are systematically discouraged to use modern technologies and the Internet in the classroom. The books candidates are required to read and the written or practical tests they are supposed to pass before they are hired as museum professionals are obsolete, dating back to what we can call the “prehistoric era” of the Internet. Old books, which are otherwise very well written for their time, are still making the mandatory reading for the candidates sitting from exams. Likewise, museum laws - see the Public Museums and Collections Law (Law 311/2003) – contain no reference whatsoever to the digitalized world. Legislative updates have also failed to deal with digitization, thus missing this unique opportunity. Training of museum specialists after their employment continues to focus on what have become the “fetish” museum topics (preservation, accessioning and heritage research), with only very timid attempts to exploit the heritage through reenactment and interactive exhibits.

When looking at the educational methods employed for the harnessing what is still heritage in analogue format (as digitized heritage is more a matter of wishful thinking at the moment), we may see that they are still monologue-oriented, with a few slight variations like “learn by doing” and the “cut, color and play” workshops. Reenactment tends to be seen as the panacea for all problems. And all this while 16 17 18 19

young people are getting digital in the purest sense of the word!

As we said, we will describe below a case study, which shows how digitized heritage can be leveraged in education. The museum “Casa Mureşenilor” in Braşov was the recipient of a grant provided by the National Cultural Fund Administration in 2015 for the project “Arhiva Mureşenilor – A National Cultural Heritage Treasure. Increasing Access to Culture through New Media Technologies”. The main outcome of the project was the creation of an online database containing 2,000 scanned historical documents, of relevance for the history of Transylvania from the 19th through the 20th century, focusing on memorabilia of some of the personalities of those times (correspondence, photographs, official documents etc.).

The practical module of the project consisted (in the absence of similar examples of best practices) of application of digitized heritage during history classes. The same experiment was replicated at the museum, during the visit of a group of high school students. The students were directly involved in the educational process by using their own cell phones or the terminals in their computer labs at school. The exercises consisted of identifying specific elements in the old photos displayed to them, as well as the differences among photos belonging to a set of photographs dealing with the given subject, including the transcription and interpretation of old documents.18 Perhaps the most spectacular experiment was the use of Facebook to interact, from the museum’s premises, with the students of “Emil Racoviţă” Natural Sciences College in Braşov. Starting from the generic theme of the history of journalism in Braşov, where the newspaper “Gazeta Transilvaniei” (Transylvanian Gazette), published between 1850 and 1911 by the Mureşanu family, stands as a remarkable milestone, the students were shown how to write a headline in the newspaper. The exercise asked the students to extract the key questions a newspaper story should answer to, starting from the first headline in the said newspaper, available on a Facebook page19, specifically created by curators for this purpose:

http://www.cultura.ro/uploads/files/STRATEGIA_%20SECTORIALA_IN_DOMENIUL_CULTURII_2014-2020.pdf, 211.

Ibidem, 212. https://www.facebook.com/Arhiva-Muresenilor-1018982671467109/photos https://www.facebook.com/GazetaTransilvaniei/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1158811650816762

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“Transylvania. Brașov 22. March. in a big city such as our, we’ve been deprived of theatrical shows this year.

But we are happy to see the theater opened again and to watch a bunch of amateur artists, made up of some of some of the finest young men and the most beautiful girls in our city, whose talent is worth all our praise!”

After defining the key questions in journalism (where? when? who? what? how? why?), the students were asked to post their comments, in reply to the posting on the Facebook page, containing their own “news” about what they were doing then and there. Below are two of thee most relevant comments of the students taking part in the exercise.

Rareş Ciornea “Friday, 11/03/2016, a group of students from Emil Racoviţă College in Brasov attended a presentation at the Casa Muresenilor Museum about the history of the newspaper “Gazeta de Transilvania” and celebrated the 178th anniversary of the newspaper. The students were very interactive and answered all the questions they were asked and wrote their own account about the event they participated in.”

Antonia Țânț - Today, March 11, 2016, at the Casa Muresenilor Museum in Brasov, a group of students from Emil Racoviţă College, together with the museum management and a former journalist of the city of Brasov, Mr. Ioan Popa, celebrated 178 years since the first issue of the newspaper “Gazeta Transilvaniei”. Students had a pleasant experience, interacting with the host museum and learning many new and interesting things during the interactive workshop.”

We have to say that, when reading the students’ comments, we could not help noticing some phrasing, 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

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adults responsible for the education of the younger generations to correct and make the students aware of such errors. And we can just as well do that at the museum, and not necessarily at school, thereby bringing our contribution to the development of the students’ communication skills, a task that is circumscribed to the overall transversal educational objective. Even a history class can be an opportunity to teach students how to write and speak Romanian correctly.

Last but not least, we emphasize the informal interaction among the members of the group of students during the exercise.The students reacted to the novelty of the situation using the language that was typical to people in their age group (16-18): e.g.

“OMG”20, “nice meme”21, “2 short” , appreciation (like) and forward (share).

Once the writing and the online interaction exercise was over, the host engaged in free talks with the students and had the change to realize that students are open and willing to engage in creative work and in sustained learning, provided they are allowed to use modern communication media. One of the students even said that out loud: “It would be so cool, if all our classes at school were like this one, here!”

As a conclusion, we advocate the following absolute priorities (stipulated also by the law): using digitized heritage in education; continuous updating; devising new methods to include information technology in the education activity carried out by cultural heritage organizations; training a new museum facilitators and, last but least, and proactive adaptation to the contemporary realities of our society.

Valer Rus “Casa Muresenilor” Brașov Museum rus.valer@gmail.com

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 2

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/) http://culturadata.ro

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local museums, as well as a balance in terms of number of visitors reported during last year.

3. Assessment of the spread of technology and applications proposed by museum for making heritage accessible to the public.

As a research tool, an observation sheet was prepared, which included the following sections: site structure, site content, site assessment, virtual tour assessment, assessment of social media pages, comments. These sections were divided into subsections, as shown by the results described below.

The premises from which the research started took into account the time constraints imposed and required the division of the research into two phases: the first phase had run until the date of the conference We Are Museums and the second phase took place in June 2016. Thus, the first two objectives they approached during the first phase and consisted entirely of a review of the virtual museum environment, and the third objective covered an insitu assessment of the state of the museums.

The first indicator analyzed was the representativeness of the museums on their own websites: from 51 museums, a total of 46 have developed their own websites, the remaining holding web pages hosted mostly by the institutions acting as authorizing officers, namely by county councils or municipalities. This aspect is relevant for the study of the subject, because it determines a lower or a higher degree of independence and dynamism in terms of information updating.

The study employed the statistical databases of the National Institute of Statistics3 in conjunction with data collected on certain segments by INCFC in recent years, plus data collected specifically for this project. A sample consisting of 51 museums was established, of which 12 art museums, 12 history museums, 12 ethnography museums and 15 county museums, selected equally from the seven development regions of the country. The 51 museum institutions were selected taking also into account the need to ensure a proportional representativeness amongst national, county and

In terms of access of foreign visitors to museum websites translated in foreign languages, it was noticed that some of t of the museums surveyed have website versions in English (19 of 51) and only very few have website versions in French (5), Hungarian (4), German (4), Spanish (1) (see Table 1).

Table 1. Website versions across the museum websites surveyed

Type of Museum Website Version English version French version Hungarian version German version Spanish version

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

5 0 0 1 0

5 2 2 0 0

5 2 1 1 1

4 1 1 2 0

19 5 4 4 1

left or centrally at the bottom of the page. In most cases, a relationship can be established between the large number of menus and the high degree of difficulty in finding information.

Another relevant indicator that provides information about website accessibility is the number of menus on the home page (see Table 2). These can be placed horizontally at the top of the page, vertically to the 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/

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The average number of menus of the museum websites analyzed is 2 (see Table 3).

Table 3. Average number of websites reviewed

Type of Museum Average

Art Museum

History Museum

2,1

2,08

It was also observed that history museums show a greater appetite for a more complex structure of their websites and for the publication of a greater amount of information. Only four of the 51 museums analyzed are using sitemaps that enable and simplify the finding of information.

Ethnography Museum 2,5

County Museum

Total Average

1,83

2

As for the existence of a search engine to facilitate identification of the information sought, less than half of the websites analyzed have such a button, a situation described in Table 4.

Table 4. Existence of a search engine on the websites analyzed

Type of Museum Number

Art Museum

History Museum

3

6

A museum virtual tour, one of the most interactive ways to communicate with the public, is present in 17 of the 51 cases analyzed and it comes in many different forms: from classic tour, consisting of panoramic photos, to films showing the exhibition space and to links to googlemaps.com locations, in case of outdoor museum exhibits. Regardless of their quality, we believe that the number of virtual tours is still too small compared the needs of the public. We also appreciate that the fear expressed by most museums that virtual tours would decrease the number of physical visits to the museum is unfounded because, most often, virtual tours become real effective marketing methods that stimulate people to go to museums. Of the 17 museums that feature virtual tours, two have included an audio-guide organized by museum rooms, with information about the heritage assets exposed and/or the theme presented, and three of them display written information about the objects exposed along the visitation route, in the form of concise or explicit labels.

Another important clue for assessing the degree of interactivity of the websites was the presence of social media buttons. A total of 30 of the 51 museums reviewed have added this button to their websites, with the spread of such buttons across the 4 types of museums (art, history, ethnography, county museums) being relatively balanced.

4

Ethnography Museum 7

County Museum

Total

3

19

We were also interested to examine the extent to which the museums issue newsletters and whether the websites communicate the presence of their periodical magazines. The research has revealed that six museums have this type of information available, which is another means of interacting with the public.

As for the distribution policy practiced by the surveyed museums, evaluated as the possibility given to the public to buy online museum entry tickets or objects from the museum shops, we can see that none of the museums in question has provides this type of online service, fact that diminishes the access to and deprives the museum of an important tool to promote its desired identity image.

Given the accelerated spread of mobile telephony and mobile Internet access4 in Romania, we have examined the way in which the museums managed to adapt themselves to these technologies by creating a specific version for mobile phones, designed to allow easier access to primary information, as well as a higher degree of user friendliness. So far, only 11 of the 51 museums offer this possibility. The small number of such mobile versions is nonetheless significant in the context of the generalized use of mobile phones, especially in urban areas.

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.

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Another aspect analyzed was the number of museums offering differentiated information about permanent and temporary exhibitions. As one can see in Table 5, there is a gap between these two types of information,

due perhaps to the fact that sometimes temporary exhibitions last a very short time (one, two), and the pace of posts on the museum website fails to keep up with that of the opening of new exhibitions.

Table 5. The existence of a search engine on the websites analyzed

Type of Museum Content/information about permanent collections Content/information about temporary collections

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

10

6

10

12

38

8

5

6

8

27

items (heritage objects in the museum collection or exhibitions) for each of the two types of exposures: for public information or for their use in different contexts (see Table 6).

We referred in the paragraph above to general textual information about exhibitions and to photographs presenting an overview of the museum exhibitions, then we have counted the number of digitized

Table 6. Number of digitized items on the exhibition presentation page

Type of Museum Digitized items/permanent collections Digitized items/temporary collections

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

5

8

10

8

31

8

5

6

8

27

conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment5, we selected three of the functions directly communicated by websites and have analyzed their prevalence explicitly. According to the data in the observation sheets, more than half of the websites have section dedicated to publications, and 9 of the surveyed museums have included a research section as well on their websites, which highlights the emphasis they place on this aspect (see Table 7).

Then, we counted the number of museums offering the possibility to use the image enhancement option, for a greater clarity when viewing the details of the museum exhibits (zoom). Only 5 of the 51 museums offer this possibility, of which one is an art museum and 4 are ethnographic museums.

Starting from the ICOM definition of the museum, according to which a museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires,

Table 7. Content/information about museum publications and research, available on museum websites

Type of Museum Content/information about publications Content/information about research

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

8

6

9

10

33

0

4

2

3

9

Another observation resulting from the survey undertaken is the lack of topics in the categories that could make the subject to museum-specific research: curating, restoration, conservation, marketing, 5

http://icom.museum/the-vision/museum-definition/ accessed on 01.11.2016.

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audience surveys, museum education, theoretical and philosophical approaches to museum as an institution and studies about heritage.

have their own specialist departments or staff in charge with this function. As such, the ratio of the museums that have this function and communicate it on their websites and those that, although they perform this function, they do not publish information about it on their websites it is probably much smaller than it appears from a simple comparison of the figures.

With respect to another function of the museum, i.e. the conservation/restoration function, 10 of the museums analyzed have dedicated sections where they either present general information about their specialized departments, or present case studies about objects preserved and/or restored (see Table 8). It is worth mentioning that not all the museums surveyed

Table 8. Content/information about conservation/restoration available on the museum websites

Type of Museum Content/information about conservation/restoration

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

2

0

5

3

10

“programs for the public”, “public programs” or “museum education”. (See Table 9).

Only 17 of the museums surveyed have information posted on their websites about museum education programs, which they call “educational programs”,

Table 9. Content/information on museum education programs available on the websites of the surveyed museums

Type of Museum Content/information about museum education programs

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

2

0

5

3

10

audience and its needs for adequate information.

We quantified only the constantly updated sections (see Table 10).

Another indicator considered in our research was news/blog/events/calendar section on the websites surveyed, which, by its mere presence, speaks of the importance that each museum gives to the

Table 10. Presence of an info sections on the websites of the museums analyzed

Type of Museum Presence of information sections6

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

6

9

8

4

27

presence of audio-visual recordings and their coherent integration in the website and the user friendliness of the website. The first two indicators are present on seven and eight museum websites, respectively (see Tables 11 and 12). These figures are small, given that both the technical means of interaction and the audioUnder 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.

Given the wide range of types of actions analyzed in this section, the number obtained from the survey is small.

Basically, some museums have a calendar of events, but do not have a blog, while others have a news section, but do not have a calendar, and only half of them are constantly posting updated information for the public.

6

news, blog, events, calendar etc.

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Table 11. Degree of interactivity of the websites analyzed

Type of Museum

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

Museums with a high degree of interactivity

6

9

8

4

27

Table 12. Presence of video/audio recordings on the websites analyzed

Type of Museum Presence of video/audio recordings

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

2

2

2

2

8

As for the third indicator, the user friendliness, i.e. extent of intuitive information available to the user of the website, the degree of structuring

etc., the grades scores given on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is very poor and 10 is very good, are shown in Table 13.

Table 13. Degree of user friendliness of the websites analyzed

Type of Museum Average score for user friendliness

Art Museum

History Museum

Ethnography Museum

County Museum

Total

6,9

6,4

6,9

7,2

6,8

Quoting Jean-François Lyotard7, who claims that exhibition visitor is “a body in movement, whose trajectory within an exhibition is comparable to that of a character in a novel”, the figures above are also an indication of the lack of awareness of a real visitor, with real expectation, real need for information and fascination, as well as of the lack of narrative in visiting a museum, even online.

A positive contribution to the narrating place and sense of visiting is brought by the official websites available on Facebook.com8 social media platform. These are clearly more active than the websites of the museums surveyed and are constantly updated. A total of 43 websites out of the total number of websites examined contain a link to their Facebook page. The communities created 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

Type of Museum

Art Museum

100-500 501-1.000 1.001-4.000 4.001-10.000 peste 10.000

0 0 4 4 2

While not all the museums examined have managed to build up communities via this type of social media channel, four of the largest museums in the sample 7 8

History Museum 2 0 3 3 1

Ethnography Museum 0 2 7 0 2

County Museum 0 3 4 6 0

Total 2 5 18 13 4

have over 10,000 subscribers. Most of the museums surveyed have between 1,001 and 4,000 subscribers.

J.-F. Lyotard (1985).

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.

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Conclusions Analyzing the websites included in the sample of 51 museums from Romania, considered to representative in terms of size, spread across the country and type of museum, we have obtained a first overview of the main constituents thereof, but also of the gaps many of the museum websites investigated need to fill in.

In appears that, in general, the museum websites analyzed were constructed some years ago and were not updated since then. The cumbersome structure, the enormous amount of textual content, the lack of consistency in the layout of textual or visual information are all common traits of most museum websites in Romania.

While the most visible, consistent and traditional activities of the museum are presented extensively by museums (permanent exhibitions, research function, English versions), the latest trends in website construction are still neglected, at least concretely: museum websites in Romania do not put on display good quality pictures of their heritage assets and the information about temporary exhibitions is sporadic, little and of little relevance.

From a technical standpoint and in terms of access to information, the museum websites show a low degree of interactivity, providing information without requesting feedback or participation from the virtual visitor. However, museum websites are better represented in terms of interactivity through their pages on social media, and in particular on Facebook.com platform, which provide constantly updated information.

Museums avoid any form of marketing via their websites, despite the fact that online environment is the ideal place for marketing actions.

Hopefully, an objectifying of the big picture of the official websites of the museums will, by presenting the figures and comments of this analysis, trigger a positive attitude in the attempt to adapt to this environment to the needs of the contemporary, young, active and proactive audience.

The authors of this article also hope that the comments contained herein, however tough they may sound, will serve as recommendations for the construction of friendlier museum websites for the 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 raluca.bem@gmail.com Carmen Croitoru, PhD Manager NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING carmen.croitoru@culturadata.ro Anda Becuț, PhD Research Director NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING anda.becut@culturadata.ro 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

2

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“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 cited the 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-fezabilitatedigitizare.pdf 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

protection and the leveraging of museum heritage, all to the benefit of the local communities.3 The need for a research study focusing on digitization of the rural museums and their collections derives from the way village museums and collections are structured and the role they play locally, as well as from their potential intrinsic value that is hardly exploited in economic terms. The museums in most of the communes included in this analysis - 26 villages from Dambovita county, 12 of which have local museums - are basically the result of the enthusiasm and passion of a handful of local resource-persons, who started to collect rural heritage objects from the local communities, building up a team of supporters and stimulating the interest of the locals in setting up a museum. With rural museums established in this way, it matters less whether or not their heritage is of an exceptional historical, archaeological or ethnographic value. In fact, most of the museums surveyed have local ethnography as their main profile, which explains the similarities amongst exhibits from one museum to another. What really matters in this case is the role

the museums play within their community and the fact that they can actually “be seen as an emblem of identity, originality and local specificity, as well as a resource for the cultural development of the local communities and of the cultural tourism.”4 Across the localities included in our survey, several categories of public museums and collections of local importance have been identified, some of which are recorded in the CIMEC (Institute for Cultural Memory) database or are curated by the National Museum Complex “Curtea Domnească” (Royal Court), in Targoviste, under the care of the Museum of Romanian Literature, while others are the result of some enthusiastic private initiatives, supported by the local authorities, with the latter providing the necessary space for the exposure of the museum objects. I will use here the generic term “museum”, commonly used by the locals as well, even if some of the village museums under consideration are classified, according to the CIMEC database, as “museum points”, “museum corners”, “communal museums” and “private 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 of digitization of the rural museums covered by our analysis cannot possibly ignore the current state and the difficulties the curators and the initiators of these museums are facing on a daily basis. In this article I will refer to six digitization stages/categories, established on the basis of an extensive bibliographic documentation (see Figure 1).

The Incipient digitization phase refers to a sporadic presence in the virtual environment and, possibly, to indexation of the museum in various databases or the development of static webpages with/without pictures (in this particular case, the CIMEC database, the mobile app dedicated to promotion of museum 3 4 5 6

heritage Museums & Collections in Romania, and the website of the National Museum Complex “Curtea Domenască” (Royal Court). The World Wide Web (www) digitization stage covers construction and maintenance of a museum webpage with, ideally, textual and video content, designed to allow interaction with the virtual visitor. The Virtual Tours digitization phase, which is currently the booming trend across the biggest museums in Romania5, implies the existence of a dedicated webpage, completed by a virtual tour of the museum. The last two stages, i.e. Virtual Museums/Exhibitions and Virtual Reconstruction by means of Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies, are the most advanced digitization stages.6

Oberlander-Târnoveanu, Irina, “Cultural Identity and Digital Heritage: Projects, Networks and Portals”, published in Cibinium 2001-2005. Cultural Identity and Globalization in the 20th Century. Museum Research and Representation, Sibiu, 2005: Astra-Museum, pp. 41-48. Accessed online on 4 November 2016: http://www.cimec.ro/Muzee/Oberlander-Identitateaculturala/Oberlander-Identitatea-culturala-si-patrimoniul-digital.pdf 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 Marinescu, Angelica Helena, “Musuem Heritage Digitization”. The Online Collections of the National Art Museum”, published in Revista 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 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

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Methodological Issues Over the last two years (2014-2015), my colleagues and I have conducted field research in different areas of Dambovita County, mainly in rural areas.7 During our field research we concentrated our attention on finding facts about the local history, customs, crafts and trades (in decline or still practiced); specific products, cultural events and their importance in terms of local development; the role local cultural centers, museums, libraries, schools, local authorities or the resource-persons from the community play in the preservation and promotion of local customs. This article is based on the qualitative data collected during our research (through unstructured interviews, photo and video documentation and desk research). The main limitation is the insufficient spread of our research (confined to 26 communes

only) and hence the uneven distribution of the rural communities this article deals with. That explains the wide gaps between, for example, the built heritage and its concentration more in the Bucegi Leaota area and less in the southern part of the county.

The rural museum heritage does not show this kind of concentrations or gaps: in most of the rural communities described in this article, museums are classified as museum corners or author museums and are supported by local authorities or by the enthusiastic museum initiators. As for the level of museum collection digitization, the situation is almost identical across the surveyed sites: most of the rural museums surveyed are either non-digitized or are barely in the incipient digitizing stage.

Village museum collections: transition from physical space to cyberspace In half of the 26 villages analyzed in Dambovita county there are communal museums and private/“author” museums that are either operational or shut down (see Table 1). The cultural center in the village community is the main “host” of the rural museum collections, by virtue of the role it plays or it should, ideally, play within the rural community. There are many cases though, when rural museums, and in particular the museum collections housed by the village cultural centers, suffer from gradual degradation due to their poor organization and storage conditions (see, for example, the museums in the villages Moţăieni and Văcăreşti). The private/author museums, the museum in Pietroşiţa, curated by the National Museum Complex “Royal Court” Targoviste and placed in the custody of the Romanian Literature Museum (Moroieni) and a collection of Nucet Monastery appear to be in a better condition in terms of storage and object exposure (free of moisture, mold and other degrading exogenous factors).

Table 1. Types and distribution of museum collections across rural settlements in the county Dâmbovița included in the survey Nr.

Type of communal museum collection

1

Private and “author” museums

2

Initiatives to set up a village museum collection

3

Monastic museums

4

5

6

7

Rural settlements in Damboviţa Cârlănești Village, Vârfuri Commune; Petrești Village, Petrești Commune.

Vișinești Village, Vișinești Commune.

Nucet Monastery, Nucet Commune Communal museums/ Bezdead, Pietroșița, museum points/ Moroieni, Runcu, Valea museum corners Lungă, Lucieni, Vișina Văcărești Village, Văcărești Closed communal Commune; museums Moțăieni Village, Moțăieni Commune Villages with no Iedera, Buciumeni, Dobra, museum initiative, Băleni, Răscăieți, Şelaru, operational Mătăsaru, Dragodana, museums or closed Mogoșani, Gura Şuții, museums Produlești, Uliești and Perșinari.

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

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Most of the village museums identified during the research were set up through the efforts of a few resource-persons at the local level, with the support of the inhabitants and, sometimes, of the local governments as well, with the latter providing the space for the exposure of museum collections, most often on the premises of the community cultural centers. The museums in question are mainly ethnographic and

their collections consist of household and domestic industry tools, such as looms and homespun, distillers, traditional shirts, quilts, fabrics, towels, traditional folk costumes and old pictures (with variations depending on the locality and the local specifics). Differences were identified in the case of specialized museums – the Nucet Monastery Museum and the Memorial 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 of the museum has managed to collect an array of traditional costumes and weaving tools from all around the country.

Figure 1. Exhibits from the “Parents’ Home – The Altar”, comuna Vârfuri (research by Trend Ethnography, 2014)

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)

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Collections points and museum corners

Figure 3. Interior from the Museum of Folk Art and Traditional Crafts, Valea Lungă Cricov (field research Trend Ethnography, 2015)

Figure 5. Exhibits from the Village Museum in Lucieni (field research Trend Ethnography, 2015)

Figure 4. Exhibits from the museum in Vișina commune (field research 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 (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.

Figure 6. A Loom at the village museum in Runcu (field research Trend Ethnography, 2014)

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“The heart and soul of the association is Mrs. N. (...), who married in the city of Oradea and who, as a retiree, came to live here, in Runcu. She loves

Figure 7. The building of the Ethnographic Museum “Prof. Dumitru Ulieru”, Pietroșița (field research by Trend Ethnography, 2014)

folk costumes, in general, and the traditional costumes from this part of the country, Muntenia.

At her proposal, we started to collect old traditional objects from the villagers, and mostly from the old women of the village, because young people do no longer care for this sort of things (...) We have managed to gather together a lot of objects: a loom, peasant’s costumes (woman’s and man’s outfits), baby swings, towels, traditional kitchenware etc.” (Museum curator, interviewed in December 2014).

Unlike the museum collections in Lucieni, Vişina, Runcu and Valea Lungă, which have a relatively recent history, the Ethnographic Museum “Prof. Dumitru Ulieru”, in Pietroşiţa, was inaugurated in 1973, being located in a 2-story historic building dating back in the nineteenth century, through the efforts of the later teacher Dumitru Ulieru and his students. Later, the museum was closed and then reopened in 1997, being currently curated by the National Museum Complex “The Royal Court” in Targoviste:

Figure 8. Interior from the Ethnographic Museum “Prof. Dumitru Ulieru”, Pietroșița (field research Trend Ethnography, 2014)

“Yes, all [exhibits] come from this area. Almost all of them were collected by the late village teacher, and only a few are more recent additions, brought from the museum in Targoviste (...) These, here, were discovered by myself, a couple years ago (...). Most exhibits were bought from villagers, as I used to go round and about the village, looking for museum objects, and, you know, people liked the idea of making a few bucks from selling old things.

Occasionally, they would donate them, as, for example, these curtains, here, that were given to me by a woman in the village.” (Museum curator in Pietroşiţa, interviewed in December 2015) The museum’s collection, containing over 800 items, is almost entirely devoted to the region-specific folk arts, crafts and trades: wood and stone processing, animal husbandry, orchards growing and especially weaving (towels, rugs, pieces of folk costumes), Pietroşiţa being famous for carpet weaving.8

Public museums closed The museums in two of the villages included in the analysis - Moţăieni and Văcăreşti – were closed for reasons beyond the will and control of the museum initiators or museum curators. In the case of the village museum in Moţăieni, due to the serious degradation of the community cultural center, the exhibits were kept in totally improper conditions.

8

“The museum’s ceiling has collapsed, so rain penetrates from all the building joints; the museum needs complete rehabilitation, and that takes time. (...) Hopefully, it will be rehabilitated eventually (...) We do not have an extraordinarily well arranged exposure space, and we would like to acquire, let’s say, a traditional folk costume, if I could only find a genuine one, we would preserve

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 are, all packed in one room.” (Museum curator, Motainei, December 2014) The Museum “Traditions and Customs in Văcăreşti Village” was inaugurated in 2007. The objects on display, collected by the museum’s founder or donated by residents of the area, included folk costumes, a loom, old postcards, a dowry chest, homespun, gas lamps, an ox yoke, a fountain bucket, a churn, stove

Figure 11. Exhibits from the collection of the Museum “Traditions and Customs in Văcărești” (field research by Trend Ethnography, 2015)

cooking pots and pans and old land work tools. Shortly after its inauguration, the museum was closed, due to start of the rehabilitation works to the building of the community center. The exhibits were kept in place, so that some of them have started to deteriorate.

Virtual space: (Non) Digitization of village museum collections in Dâmbovița Across the rural areas included in the analysis, digitization of museum collections is more a question of the future, with no foundation in the real needs of the local museum initiatives. Judging in relation to the stages of moveable cultural heritage digitization, as described 68

in the beginning of this article, the village museums surveyed are somewhere between the stages nondigitization - incipient digitization – digitization (www) (Figure 2). Thus, the Museum “Parental Home – Altar”, in the village of Cârlăneşti, is the only museum in the

research, that has a presentation webpage9, containing a brief description of the exhibits, the museum history and images of the objects on display. Almost half of the museums analyzed are in the non-digitization stage.

Thus, given that the organization of these museum collections is closely dependent on a number of factors that often endanger their very existence, a discussion about digitization may seem superfluous at this point.

The worst conditions are those that are affecting the very integrity of museum collections: the poor state of the premises that host the collections, namely the buildings of the community cultural centers, which are closed for renovation purposes, and the storage of exhibits in damp places, exposed to mold, rodents and other pests (as in the case of the collections in Moţăieni and Văcăreşti). The other museums investigated (Figure 2) are in the incipient stage of digitization, meaning that museum data is entered in databases such as the CIMEC Museum Guide (in the form of summary information

NON-DIGITIZATION: • Museum “Folk Costumes and Weaving Tools”, Petrești (private museum) • Museum point, Vișina • Runcu Museum • Moțăieni Museum (closed) • Museum “Traditions and Customs in Văcărești (closed) •

The next damaging factors that threaten the integrity of the village museum collections are the repeated relocation of the exhibition space, following renovation works carried out on the buildings of the community centers housing the collections. The human factor is also one of the weak links: despite the enthusiasm and determination manifested by the museum initiators, their initiatives will eventually be compromised, in the absence of local and county (logistical, financial and material) support. The passion and enthusiasm of the museum initiators and/or of the museum curators are an essential, yet insufficient condition for the sustainable and proper management of a rural museum collection.

INCIPIENT DIGITIZATION

(data entered in CIMEC database or brief descriptions hosted by other webpages): • Nucet Monastery Museum • Museum “Traditional Arts and Crafts” Valea Lungă Cricov • Ethnographic museum “People, Places and Traditions”, Lucieni • Memorial House Alexandru Ciorănescu, Moroieni • Ethnographic Museum “Prof. Dumitru Ulieru”, Pietroșița • Museum point, Bezdead

The museum in Văcăreşti is a living proof of this state of facts: in spite of the efforts made for years on end by the museum initiators and supporters with collecting and acquiring a significant number of ethnographic objects, and in spite also of its well-organized exhibition, the museum was closed. At the time of our field research, the museum exhibits were in an advanced process of decay. Limited financial resources and the inability to setup and manage a village museum exhibition are two more factors to be considered with priority when it comes to discussing the role and need for movable heritage digitization. If the current state of affairs continues as it is in the medium and long run, digitizing the rural moveable heritage might never be considered a far-fetched issue.

9

and images of exhibits) and that they have a dedicated static webpage, describing the museum’s collections (basically, providing information about the museum’s history, types of exhibits, images and contact details).

WWW DIGITIZATION STAGE: • The museum „Parental House – The Altar”, sat Cârlănești, Vârfuri commune (private/ author museum)

Seen from a different perspective, digitization may be a good opportunity to revitalize and support, at least in the medium term, the village museum collections. Their inclusion in the digitizing process may raise concern about the conservation of museum exhibits and revive the interest of the villagers in cultural initiatives. Accession of the village museum collections at least to the www stage of digitization (creation of websites, containing complete information on exhibits, images etc.) can give impetus to promoting the collections locally and, ideally, regionally. Nevertheless, the success of such an approach requires a complementary approach, which sees heritage digitizing as a useful tool within a coherent local development strategy encompassing the cultural sector as well.

Accessed on November 4 2016: http://www.muzeulcasaparinteasca.sitiwebs.com

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References 1. Complexul Național Muzeal Curtea Domnească.

Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://www. muzee-dambovitene.ro/ 2. Creștin Ortodox: Mănăstirea Nucet. Accessed on November 5, 2016: http://www.crestinortodox. ro/manastiri/manastirea-nucet-117481.html 3. Biblioteca Națională a României. 2007. Studiu de fezabilitate privind digitizarea, prezervarea digitală și accesibilitatea online a resurselor bibliotecilor, București. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http:// www.bibnat.ro/dyn-doc/Studiu%20Fezabilitate/ Studiu-de-fezabilitate-digitizare.pdf 4. Floarea, Bianca (coord.) 2015. Cultura deschisă: context european și național. București: Rapoartele Societățtii Deschise. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://www.fundatia.ro/ cultura-deschisă-context-european-și-național-0 5. Legea muzeelor și colecțiilor publice nr. 311 din 8 iulie 2003, Publicată în Monitorul Oficial, Partea I nr. 528 din 23 iulie 2003. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://www.cimec.ro/muzee/lege/index. htm 6. Marinescu, Angelica Helena, „Digitizarea patrimoniului muzeal. Colecțiile online ale Muzeului Național de Artă al României”, în Revista muzeelor Nr. 1/2015, pp. 17-25. Accessed on November 5, 2016: http://www.culturadata. ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/RevistaMuzeelor-2015.pdf 7. Marty, P. F., 2008. Museum websites and museum visitors: digital museum resources and their use.

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8. Mihalache, Carmen (coord.) 2008. Robii frumosului.

Muzee și colecții sătești din România. București: Martor. Accessed on November 5, 2016: http://www. cimec.ro/Colectii-Muzeale/pdf/Robii-frumosuluiMuzee-si-colectii-satesti-din-Romania.pdf 9. Ministerul Culturii și Cultelor. Plan de acțiuni.

Varianta 2: Asigurarea unui cadru unic și unitar în domeniul digitizării resurselor culturale naționale și creării Bibliotecii Digitale a României – Instituirea unui program multianual, pe o perioadă de 7 ani.

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-pentruromania-20202c-20-feb.2015.pdf 12. Muzee și colecții din România, ghid CIMEC. Data Base accessed on November 4, 2016: http:// ghidulmuzeelor.cimec.ro 70

13. Muzeul sătesc „Casa Părintească – Altarul”, sat Cârlănești, comuna Vârfuri. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://www.muzeulcasaparinteasca. sitiwebs.com 14. Negru, Natalia (coord.) 2014. Studiul zonei Grupul de Acțiune Locală Dealurile Sultanului. Istorie, tradiții și scenarii de dezvoltare socio-economică.

București: Coresi.

15. Oberlander-Târnoveanu, Irina. 2005. „Identitatea culturală și patrimoniul digital: proiecte, rețele și portaluri”, în Cibinium 2001-2005. Identitate culturală și globalizare în secolul XX. Cercetare și reprezentare muzeală. Sibiu: Astra-Museum, pp.

41-48. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http:// www.cimec.ro/Muzee/Oberlander-Identitateaculturala/Oberlander-Identitatea-culturala-sipatrimoniul-digital.pdf 16. Proiectul TOMIS. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://tomis.cerva.ro 17. Schweibenz, W., 1998, November. The “Virtual Museum”: New Perspectives For Museums to Present Objects and Information Using the Internet as a Knowledge Base and Communication System. In ISI (pp. 185-200).

18. Trend Ethnography. 2015. Raport de cercetare Patrimoniu cultural, produse locale din zona GAL Bucegi-Leaota și scenarii de dezvoltare locală.

Disponibil online la: http://bucegileaota.ro/ subpagini/51-studiul-zonei-grupului-de-acțiunelocală-bucegi-leaota.html 19. Platforma Conect Cultura. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://www.conectcultura.org 20. ProTV. Vom avea Bibliotecă Digitală peste 12.000 de ani. Modul absurd în care marile cărți ale culturii române ajung pe net. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://stirileprotv.ro/special/ in-12-000-de-ani-vom-avea-biblioteca-digitalacultura-romana-nu-se-grabeste-sa-treaca-peonline.html 21. Ziarul Lumina. Centenarul Alexandru Ciorănescu.

13 noiembrie 2011. Accessed on November 4, 2016: http://ziarullumina.ro/cultura/centenaralexandru-cioranescu

Natalia Negru, researcher, Trend Ethnography (Bucharest).

E-mail: natalia@trendethnography.eu

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, PhD, National Institute for Cultural Research and Training “The National Museum of the Romanian Literature: Between Normality and Abnormality”, Ioan Cristescu, PhD, National Museum of the Romanian Literature “Museum as a Cultural Product: From Interest to Retention”, Coralia Costaș, PhD, Moldova National Museum Complex, Iași “Museums and the Community”, Valer Rus, PhD “Casa Mureșenilor” Brașov “The Fair – New Approaches and Perspectives in Museum Education”, Raluca Ioana Andrei and Ovidiu Baron, PhD ASTRA National Museum Complex Sibiu

“The Profile of the Current Visitor at Peleș National Museum”, Daniela Voitescu, Peleș National Museum “The New NMRH (National Museum of Romanian History)”, Iulia Stanciu and Florian Stanciu, STARH – architecture studio “Children@the museum”, Alexandra Zbuchea, Faculty of Management, National School of Political Science and Public Administration “Theatre at the Museum”, Raluca Băceanu, Faculty of Administration and Business, University of Bucharest “Alternative Audiences and Spaces”, Horia Iova, Bucharest City Museum

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The second day The presentation of the exhibition “The Museum of Ages – the Story of Each of Us, from Childhood to Old Age”, Adrian Majuru, PhD, Bucharest City Museum The Cultural Marketing Conference 2016 was organised under the careful coordination of a Scientific Board composed of: Carmen Croitoru, PhD, Ec. Oana Duca (National Institute for Cultural

Research and Training), Alexandra Zbuchea, PhD (National School of Political Science and Public Administration), Adrian Majuru, PhD and Angelica Iacob (Bucharest Metropolitan Museum). The organising committee of the event was composed of: Angelica Iacob, Dan Pîrvulescu, PhD and Horia Iova (Bucharest Metropolitan Museum).

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

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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 “onestop” 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

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W.J. Stanton – Fundamentals of marketing – fourth edition, Mc Graw – Hill Book Co., New York 1975 (p.14)

needs to be formulated, cultivated and even created, in the case of certain types of cultural consumer goods.

Culture manifests its role as a shaper of the social conscience of the individuals, while at the same time it produces organizational and hierarchy rules within the society it represents. This feature determines the borrowing of marketing techniques and methods from the social sphere, taking into account the aesthetic rules specific to each type of cultural activity.

The most famous definition of marketing is that given

by Philipp Kotler, according to whom “Marketing is a human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes.”2 In her paper The Basics of Marketing3, Sica Stanciu distinguishes between two types of definitions, that are normally used by Romanian theorists like, for example, C. Florescu and I. Popa4: The first type refers to the classical or traditional definitions, having a limited scope, according to which marketing means the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer. According to this definition, the primary concern of marketing is to sell and distribute goods and services. In other words, the overriding marketing principle is: “Sell what you produce”.

The second type of definitions are more up-to-date and explain marketing as a complex social and business process, focused on consumer behavior, whose guiding principle is: “Produce only what you can sell.”

However, none of these definitions refers to those cultural goods that are consumed/purchased/visited mostly for the intangible value associated with a set of features that are difficult to quantify in economic terms.

Apparently, the classical marketing mix - the four “Ps” – does not work in the case of cultural marketing; cultural marketing does not seek to valorize goods/ services, but to attract an as wide an audience as 2 3 4

possible. This objective is coupled with the principle of cultural policies, according to which the value of a cultural asset increases proportionate with the number of consumers.

If we look at all the elements of the marketing mix, we can see that cultural marketing behaves quite differently, if we judge by the classical marketing theories: The product – the discussions about the cultural product start with the identification of the cultural goods, which are extremely varied in their forms of manifestation (tangible and/or intangible), but which originate from an act of creation, a cultural asset or a work of art. A work of art is not normally created on demand, nor is it a service generated by a social need; an artwork is rather the expression of an individual creative response (of a more or less social nature).

Simply put, we can say that the work of art becomes a cultural asset after it has acquired validation (not necessarily an axiological validation) and it becomes a cultural product only after it has been made known to the public.

Price – price is never fair in relation to its material value or to the sum of cost items incorporated in the pricing. Depending on the nature of the cultural product, price may vary to such a large extent that, often, it cannot be completely identified or associated with the number of products it refers to. The demonstration would be no less absurd, if we take into account a combination between a cultural product and a service the price of which is not only impossible to cover entirely and directly by consumers, but it is also unreasonable in relation to the effect of consumption. A few clarifications are required here about the impact generated by the cultural products, which is extremely delayed compared to the time of distribution of the products, and whose only consequences are the establishment of a consumption habit. Regarding the success of the cultural product, things are even more complicated because, even in the case of a collective consumption in dedicated places, the reception and decryption of the cultural messages is a personal process, based on one’s own knowledge, emotions, codes and aesthetic preferences.

Philipp Kotler - Principles of Marketing – Third Edition, Prentince – Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1986 (p.4).

Sica Stanciu - Bazele generale ale marketingului - http://www.unibuc.ro/eBooks/StiinteADM/sica/index.htm C. Florescu (coord.) – Marketing, Marketer, Bucharest. 1992 p.18-20; I. Popa – Tranzacţii internaţionale, Recif Publishing Bucharest, (p.133-134).

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Thirdly, the distribution channels do not always work by the well-established recipes, insofar as a cultural market may exist or not, depending on the type of product discussed; yet, most often than not, this market will not react to values, but to trends, and a direct relationship between price and popularity cannot be established.

Therefore, the only “P” of the 4Ps that functions within the established parameters is “Promotion”, seen as a tool that cultural marketing may use along with other instruments from its own arsenal. Unfortunately, when it comes to culture, promotion initiatives are often inconsistent, weak, unfocussed and confused, especially when they mimic indiscriminately the aggressive commercial promotion techniques.

Therefore, cultural marketing should take into account of these fundamental differences, and so should the public cultural institutions, which are required to change completely their strategic approach and become aware not only of the specificity of the cultural products they supply, but also of the specifics of cultural consumption.

The issue dealing with the cultural product/cultural service divide has not been seriously dealt with by public cultural institutions. The reasons for this state of affairs are various and practice has already identified considerable gaps in the theoretical approach to the peculiarities of cultural management and marketing, judging in particular from the perspective of the publicly financed cultural initiatives.

To a considerable extent, cultural marketing is very much like social marketing,5 a concept introduced in theory Ph. G. Kotler and Zaltman since 1971.

Social marketing uses market segmentation and market research, highlighting the concepts of communication, facilities, stimuli and trade theory, to get maximum response from target groups, being, from this standpoint, very close to what the marketing of cultural products could and should do.

To culture, it is important to study the dynamics of consumption, and in particular the behaviour of cultural consumers and their preferences, expectations and the messages they respond to, as well as the whole set of habits associated with this kind of consumption.

5

It seems that the most serious problems when it comes to marketing are the ones that we are not actually aware of and are usually dealing with the consumer’s behavior, expectations and taste, which are never fully identified and analyzed. Likewise, there are insufficient studies on the supply of cultural products, the messages and aesthetic functions they generate and their adequacy to the needs of the contemporary consumers, given the common trend of resorting to indistinct segmentations and to a sort of laxity of our aesthetic requirements, driven by the widespread idea that a simpler product is necessarily more accessible.

Unfortunately, it seems that it is precisely this kind of attitude that widens the gap between consumers’ demand and expectations and the quality of the cultural products they are presented with. The result, as already identified by the qualitative analyzes of cultural consumption, is a decrease in the quality of the audiences, armed as they are with symbolic decoding tools, a decrease that is not necessarily compensated by the growing number of newcomers joining the community of the ordinary consumers of culture. It is not very clear whether their choice is a conscious or an experimental one or whether it is barely the effect of poor management and marketing practices, applied in the absence of solid theoretical knowledge.

In any case, the main purpose of the cultural marketing is to attract consumers, a fact that should by its nature generate significant interest in acquiring authority and management powers. Unfortunately, the empirical marketing practices and the confusing theories as to why culture should or should not be financed from the public money will not help; quite the contrary, they will only make matters worse.

Perhaps one solution could be a return to research as the key function based on which any decent organization should start constructing its business development strategies. A research that shows not only the quantitative effects of the public culture, but also what mechanisms are activated in the process of cultural consumption.

We will probably eventually be forced to recognize that not everyone is a consumer of culture and

Philip Kotler and G. Zaltman - Social marketing, an approach to planned social change - Journal of Marketing, July, 1971

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to recall a statement by Derrick Chong, in “Arts Management”: “Merely offering the public what it wants is an abdication from responsibility. Arts organizations should be in the business of helping to shape taste [..].”

From this perspective, one of the most important roles of cultural marketing is to grow, educate and build new audiences, because education is a more powerful facilitator of access to art and culture than individual income. In the process, we will probably be forced to accept that the contemporary members of the general public do no longer perceive art consumption as a cultural duty linked to their social status, but as the manifestation of their pleasure to decipher the meaning of their own existence.

I have not intended to encompass in this article all the issues dealing with cultural marketing that public institutions are called for to consider, because I believe that this topic requires a much deeper analysis and more revealing examples. I will nevertheless list some of the questions that should capture our attention and on which we will have to ponder in the near future: • What is the level of visual or musical literacy a public or a private artistic organization should seek to infuse its audience?

• Can marketing be an “in-house” activity, carried out using the resources and the specialists of the cultural organization/institution?

• What kind of research would be more appropriate?

• Should surveys be conducted on the public upon their entering or upon their leaving the building?

• Quantitative or qualitative measurements?

• Who exactly is the “competitor” in cultural marketing?

• Does cultural marketing have a financial purpose?

• What are the most effective methods applicable in cultural marketing? And the most effective marketing tools and techniques?

• Quantitative promotion?

• Excessive promotion on any channel?

• PR? • Commercials?

• TV spots?

• OOH? In closing, I only wish to propose further investigations on what Cultural Marketing should actually be to public cultural institutions and to remind one golden management and marketing rule: “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”

Carmen Croitoru, PhD Manager NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING carmen.croitoru@culturadata.ro

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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 generations – besides our genetic card, we carry a cultural card that is as powerful and long-lasting as the former, with the latter being often capable to influence the former.

Everything that happens in our life, from childhood to adulthood, matters for how we will be like when we grow old: our lifestyle (eating, working, resting habits etc.), our philosophy and each and every instance of our behavior, all contribute to the quality of our life as old or even very old people (albeit the genetic premises, the so called “potential longevity”.) Everything that we feel and experience when we are young is revealing for our youth as a state of mind we are not always well aware of. Everything we do when we are young is a sign of our normality. Young people are not, as I said, fully aware of their youth and worth; as such, they not ignore that precious thing called youth, with its infuse of strength, courage, permanent zest and inexhaustible energy, but they are sometimes even wasting all of these precious assets unwittingly.

In contrast, everything an old man feels is a kind of telltale of his aging. An old man is constantly well aware of his old age. Actually, an old man never stops feeling old. As such, the signals the elderly receives about his condition as an old individual forces him to acknowledge his age and to restrict his efforts to his limited capacity and thus refrain from any risky

endeavor. For an old person, the awareness about his or her age is maintained not only by the signals sent out by his or her body. The other people around him or her are also behaving in way that constantly maintains the old individual’s awareness about his or her old age.

But things have happened and will continue to happen this way for ever. And they cannot possibly happen in any other way, simply because this is how life stages unfold, each age having its specific condition. It would therefore be totally unnatural for a young man to be skimpy with the treasure he possesses, that is his youth, thinking that he will frolic when he is old. Young people simply do not think about their old age, as if they were never ever going to grow old. And that for the simple reason that we live and are aware of only the life stage we are in at a given moment in time, despite the fact that we are collecting in our “personal museum” the cultural extensions coming from the older generations.

Nevertheless, understanding one’s life stage in relation to similar life stages other generations have lived through in the past is not only possible, but necessary.

“The Museum of Life Stages – From Childhood to Old Age” is as much a story about privacy as it is about the evolution of the relations amongst generations over the past three centuries in the Romanian urban environment, with Bucharest standing for a case study.

A story about how a day in our life would have looked like from the eighteenth century and up to the present.

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Image 3. Interior reconstruction (nineteenth century)

The Bucharest Municipal Museum has proposed a theme and has chosen a title for the permanent exhibition in the Cesianu-Filipescu House, based, inter alia, on a questionnaire designed to assess if and to what extent the Bucharest inhabitants are interested in having a museum of urban anthropology established in their city. The questionnaire has revealed that the public at large shows a strong interest in such a museum.

Thus, the Museum of Life Stages could be the first museum of urban anthropology, organized not on the classical principle of chronology, as most museum displays are designed today, but on intersecting chronologies, where history becomes an accessory, and not a singular scientific foundation.

The proposed exhibition theme for the Cesianu Museum is the History of Family and Private Life.

We, humans, have essentially remained the same for hundreds of thousands of years, yet the ever changing cultural and socio-professional environment and the technological developments have modified not only our body (weight, height, look, various diseases), but also our mentality, behavior, skills etc.

Image 4. Interior reconstruction (nineteenth century)

internal modeling factors (the intimacy of their family and entourage).

Second objective: to help adolescents and young people understand their age through understanding similar life stages as the older generations have lived through in the past, and in particular to develop their ability to cope with the next stages in their life, as the case may be (adolescence, adulthood, old age), in close relation with social exigencies, professional projects and moral modeling.

Third objective: how can we build a life project based on similar models, whose path has already been travelled by past generations? The success of one’s life project – which is simply the balance between one’s career and private life – will always depend on the adaptation tools one builds on one’s own in order to stay on top and keep abreast with technological advancements, on the one hand, while also bringing something new and adding value to one’s profession, thereby making one’s life more comfortable for the years to come.

Adrian Majuru, PhD The Bucharest Municipality Museum adimajuru@gmail.com

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 of society and professionalisation), as well as to some 80

Image 5.

Cesianu House

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 master - apprentice - fair - public

the representative of a whole socio-economic category, of an ethnic category and so on. The craftsman was therefore an entity wearing different masks, and, in fact, the traditional folk mask was one of the “exhibits” put on display during events of that kind and many were sold as a commodity.

In the first decades of existence of ASTRA Association, its leaders organized or participated in exhibitions where the emphasis was placed on the representation of the Romanian ethnicity, whose main identity symbols were the folk costume and the traditional handicrafts. The Romanian folk costumes were shown on puppets or “live”, worn by representatives of the various divisions of the Association. Thus, identity-related values were transferred from the communities of origin towards the exhibitions, which were real fairs were exchanges of all kinds were inevitable, simply by participating. Over time, fairs have retained this ethnographic exhibition dimension, turning into veritable outdoor exhibitions, with stands that revived, by old and modern methods, the traditional identity traits and values of the Romanian people, exploiting some of the most ingenious exposure methods.

For open-air museums in particular fairs were places of exposure, (re) activation of traditions and of (re) habitation of the village (a synthesis village, such as the ASTRA Museum). A live museum lives through its ad hoc inhabitants, through its employees or volunteers acting as hosts, through the authentic atmosphere created by the exhibits, as well as through the live village events it recreates. Craftsmen were and will be amongst the ephemeral inhabitants of ethnographic museums, animating the village household replicas by cultural manifestations and many other specific events.

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Image 3. Neusauser Franz - Annual Fair in Sibiu.

National Museum Brukenthal

Being very attractive, fairs have also acted as an effective tool for attracting and training the audience, including museum visitors. The close relationship between the craftsman and the traditional craft workshop and/ or rural households exposed by the museum and the permanent linking of the collection items to the items on the craftsmen’s workshops have helped the public understand not only the how old folk traditions and customs circulate in different communities, but also how certain objects have acquired a higher degree of representativeness than others, turning into heritage goods. The open nature of the fair and the ability of an event of this kind to attract and educate the public, to expose genuine as well as, inevitably, “trendy” objects, coupled with the direct contact with artisan, are only a few of the many strengths owing to which the fair continues to rank amongst the most popular outdoor events organized by museums.

Fairs have evolved with the world. Of course, fairs had to keep abreast with all the “fopperies” of fashion, if they wanted their goods to be sought after. The research conducted at fairs across the country has revealed the fair’s tendency to update, refocus and reinterpret traditional values. Even the best organized folk fairs will inevitably expose objects which, though presented as authentic or traditional, are partly or completely fake.

Circulation of traditional themes and patterns from a local community to another should be seen now from a global or globalizing perspective. Values ​​circulate much faster than in the past and their combination is seen either as a proof of a higher (re) interpretation ability, as an artistic rendition of the reality, or simply as kitsch. Fake objects may include from pottery made in other countries and glazed in Romania, to items of

“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 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 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 illustrated in the paintings of Neuhauser, documents about the evolution of traditional fairs over time, seen in relation to today’s active fairs, whose potential as heritage values are shown in the form of an exhibition, organized on the basis of a more than two-century old model, using devices and installations that replicate the tree-of-life symbolism, while making inexhaustible connections between craftsmen’s workshops, objects, traditional motifs and authentic (or fake) values, as a reflection, obviously, of the contemporary fairs. The core human value remains, of course, the craftsman, each visitor being invariably directed towards the handiworks of the most talented artisans.

One of the ideas of the team who worked on this exhibition was to present the genuine traditions and values in contrast with the confusion and the mixed values ​​that are typical of most of the today’s fairs. The vision of the curator Ovidiu

Image 4. Folk artists’s fair

Image 5. Folk artists’s fair

Image 6. Potters fair, Sibiu 2015

Daneş was intentionally shocking, by the way the genuine cultural heritage goods were exposed amid kitsch items from contemporary fairs, all “dumped” to form an art installation in the form of a swirl of values. Seen as an open-end project, the ASTRA Museum’s exhibition plans to show as many heritage objects as possible, by regularly changing the exhibits, within a historically and socio-culturally relevant contextualization, and by a constant reference to the kitschy contemporary massproduced art and to contemporary social phenomena, thus giving the public the chance to decipher them using a new key code.

Ovidiu Baron Deputy General Manager The “ASTRA” National Museum Complex ovidiu.baron@muzeulastra.com 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 work via radio/TV channels (interviews) or print media (e.g. newspaper ads, presentations etc.).

Also, when asked about the main fairs where they sell their items, the craftsmen indicated as their preferred marketplace the fairs organized by museums, followed by fairs and events organized by other institutions. So, the museum represents to them the main promotion and marketing channel, a fact also sustained by their answers to the question regarding the entities with which they believe they should cooperate, so as to better promote their craft and products. Thus, over 73% of the craftsmen interviewed said the museum was to a very large extent their main collaborator, 26.7% indicated

to a very large extent the educational institutions as their preferred collaborators, another 26.7% mentioned the nongovernmental organizations and the community, and 24.4%, the local administration; Culture Preservation and Promotion Centers, as the institutions dealing directly with keeping track of and supporting the artisans, were mentioned to a very large extent by 33, 3% of the craftsmen who responded to the interview as the collaborators of their choice.

For more than half of the artisans, their craft is their main income source and, as such, they practice it on a daily basis.

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 their living. This can be seen in the chart below, which shows the extent to which participation to fairs helps

artisans to sell their products, pass on their skill, meet and socialize with other craftsmen and share information about their work.

Chart 2. Main reasons why craftsmen participate to fairs a heavily extent

information exchange

to some extent

friendly relations binding

or in large or small extent

meeting other craftsmen

to a lesser extent

craft transmission

selling products

a very small extent

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Moreover, craftsmen pointed out the educational impact of their participating to fairs, with 28.9% of them indicating as their main reason for taking part in this kind of events the opportunity they have with such occasions to show the interested members of the public how to practice old crafts. Their audience consists, in this order, of adults, family groups and organized groups of visitors. The audience that is least interested to interact with the artisans at their live craft demonstrations are the young people, as the artisans declared. It is important to note that craftsmen believe that their trade will continue to resist in time, though it will see some sort of adaptations, in the light of the future tendencies and the changes the society is expected to go through (Globalization – data circulation, the changing nature of learning and knowledge, new acquisition methods, wide cultural diversity and cooperation; Localization – learning behavior values and rules applicable to the local context, development and assertion of the local values, support for community development and development of traditional culture; Individualization) (The International Forum on Quality Education for the 21st Century, Beijing, China, 15-21 June 2001) . Only 17.8% of the craftsmen surveyed believe that their craft will disappear in time, an idea expressed mostly by the craftsmen engaged in weaving, making musical

instruments, leather processing, bulrush processing and by the makers of traditional folk masks. Among the reasons for their concern they indicated: the long time it takes to make the kind of products they manufacture, the loss of public interest in the old folk customs that imply the use of their handicrafts and the wide availability of the market of mass-produced artisan items, which are less cost- and time-intensive compared to their products.

Museums’ involvement in the promotion of traditional crafts and craftsmen can also attract tourists, owing to both their heritage and to their programs, thus contributing the economic growth of the community the museums belong to and boosting cultural tourism. The Network of European Museum Organizations (Gutsche, Hoschler Kendall Pagel, 2015: p. 48) believes that creativity and innovation are fundamental dimensions of human activity and are essential to economic prosperity. Museums are the institutions which, by implementing projects based on innovation and creativity, will be able to build and retain audiences, thereby improving the quality of life and asserting the identity of the Romanian cultural heritage on a global scale.

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 raluca.andrei@muzeulastra.com 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, in an 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

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Although initially regarded with suspicion, the relation between marketing and culture has proven over time to be a viable one, involving coordination among several policy areas and a large number of actors across the community, all for the benefit of the latter, as a happy society is one where administration, economy, education, culture and tourism work together so that every offer may be appreciated by the target beneficiaries at its fair value. As its very name indicates, cultural marketing consists of the application of specific marketing techniques, more specifically of the rules of the real free market, to culture in general and to cultural products in particular.2 The definition of the cultural product comprises a wide range of examples, from a book, a CD / DVD, a wooden spoon or a picture to a theater or opera performance, a concert, a festival, an exhibition or even a museum, which in economical terms fall into two main categories: goods and services.

Considering the idea expressed by UNESCO (Objective 3 (12), The Stockholm Conference, 30 March-2 April 1998) according to which “cultural goods and services should be fully recognized and treated as being not like other forms of merchandise”, we may say that cultural goods contribute to the existence and functioning of the so-called “social goods”, such as social cohesion and national identity. In economic terms, the consumption of domestic cultural products generates important and heretofore unrecognized externalities (benefits or costs imposed on third parties). There are at least four types of such spillovers caused by one person’s consumption of a domestic cultural product: 1. Network externality - part of the value of consuming a cultural product is sharing the experience with others (friends, family); one more consumer raises the number of people among whom the experience is shared. 2. Crossproduct externalities - consumption of one domestic cultural product (e.g., visiting a heritage site) raises the value of the consumption of other domestic cultural products (e.g., reading a historical novel set at that site). 3. Commercial externalities – occur when the consumption of a cultural product raises the commercial viability of industries associated with that domestic cultural production. 4. Intergenerational externalities – supporting today’s production contributes to the 2 3 4

dense and diversified cultural base necessary for future domestic cultural production.3 Obviously, the approach and application of the concept of cultural marketing varies by the type of cultural product placed on the market. A specific element of cultural marketing is that a cultural product is not always marketed in response to market demand, but it requires a reverse approach whereby the cultural product is adapted to certain market needs. This happens in the case of museums, which are created primarily for the purpose of preserving cultural goods which, unless they are kept in good storage conditions, degrade very quickly and disintegrate due to ignorance or other reasons, which of course would make it impossible to pass on the cultural heritage to the future generations. In the last decades, museums have changed their attitude. They have come to understand that their primary role is to serve the community, for which reason they have to identify community needs first and then provide solutions to meet those needs - in other words, museums have reoriented their attitude towards, on the one hand, catering for the interest of the society, and, on the other hand, towards making the society responsible for the shaping of its own future.

Cultural marketing strategies pursue the same objectives as any other marketing approaches, namely that of attracting and retaining customers.

As with any product, it is necessary to fix a price, to promote the product and to satisfy the customers.

This nevertheless means that you should know what the expectations and needs of the public are.

“Culture is not a necessity for the consumer, it is a pleasure”, warns us Emilie Moronvalle. Therefore, cultural products are generally not accessible to everyone, because they usually involve spending money and time. For example, even when the visit to an exhibition is free of charge, not everyone is willing to go and spend time seeing it. In other words, cultural marketing has to find the audience that is interested in the cultural product offered and, if necessary, to adapt the offer to the needs of that audience.4

Emilie Moronvalle, „Marketing culturel: deux concepts qui s’opposent?”, disponibil pe http://www.expertinbox.com/marketing-culturel/ 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/CH4-1502010-eng.pdf Emilie Moronvalle loc.cit.

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Cultural products differ from consumer goods by the way they are designed and made. As opposed to standardized products that are uniformly manufactured in large volumes, they are characterized by experimentation, uniqueness and diversity, though, like any other product, they follow a productiondistribution cycle.5 In the case of the museum institution, it is absolutely obvious that there will never be two identical collections, and much less two identical exhibitions, whatever their field and their theme, or two identical conferences or museum education workshops, for that matter. Given the uniqueness or the rarity of the heritage objects that make up an exhibition and, of course, the original vision underlying the organization of the exhibition, displaying an object that is not, if taken individually, necessarily unique in its own right (as it happens with technical museums, for instance) within the logical sequence of the exhibition, will confer that object its cultural, making it stand out from the usual consumer goods. The uniqueness of the work has “important consequences on both the supply and the demand for cultural products: on the one hand, it creates economic, psychological and social risks for the producer and distributor, and, on the other hand, it generates uncertainty in the consumer’s choice.6 The latter is determined by the need for constant reference to standards, which characterizes the daily life of every individual, i.e. the need for certain functioning and reasoning patterns, in contrast with the cultural experience, which ignores any kind of established patterns.

Regarding the motivations behind cultural consumption, these may, to some extent, have a symbolic meaning, centered on oneself or on others. In the first case, cultural consumption is primarily an aesthetic emotion felt by the individual visiting an exhibition, participating to a workshop, a conference or a show; an experience where the individual appreciates the cultural product for itself and for the thrill it generates, and not for the utilitarian functions it could fulfill. In the second case, the cultural product may be a question of status and prestige, put on display in the form of conspicuous

5 6 7 8 9

consumption, as well as a question of one’s social relations.7 The place of cultural organizations in the community is also worth taking into account, because it is closely linked to the behavior in terms of cultural consumption of the society within which they operate. Cultural enterprises “are an important part of our society.

They reflect our cultural identity both by the content of the works they propose (value, purpose, subject, taboos), and by the forms they use (technology), the intensity of their presence (number of theaters in a city) and by the consumption patterns they involve (e.g., dancing can be an event to which everyone is involved or a show to watch).”8 In other words, any marketing strategy is based on the analysis of the external environment in particular, that will require or even dictate the internal adjustment.

After a timid and slow debut, though initially regarded with reluctance, particularly in Europe, applying the cultural marketing concept to cultural institutions, enterprises, projects and specific activities is no longer a novelty for anyone these days. It is now widely recognized that marketing plays a decisive role in the market success of a cultural product, around which true industries are being built. Expressions such as cultural industries, creative industries, entertainment industry, culture and leisure industries, cultural and media industries and culture and intelligence industries are being currently used, all of which are, in fact, “economic growth drivers” inspired by a cultural product or service.9 Given their positive economic impact, the role of cultural and creative industries has rapidly increased, causing their recognition by the highest fora, especially in terms of social cohesion and identity. Thus, Martin Schulz, EP President, stated in 2014, in the “Foreword” to a market study on creative industries conducted by Ernst & Young, that “Europe has a shared history and a richly diverse cultural heritage. This heritage is cherished by the people as a common value that gives our Union its identity and binds us together. […]the

Isabelle Assassi, „Spécificités du produit culturel. L’exemple du spectacle vivant”, Revue française de gestion 2003/1 (no 142), pp. 129, 131 Ibidem, p. 134 Ibid., pp. 135-136 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 Raluca-Nicoleta Radu, Manuela Preoteasa, Economia mass-media, Polirom, Iași, 2012

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creative and cultural industries account for 4.2% of the GDP of the Union, nearly 7 million jobs […].

Culture is therefore one of Europe’s great hopes..”10 Cultural heritage, which is found in various domains of the cultural and creative industries, plays an important role in enhancing social cohesion by creating a sense of belonging to the community, an idea stated in the Conclusions on cultural heritage as a strategic resource for a sustainable Europe, at the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council meeting Brussels, 20 May, 2014.

“5. Cultural heritage plays an important role in creating and enhancing social capital because it has the capacity to: a) inspire and foster citizens’ participation in public life; b) enhance the quality of life and the well-being of individuals and their communities; c) promote diversity and intercultural dialogue by contributing to a stronger sense of “belonging” to a wider community and a better understanding and respect between peoples; d) help to reduce social disparities, facilitate social inclusion, cultural and social participation and promote intergenerational dialogue and social cohesion; e) offer possibilities to develop skills, knowledge, creativity and innovation; f) be an effective educational tool for formal, nonformal and informal education, life-long learning and training.

6. Cultural heritage has an important economic impact, including as an integral part of the cultural and creative sectors, because, among other things, it: a) constitutes a powerful driving force of inclusive local and regional development and creates considerable externalities, in particular through the enhancement of sustainable cultural tourism; b) supports sustainable rural and urban development and regeneration as illustrated by initiatives by many European regions and cities; c) generates diverse types of employment.”11 According to the study conducted by Ernst & Young, published in 2014, total CCI revenues in the EU in 2012 amounted to 535.9 billion euros, with visual arts (museums inclusive) ranking first; the total number of CCI employees across the EU exceeded, in 2012, 7 10 11 12 13 14 15

million people, with the first three positions occupied, with rather small differences, by performing arts, visual arts and music. Compared with other sectors of the economy, cultural and creative industries ranked third in the European Union.12 Also, from another Ernst & Young study, published in 2015, we learn that in 2013 cultural and creative industries revenues in the EU stood at 709 billion dollars and the total number of CCI employees amounted to 7.7 million people.13 Also in 2013, as the 2014 Ernst & Young Study says, visiting a museum or a gallery ranked 5 out of 9 leisure options of the EU citizens, with the 4th place occupied (yet with a considerable percentage difference) by visiting a monument or a site.14 In terms of visitor’s motivation, the same study shows that, though museums account for only a small part of the overall visual arts turnover (6.1%) and employment (8.8%), they play a particularly important role in making art accessible to all. When questioned, visitors to several European museums told one study they seek entertainment and pleasure (28%), education and training (26%) and a gateway to history (17%).15 When speaking of motivation, we should also speak of the degree of visitors’ satisfaction in relation to their expectations and hence of the concept of loyalty (customer retention). The chart below was proposed

by Hermann Diller in his paper “Kundenbindung als Marketingziel”, published in 1996. We can see how, based on a survey on customer experience within a cultural institution (in our case, a museum), one can estimate the customer’s behavior in the future in relation to both himself and others.

Evelyne Lehalle defines loyalty as the art of building a sustainable relationship with the visitor and points out that loyalty may be: the solution in a highly competitive context (local, national, international), a political necessity (to demonstrate the utility of the institution to the financier ), an obligation to adapt training to the needs and expectations of the public, a visitor reception strategy, focused on the quality and image of the institution and based on a dual dialogue between the institution and the visitors and, respectively, amongst visitors, being conducive to creation of emotional ties with the

Creating Growth. Measuring Cultural and Creative Markets in the EU, EY, decembrie 2014, p. 5.

Available online at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/educ/142705.pdf Creating Growth..., op. cit., p. 10 EY Analysis of Cultural and Creative Markets, 2015 apud Cultural times. The first global map of cultural and creative industries, EY, decembrie 2015, p. 44 Creating Growth..., op. cit., p. 31 Ibidem, p. 82

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public, who will gladly return to live a pleasant experience again.

Some of the customer retention solutions recommended by Lehalle are: the starting point should be the “already loyal” customers (schools, associations etc.), that gladly return to the museum for new experiences, particularly in their sphere of interest; before they leave the museum, visitors should be asked “Would you like to come back another time?” “Would you want to be informed about our offers?” (thus obtaining contact details, that are very useful in disseminating information about the future 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 on social websites.16 Customer retention is at the core of the longterm success of the marketing program proposed

and implemented by any cultural institution. Not surprisingly, the communication of the customer retention initiatives determines the success of the projects undertaken by cultural organizations.

Without proper communication, the expected impact of customer retention programs across the community will be compromised. That is why knowledge about the expectations and wants of the public is essential when proposing customer retention programs that are adapted to the taste and interests of the target audience that is already convinced of the quality and usefulness of the cultural product they are offered.

Coralia Costaș, PhD “Moldova” National Museum Complex of Iasi coralia.costas@gmail.com

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

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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

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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

through the building of a modern and coherent visual identity for all the museums within the Bucharest Minicipality Museum structure (see Figure 1).

The impressive 19th century building of the Şuţu Palace, with its monumental staircase and grand mirror in the foyer, the vivid atmosphere of the former house of art collectors Ligia and Pompiliu Macovei, the creative spirit of the workshop designed by the great Romanian painter Theodor Aman and the former house of the artists of the Storck family offer visitors a memorable immersive experience. The aesthetic experience of visiting a museum, defined as “the sense of delight, euphoria, and in some conditions a sense of disquiet evoked by qualities inherent in natural or created objects or events, focusing on objects for their beauty, rather than their utility””, ranks among the six types of museum experience proposed by contemporary studies.2

Beyond the experiences which the museums and memorial houses offer to their visitors in terms of architecture and interior design, theories on contemporary museum practices suggest a different approach to the audience: “People usually think of a museum as a physical entity located in a specific place, whose benefits are primarily available to those who make the effort to visit its building. But this is too limited a view. […] museums can deliver their offerings and services far beyond the bounds of that physical structure.”3 In its effort to build new audiences and diversify its offer so as to meet the demands of the contemporary cultural consumer, the Bucharest Municipality Museum experiments with taking the museum outside its physical boundaries and using its premises in alternative ways for both its exhibitions and its cultural and artistic events.

Alternative exhibition spaces The exhibition project “Neighborhood Stories”, coordinated by the Bucharest Municipality Museum and co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration, sought to harness the memory of the southern area of ​​Bucharest, bringing together images from different epochs, maps of the area and stories told by residents of this neighborhood, belonging to different generations . Between the 2nd and the 15th of November 2016, the exhibition was opened to the public in the Sun Plaza Shopping Center, a major shopping center in the area. Built as a workers’ neighborhood in the communist era and nowadays considered as a “dormitoryneighborhood”, Berceni district confronts with the lack of active cultural spaces. Therefore, the two large and modern shopping malls in the area, built in the first decade of the 2000s, were used to emulate a meeting and socializing public place.Anna Zhelenina argues that: “In former socialist cities, the rapid transition to a capitalist economy has led to a radical change in the organization of consumption as well as attitudes toward it. Shopping centers have become a symbol of these transformations, as well as the locus for city dwellers to experience changes 2 3 4

in social stratification and consumer culture […]

Shopping centers serve as museums of fashions, tastes, and therefore lifestyles and habitus.”4 In addition to their role as potential exhibition spaces for the display of contemporary cultural products, with questionable effects on the genuine public dialogue, these spaces fulfill a much more important role incultural communication, in that they bring together in a public space the local community members. Seen from this perspective, Sun Plaza Shopping Center is a very promising exhibition space, capable to ensure that the exhibition message of the project “Neibourgood Stories” can reach the target audience, i.e. the residents of the neighborhood, a message that would otherwise have been difficult to convey in a meaningful manner at the museum, whose spaces are located at a considerable distance from the neighborhood in question.

The open-air exhibition “The Lost Hospitals of Bucharest”, conducted in partnership with the College of Physicians in Bucharest andopened initially in the courtyard of Şuţu Palace, was an itinerant exhibition, held between the 3rd of August and the 30th of

Neil G. Kotler, Phillip Kotler, Wendy I. Kotler, Museum Marketing and Strategy, second edition, San Francisco, Jossey Bass, 2008, p. 303.

Ibid., p. 325.

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

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Figure 2.

October 2016 in the courtyard of the “Filantropia” Hospital. Its purpose was to offer the public (and mostly the health care recipients) an overview of the hospitals’ activity in Bucharest and on the way their functioning t was interrupted or desisted by earthquakes, WWII bombings, demolitions and restructurings of the Communist period, or by the lack of finances and post-December 1989 retrocession

Figure 3.

lawsuits. The exhibition was yet another experiment on the alternative use of the space (Figure 2). The setting as such has also enhanced the relevance of the exhibition, given that “Filantropia” Hospital is 200 years’ old and was founded in the same epoch as most of the lost hospitals of Bucharest, a fact which offered the public the chance to reflect even deeper on the theme of the exhibition.

Alternative space for artistic events The study-show “Meeting Shakespeare”, which brought together famous plays like “Romeo and Juliet”, “The Taming of the Shrew” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, performed by young actors and students, directed by Irina Movilă, was hosted in different spaces on the premises of the FilipescuCesianu House (Figure 3). During the cold season, the show was held in the attic of the house, on a two-level modern and unconventional scene, while, during the summer, the performances took place on the stone platform in the courtyard of the house, richly ornamented by vegetation and statues. After

a complex process of renovation and restoration, the house was reopened at the end of 2015 and, starting from December 2016, it hosts the Museum of Ages”.

During the preparations for the new exhibition, the “Meeting Shakespeare” show allowed, along with other artistic events, such as the opening of the International Living Statues Festival, organized by the “Masca” Theatre, for the use of the available space in an alternative way and the connection between the museum spaces and an audience coming from a different area of ​​the cultural sector.

Real/virtual space The multimedia show called “Time”, designed as video projection which uses the mirror in the foyer of the Sutu Palace, casting images on the walls of the upper floor, enhanced by classical music and ballet dances, offers the audience a multi-sensorial experience by combining the real with the virtual 94

environment and the historical with the fictionalmythological space, exploiting facts from the city’s history, with reference to the personality of Irina Suţu.

A similar artistic endeavor is the show called “The Clavier”, designed and interpreted in the courtyard of the Filipescu-Cesianu House. The variety of artistic

Figure 4.

means of expression involved facilitates the access to a diverse public, made up of people of different ages and with a varied range of artistic tastes and sensitivities (Figure 4).

Another confluence between the real and the virtual environment is the dissemination through livestreaming of the classical music concerts held every Wednesday in the foyer of the Suţu Palace, under

Figure 5.

the cooridnation the ACCUMM Foundation. This approach is intended to build further audience, so as to attract people who cannot go to the museum because of a poor health condition or a busy schedule. The virtual tour available on the museum website - a journey through the exhibition “The Time of the City” - serves as an up-to-date promotion channel that is likely to reach a large audience in a very meaningful manner (Figure 5).

Development In the prospect of the opening of the two more alternative spaces, the Museum of Ages, at the Filipescu-Cesianu House, and the Astronomical Observatory “Amiral Vasile Urseanu”, The Bucharest

Municipality Museum plans to continue building new audiences and experimenting with innovative events held in unconventional alternative spaces.

References Kotler, Neil G., Kotler, Philip, Kotler, Wendy I., Museum Marketing and Strategy, second edition, San Francisco, Jossey Bass, 2008 Zhelenina, Anna „«It’s like a museum here». The shopping mall as public space. Summary”, Laboratorium, www.soclab.org,http://www. soclabo.org/index.php/laboratorium/article/ view/252/597 Project for the management of the Bucharest City Museum in the period 2014-2017, accessed online http://www.muzeulbucurestiului.ro/proiect-demanagement.html Kotler, Neil G., Kotler, Philip, Kotler, Wendy I., Museum Marketing and Strategy, second edition, San Francisco, Jossey Bass, 2008

Zhelenina, Anna „«It’s like a museum here». The shopping mall as public space. Summary”, Laboratorium, www.soclab.org,http://www.soclabo.org/index. php/laboratorium/article/view/252/597 Project for the management of the Bucharest City Museum in the period 2014-2017, accessed online http://www.muzeulbucurestiului.ro/proiect-demanagement.html Horia-Ioan Iova Public Relations, Marketing and Cultural Projects Museum professional - Communication and Public Relations Specialist

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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.

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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.

Four decades ago, the Department of Natural Sciences was set up within the Maramureş County Museum, by Decision no. 26 of the Popular Council of January 17, 1976, which later became the Museum of Mineralogy.

The department was allocated as its headquarters the “Iancu de Hunedoara” House, in the city center

and constantly on elaborating the theme of its core exhibition, designing the deposit furniture and fittings, and activity that ended with the official opening of the Permanent Exhibition of the Natural Sciences Department, on 6 November 1989, an exceptional cultural event, extensively covered by the press of that time.

The establishment of the Department of Natural Sciences was called for by the need to manage the fund of mineral samples then existent (approximately 6,000 items) and by the great success of the first exhibitions of crystal clusters organized in Baia Mare in 1974.

On 10 December 1992, following the decision of the Permanent Delegation of Maramures County Council, the Museum of Mineralogy “Baia Mare” was officially established, located at 8, Traian Blvd. In 2001, in recognition of the success of the museum in organizing excellent exhibitions, the Ministry of Culture awarded the Museum of Mineralogy in Baia Mare the “Grigore Antipa” Prize, the first prize of this kind ever awarded to a museum of natural sciences in Romania.

Once established, the Department of Natural Sciences proceeded to inventorying and classifying the samples stored in the deposit of the Museum and continued to purchase crystal clusters and to organize temporary exhibitions in various places in the country and abroad.

The decisive moment for the future of Museum of Mineralogy was its relocation to its current venue, on 8 February 1988 (Fig.1). Settled down in its new building, the Museum started to work intensely

On 27 August, 2014, Maramures County Council approved that the Museum be named the Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” in Baia Mare, in the honor of the late Victor Gorudza, whose contribution to the building up of the mineral collection of the Museum was paramount.

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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).

Figure 4. Temporary exhibitions organized in Europe

The heritage of the Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” is the result of acquisition of samples and of donations made mainly by miners from Baia Mare mining area. The Museum’s current heritage comprises a total of 20,395 samples, grouped into four collections: minerals, fossils, rocks and minerals, illustrated in Fig. 2.

The museum heritage was leveraged through the permanent exhibition opened at the Museum’s headquarters and through many temporary exhibitions organized in Romania and abroad.

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In its 40 years of existence, the Museum of 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 various places around the country (Figure 3) and 34 were exhibitions of other museums, hosed by Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza”.

The Museum’s presence in Europe with temporary exhibitions has been a consistent one, as one can see on the map in Figure 4. In 1982, the Museum organized its first ever exhibition of crystal clusters in a foreign country, namely at the Culture House in Vienna, Austria. Later, the Museum organized temporary exhibitions in Hungary, Germany, Austria, Monaco, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Republic of Moldova.

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 year by people in the Baia Mare, Maramures County, as well as by a large number of tourists from Romania and abroad, especially from Western European countries.

The statistics on the number of annual visitors, shown graphically in Figure 5, reveal a relatively steady growth in the number of visitors, with two

peak figures recorded during the two national mass cultural events “European Night of Museums” and the “Extramural School Week”.

The peak figure, i.e. 27.484 visitors in 2012, has already been exceeded at the time of this article and it is estimated that the number of visitors will exceed 30,000 in 2016.

5. Museum Research and Education Research at the Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” in Baia Mare focuses on studying mineral samples from collections, in order to better understand the physical and chemical characteristic and the genesis of minerals and discover, if possible, new species. Dissemination of research results consists of participation in scientific manifestations in the field of Earth science and in of publication of articles in specialized journals such as Marmaţia Proceedings of Wissenschaftliches Symposium “Der Bergbaubezirk Baia Mare (Rumanien)” Mineralogy and Petrology, Acta Mineralogica - Petrographica, Studia Universitatis “Babes – Bolyai”.

Since 2015 the Museum organizes in May every year, during the “Maramureş Days Festival”, a symposium called The Natural Heritage, which aims at publicizing the research results, designed to promote, preserve

and leverage the natural heritage, and in particular the protected areas and areas held by museums.

Museum education focuses on collaborating with educational institutions through partnerships, directed towards promoting geological education and enhancing awareness of the importance of mineral resources among students. Also, the Museum organizes a series of educational modules at its headquarters, on natural sciences themes.

The Museum also intends to involve in organizing field trips to the most important geosites in the northwestern Romania. Another major objective pursued by the Museum is to organize in partnership with ISJ Maramures a summer school for school pupils and students, with practical courses on geology and trips to Izvoare Resort, in the Gutâi Mountains.

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6. Management of Protected Natural Areas The role of the Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” as a custodian of protected natural areas is a legacy passed over to the museum ever since the establishment of the Department of Natural Sciences, when the Museum was assigned the duty to coordinate all the activities of the nature reserves and of other protected sites in the county.

In this respect, the Museum’s current management program incorporates a project that engages the Museum in the management of protected natural geological areas. Following the procedure conducted by the National Agency for Environmental Protection, in the first half of this year, the Museum of Mineralogy “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 in the museum’s collections, 40 years may seem like a very short time, the evolution of the Museum of Mineralogy “Victor Gorduza” during this relatively short period is remarkable, given the considerable increase in the number of samples in its collections and in the number of visitors, as well as in the amount of scientific research and exhibitions organized.

European level, as a one-of-a-kind symbol of the former mining region of Baia Mare. Non-ferrous and gold-silver ore mining in the Baia Mare has a tradition of over 650 years and has been the pillar around which the town developed over time. Today, nine years after the closure of the last mine in the area, the only edifice that reminds of those times is 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: 19892009: 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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