Building a Museum Facility at the Local Level in the Conditions of the Slovak Republic, Example of the Town of Považská Bystrica

Abstract

The Town of Považská Bystrica is currently establishing a museum facility, which will be considered a key cultural institution under the municipality administration. Its purpose will be to make available local history, archeological findings and archival documents as well as various educational activities for schools and public using modern digital technologies.

1. Introduction

The protection and promotion of cultural diversity is a great challenge of the twenty-first century. In this context, museums and museum facilities are considered the main means of protecting tangible and intangible heritage. Museums represent a place of cultural mediation, intercultural dialog, learning, discussion and education. In addition, they play an important role in formal, informal and lifelong learning as well as in the field of sustainable development.

Museums are living public spaces having potential to address the general public and therefore play an important role in developing social ties, building active citizenship and collective identity. Museums should be available to everyone and should strive to be physically and culturally accessible to everyone, supporting social inclusion. They create space for reflections and discussions on historical, social, cultural and scientific topics. Moreover, they have a huge potential to build public awareness of the value of cultural heritage, support economic development, especially through cultural and creative industries and tourism.

In the Slovak Republic, several towns and municipalities have decided to build their own museum or museum facility in recent years. Since the functioning of museums is mostly ensured by the state or self-governing regions, towns and municipalities opt for museum facilities. From the point of view of organization of operation and also of establishment or operating costs, simpler criteria are imposed on museum facilities. Also, the operation is less complicated and the operational costs are less demanding for scientific or professional activity.

From the point of view of the current legislation, a museum facility functions as a specialized legal entity or an organizational unit of a legal entity or a specialized facility that acquires objects of cultural value and makes them available to the public for the purpose of knowledge and esthetic experience through specific means of museum presentation. Its founder is authorized to apply to the Slovak National Museum for registration in the Register of Museum Facilities and to request professional guidance.

A similar kind of museum facility is planned and currently being created also in the Town of Považská Bystrica. The content of the work of the museum facility will be to make local history, archeological findings and archival documents available to the residents of the given municipality and region. An important role that museum facilities focus on is pedagogical activity in cooperation with local schools, as these institutions play an important educational role. Changes related to the development of information and communication technologies (ICT) are currently opening up new opportunities for museums in the field of care, study, building and dissemination of heritage and related knowledge. They are currently penetrating every area of life; therefore, it is important to adapt to this trend in museum education as well.

The museum facility works closely with the local state archive, from which it acquired many local history documents which are about to be digitized. It also cooperates with higher museums at the level of the self-governing region, from which it obtained materials of archeological and natural history provenance. From the professional point of view, the museum facility cooperates with the Alexander Dubček University of Trenčín. The Town of Považská Bystrica provides the exhibition space for the operation of the museum facility and also fully covers its operation.

2. The idea of creating a museum facility in Považská Bystrica

The idea of creating a museum facility in Považská Bystrica emerged in 2020. It followed the previously accepted concept of protecting the town’s cultural heritage. This was reflected in the adoption of a Generally Binding Regulation of the Town of Považská Bystrica, which adopted the principles of protection of cultural monuments in the town, not protected by the state with special regulations. This adopted regulation represented an extension of legal obligations at the local level. Despite the requirements these extended regulations brought to the owners (a large part of the monuments was not owned by the town, but by private individuals or churches) of cultural monuments, this principle met with general support.

The decision to establish a museum facility in Považská Bystrica arose at the beginning of 2021. It assumed a 2-year preparatory process. Part of it was the decision of the mayor of the town, who decided to establish a working group, which was to determine the content and scope of the professional focus and scientific activities of the town museum facility. The commission was made up of employees of the municipality, whose agenda includes culture, communication, and town development. To the commission were invited as expert advisors the director of the State Archive in Považská Bystrica and the director of the National Museum, managed by the Trenčín Self-Governing Region, where Považská Bystrica as a town belongs administratively. With these institutions, long-term professional cooperation is planned for the museum workplace.

The participation of employees of the Town Development Department was also important. After determining the professional and scientific focus of the museum, they were to prepare suitable spaces and ensure the necessary material background for the exhibited items. The working group also proposed some specific solutions. The group designed the concept of the museum facility as a priority historical museum, focused on the history of the Town of Považská Bystrica. It suggested to place in the entrance hall the heraldic symbols of the town, from the oldest to the youngest ones. As part of the museum, a reference library containing all the books published in the past and referring to the Town of Považská Bystrica was proposed. In addition, all promotional materials referring to the town and its subjects printed in the past should be placed here. It is assumed that the library will be progressively supplemented in a long-term and complementary manner and will thus create an important base for scientific workers and students dealing with the Town of Považská Bystrica. The working group proposed to include in the museum facilities special exhibitions dedicated to the history of the town in the twentieth century, important personalities acting in the Town of Považská Bystrica as well as an exhibition dedicated to the Engineering company Považské strojárne, which significantly influenced the development of the town. The state archive has committed to borrow for the expositions of the museum facility historical maps, authentic instruments and documents related to the history and development of the town. The study room is also planned to be developed; this room should serve as lecture room for researchers, museum staff and external experts for primary and secondary schools located in the town.

“It was also decided that folk costumes, which map the folklore traditions of the town and its immediate surroundings, will also be part of the museum exposures. They complement other funds appropriately, even if they do not form the main sphere of research of the museum facility. The costumes are an integral part of the culture and history of the town’s inhabitants” [1]. “The costumes are interesting in their decoration and point to local and regional specifics due to their local and regional origin” [2]. The museum facility of the Town of Považská Bystrica acquired them as a gift from collectors and also through long-term purposeful activity, as they form patterns for today’s sewn costumes used by folklore ensembles acting in the town. “The folk costumes are placed in a special depository. The museum facility must comply with strict conditions for their protection and exposure” [3].

3. The establishment and structure of the museum facility in Považská Bystrica

“Since the creation of a unified network of museums and galleries, town museums have been specialized in town history or natural and social phenomena related to its historical and cultural needs” [4]. Despite the disintegration of the unified network, the focus and specialization of town museums and museum facilities remained unchanged. Today, the activities of museums and museum facilities are governed by legislation that determines their activities. “This legislation directly regulates their tasks, activity and operation as well as the conditions of their creation and dissolution. At the same time, the legislation defines basic professional activities they must respect and follow” [5].

According to the current legislation, the role of towns and municipalities is to ensure the construction and operation of cultural facilities, establish cultural organizations and create suitable conditions for cultural, educational and artistic activities. “An important task of the municipalities is also to inventory and make cultural heritage available. Scientific research will play an important role in the process of preservation, protection and evaluation of museum exposures” [6]. However, the preservation must be connected with other important activities that the museum facility in Považská Bystrica will fulfill. “Since the museum facilities will be considered a key cultural institution, it should focus on documentation, collection-building, scientific-research, methodological-advisory, cultural-educational, project, information, presentation, organizational and publication activities” [7].

The museum facility in Považská Bystrica will have a classic structure of working professions in the area of administration, care of collections, operation, services and education. Since it is a newly built museum facility, initially several job positions will be accumulated. After completion and putting into full operation, individual work professions are expected to become independent. “For professional education, the museum facility will follow the basic curriculum for the education of museum professions, defined by the International Committee for the Training and Personnel” [8]. “The International Commission operates within the framework of the International Council of Museums, whose activities focus mainly on cooperation, exchange of knowledge, dissemination of knowledge and awareness about museums, education of museum workers, improvement of professional standards, creation and promotion of professional ethics and protection of cultural heritage” [9]. “It is characterized by five areas of professional competences. These include general competences, museological competences, managerial competences, museum-pedagogical competences and competences for collection management” [10].

4. The main task of the museum facility in Považská Bystrica

Permanent exhibitions will be a key medium for the fulfillment of the main task of the museum, which is to preserve collections in the interest of the development of society and the interpretation and promotion of cultural heritage. It will be focused on the history of the Town of Považská Bystrica and its nearby region. It will be made up of objects of material cultural heritage and also archival documents related to the history of the town. “The museum facility of the town is not interested in creating its own public archive, as there are strict legislative conditions for such an activity” [11]. In its activities, the museum facility will closely cooperate with the state archive, which will take over the professional care of the exhibited archival documents. The borrowed archival documents will complement the other collection funds that the museum facility will exhibit. They will be supplemented with photographs capturing the development of the town.

“The permanent exhibition will also include paintings from the collections of regional academic painters Imro Weiner Kráľ and Ján Rojko, capturing the town in various stages of its development” [12]. The permanent historical exposition will thus enable visitors to understand and accept the cultural heritage of the Town of Považská Bystrica. Thus “the most important collection items will be permanently available to visitors of the museum facility” [13]. “In order to achieve the expected attendance and fulfill the professional goals, it will be necessary to harmonize the professional focus with marketing and work with the public” [14]. Since the majority of society welcomes the existence of a museum facility in Považská Bystrica, communication with the public will be an important part of its tasks. The public considers museum facilities to be important in learning about the past, collecting, protection and presentation of cultural heritage. “Therefore, it is important for the museum facility to directly shape the public’s relationship to the museum through the marketing activities. Although the basic activity in the presentation of collection funds will be permanent exhibitions, the museum facility in Považská Bystrica will not avoid non-traditional forms of presentations that have the potential to attract to the museum facility further visitors” [15].

Cultural offerings of the collections from the museum facility will also be exhibited outside its premises. “Part of the collection materials will be exhibited in the premises of the Municipal Office in Považská Bystrica. It will be a part of the collections of fine arts, paintings and sculptures. In agreement with the state monument institute, in the premises of the municipal office will also be an exhibition of artefacts from parts of the original Stations of the Cross, saved before its complex reconstruction, which could not be reconstructed” [16]. Collection items related to the history of sports in Považská Bystrica will be permanently loaned and exposed in the Hall of Fame of Municipal Sports Clubs. The newly built social and business center Galéria in the town expressed interest in creating an exhibition that would consist of photographs in the form of large-scale posters from the time of the construction of Považská Bystrica. “The distribution of cultural offerings to such unusual spaces will enable the museum facility to raise awareness of cultural values in an innovative way” [17].

4.1 Educational and cultural activities in museum facility in Považská Bystrica

Currently, great emphasis is placed on raising the level of education in Slovak museums and galleries. “Many professionals are deepening their professional qualifications, especially in the field of art education in the context of contemporary art, new media, electronic media using the alternative and virtual educational space of museums. However, it should cover not only the field of art education, but all areas of education” [18].

Since in the case of the museum facility in Považská Bystrica it is an institution established by the municipality, this fact also determines the basic parameters of its activity. An important and integral part of the museum facility will be educational activities for pupils and students as well as for the public. The Town of Považská Bystrica considers activity in the field of museum pedagogy and cooperation with local elementary schools to be very important. “After all, especially school groups from preschool children to adolescents represent an important target group for museums and have the potential to create the highest percentage of regular visitors” [19]. Cooperation with schools will not be limited to one-time activities, but will be permanent. Our goal is to create special programs in which the visitors themselves can actively participate in the processes. By using ICT technologies, we will be able to explain, supplement, enhance or improve the education process in our museum. The aim of the lessons in the museums is to lead young people to think about the place where they live. “Pupils should acquire knowledge and skills that will enable them to overcome stereotypes, develop critical thinking and understand the symbols of objects and phenomena” [20].

Museum facility in Považská Bystrica can rely on the state educational program, which is the highest curricular document of Slovak education, when cooperating with schools. It is an open document that gives schools the opportunity to complete their own educational program based on specific regional and local conditions and requirements. “These regional and local conditions give great scope for the educational activity of regional museum facilities” [21]. In the case of the museum facility in Považská Bystrica, focus will be on pupils and students who are usually visiting the museum for the first time, and there is the potential for repeat visits and long-term mutual interaction.

“Teachers, who are also in the position of visitors, have important role in this process. However, they expect help from the museum facility in filling gaps in knowledge. Cooperation between teachers and museum workers is therefore very important” [22]. The Town of Považská Bystrica considers educational activity as one of the main and irreplaceable task of the newly created museum facility. Education should take place in classical as well as modern methods. In addition to tours of the museum’s exhibits combined with expert interpretation, model lessons in the museum’s congress center are also planned. An important task will be the creation of joint long-term educational programs for museum facilities and elementary schools.

“Projects based on oral history, which are already successfully implemented in other museums, can be very attractive” [23]. “It will thus be possible to enrich period artifacts with the stories of the survivors, which will give them greater narrative value” [24]. Online education on the website as well as through digital technologies are also considered important. “Since in the case of museum pedagogue it will be a cumulative function with other professional activities, great emphasis is placed on quality education and professional training” [25]. Initially, the position will be combined with the public relations and museum marketing position. However, the goal is to create an independent position of museum pedagogue in the future. His task will be to make accessible the contents and topics of the cultural heritage of the Town of Považská Bystrica, especially exhibitions and expositions. Although in practice the museum pedagogue will deal mainly with partial and operational goals related to individual exhibitions and specific educational programs, in the long term the goals of museum pedagogy in the museum facility in Považská Bystrica must be more general. “They must be related to the overall educational strategy of the museum facility, the aim of which is to mediate the exhibits, their interpretation and building a relationship with them” [26]. It is intended to educate visitors of various target groups in an appropriate way by providing information about objects of cultural value, specimens, past and present events. “Qualification prerequisites are a master’s degree in the field of history, theory and history of art or pedagogy” [27].

“Great emphasis in museum pedagogy is placed on the digitization of the collection fund, especially museum documentation, books, plans, maps, personal correspondence, archival documents, photographs and the painting collection of authors originating from the town” [28]. It is also planned to digitize one of the most endangered collection items, which consists of film recordings related to the Town of Považská Bystrica. The goal of digitization in the museum facility in Považská Bystrica will be to simplify and streamline access to cultural objects and facilitate their communication to the lay and professional public. It will enable fast and comprehensive inspections via a computer network. It will make the most frequently asked questions for museum workers available on the website. “The digitalization is also expected to make better use of the collections and provide significant assistance in educational activities. Digitized materials will be able to be used directly in schools during the educational process” [29].

5. Use of digital technologies

When creating museum facilities, our goal is to respond to the high expectations of visitors who are interested in simple and interactive information acquisition. We want to interpret the information in an interesting and effective way. Our goal is to connect documented history with the present and use modern technology to engage all the senses, so that visitors can become a part of the history of our region for a while. In the museum, we want to implement interactive technologies, through which we will introduce parts of our collections to the public in an interesting way in the form of exhibitions or permanent expositions with the aim of increasing the positive relationship between the institution and the visitor. During the on-site visit of younger generation, we want to fulfill their expectations by adapting innovative technologies to communicate with them.

At the entrance to the museum facility, we plan to install an interactive kiosk, which is a very good aid in orienting the visitor during the first visit to the museum. It will be a source of information on the layout of individual exhibitions or expositions, providing basic information. The kiosk aims to replace the form of a paper guide. We plan to install further multi-touch screens in the museum premises, so that they provide greater openness to social sharing and will serve for interactive communication of the visitor with the museum’s topics.

Moreover, we wish to deepen the experience of visiting the museum facility by using 3D glasses, through which the visitors will gain new experiences of entering virtual spaces. Through 3D visualization, we want to enable the visitor to walk through the historic center of the town, merge with the history of our municipality in multimedia form and experience the most beautiful period of the town’s history.

Interesting and innovative projects of the museum will be a relaxation zone where the visitor can read bonus content about the exhibits or listen to various stories related to the history of our region. Another innovative tool will be a virtual mirror; thanks to this device the museum visitor can try out what she or he would look like dressed, for example, in period clothing or folk costume.

In the future, we also want to use a mobile application in the museum, which will create an engaged approach to the museum’s topics and allow the public to use this application to move around the museum space and thereby mediate the acquisition of knowledge in an entertaining way. This application will encourage visitors to take tours focusing on the physical objects, not on their mobile device screens. The mentioned application will allow the visitor to listen to unique object descriptions and audio stories that adjust their content depending on the visitor’s location and will direct them to a relevant place in the building.

6. Conclusion

We live in an era where people spend most of their time in front of device screens and have an almost always available internet connection. Therefore, it is important to understand that as society changes, so do the visitor’s demands on the cultural institutions, including museums. The current internationally recognized definition of a museum according to ICOM1 states: “A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing” [30]. However, the question is whether the above definition of a museum as an institution reflects the needs and possibilities of the current digital age. Therefore, when planning the museum facility, the Town of Považská Bystrica is interested in providing non-traditional informal educational experiences with an effort to meet the increasingly demanding expectations of visitors of all age categories by adapting innovative technologies to the activities of the museum. The municipality perceives that ICT technologies are very widespread among museum visitors today and therefore wants to benefit from this fact. Information and communication technologies have been the most dynamic and very intensively growing sector in Europe in recent years. Their development gradually affects all areas of society’s life, not excluding institutions that manage objects of cultural value and make them available to the public for the purpose of learning. Technical devices such as kiosks, tablets and multi-touch devices allow the condensation of information in a limited space, thus improving its accessibility without overcrowding the physical space.

Nowadays, museum tours have to respond to the high expectations of visitors. They are interested in simple and, if possible, interactive acquisition of information, but at the same time, it must be interpreted in an interesting and effective way. However, it is important to realize that the museum artifacts themselves, as well as the themes of the exhibitions, must remain a permanent area of attention at all levels, regardless of what technology is used to increase public interest.

According to the currently valid legislation in the Slovak Republic, the task of local governments is to ensure the construction and operation of cultural facilities, establish cultural organizations and create suitable conditions for their cultural, educational and artistic activities. An important task of local governments is also to preserve and convey the cultural heritage of previous generations, which is an inseparable part of culture and history.

For the Town of Považská Bystrica it is a great challenge and responsibility to establish a museum facility, since the initiator of the establishment of the facility is the municipality itself. The municipality will provide suitable representative spaces and ensure the necessary material background for the exhibited objects. The museum facility in Považská Bystrica will be considered a key cultural institution focused on documentation, collection-building, scientific, educational, cultural, presentation, publication and information activities.

In order to develop and increase the historical awareness of the population of the entire region and work with the younger generation, it is important not to limit the functioning of the museum to one-time activities. On the contrary, the cooperation must be permanent. In the current, dynamically changing world, museums have their specific position. On the one hand, they are a stable, highly professional institution, on the other hand, they are forced to defend their position in a highly competitive environment. It is essential that the museum facility in the Town of Považská Bystrica will be able to effectively and permanently communicate with the public, especially visitors, and effectively use the possibilities of the virtual environment and social networks in order to become a center of community life and reaching new visitors. Therefore it is important, that the museum facility, through its marketing activities, directly shapes the public’s relationship to its activities also through the systematic building of its identity.

Despite the fact that the public perceives traditionally museums as a symbol of conservatism and stability, the museums have undergone significant changes in terms of setting priorities and forms of operation. “Today, we are working together to ensure that museums are perceived as interesting institutions that purposefully communicate with the public through the entire complex of their activities” [31]. The task of the newly established museum facility will be to attract the young generation and thus support their interest in the history of the town and create a positive relationship with the municipality where they live.

We believe that the museum facility in Považská Bystrica will contribute to the interest of the professional and lay public, and especially young people, in visiting this modern institution and thus, we will be able to contribute to the preservation of the history of our region and the transmission of real values from generation to generation.