Museum Today Research Articles

Living Up to Our Promise of Equity: The JME, ICOM, and the Work of the Museum Today

Living Up to Our Promise of Equity: The JME, ICOM, and the Work of the Museum Today

What Is It to Be Responsible for What You Say?

AbstractIn asserting something I incur certain kinds of liabilities, including a responsibility for the truth of the content I express. If I say ‘After leaving the EU, the UK will take back control of c. £350 million per week’, or I tell you that ‘The number 14 bus stops at the British Museum’, I become liable for the truth of these claims. As my audience, you could hold me unreliable or devious if it turns out that what I said is false. Yet this socio-linguistic practice – of acquiring and ascribing ‘linguistic liability’ – is complicated, especially given philosophical distinctions between the various different kinds of contents people can express (am I liable, for instance, for the claim that the number 14 bus stops at the British Museum today or only usually?). This paper explores the different kinds of contents speakers might be taken to express, arguing that our practices around linguistic liability (including in legal disputes) reveal a crucial role for a notion of context-independent, literal meaning attaching to words and sentences. These practices thus vindicate what philosophers tend to term ‘minimal semantic content’.

Kommemorativinschrift anlässlich der Stiftung von Opferfesten und Weihgaben durch einen Familienverband im Heiligtum von Dabla

This article is a continuation of the article published in the previous issue of Gephyra (Staab - Akyürek Şahin - Uzunoğlu 2023). The article analyses an inscription from the village of Ahmetler in the Pazaryeri district of Bilecik province, which was recorded by the Bilecik Museum authorities. The stone is not in the Bilecik Museum today but is probably still in the wall where it was built. The inscription was read from the photograph taken by the museum authorities, but the stone itself was not seen. The inscription is an epigram written in hexameter verse. The first two lines of the epigram are missing and probably remained under the cement on the wall. However, the rest of the lines are almost complete except line 1, which is poorly preserved. Since the stone was built into a wall, it is not clear whether the inscription carrier was an altar or a stele.
 The person named Onesikrates, mentioned in lines 3 and 4 of the inscription, played an important role in this inscription. This person is the uncle of Hermias, the young Onesikrates and Ulpianus. It is understood that the uncle Onesikrates was the head of the family group mentioned in the poem. It is not known whether he took over the care of his nephews after the death of their father and whether they therefore all belonged to the same household. In any case, here as elsewhere, third-degree kinship reflects close family ties, especially in rural social structures. The uncle Onesicrates, who was also a soldier, appears as a central figure, and all the nephews mentioned are included in his oath or prayer. In line 4, the addressee, addressed in the second person (σύ θ᾿), must be the (local?) deity of the (local?) sanctuary of Dabla, to whom the wish to bestow property on the named individuals is expressed. It is known from the inscriptions that Zeus Bennios or Zeus Bronton was worshipped in this region. This inscription may have been erected in the sanctuary of one of these two gods. The article analyses the phrase Δαβλόνῳ παρὰ νηῷ in line 9 of the inscription and suggests that the name of the settlement may be Dabla. The inscription poetically describes the full financing of the three sacrificial feasts. The poem itself is thus identified as an expression of this praise for the donors.

Design Approaches to Museum Open Spaces with User Evaluations

The concept of the museum today should be considered as a social communication platform, and museums should be designed by taking into account the interaction and harmony of their open and closed spaces with the immediate surroundings. This study emphasizes the importance of museums for the city and discusses design approaches to museum open spaces with examples of their effective use and an evaluation of the opinions of their users. In order to shed light on today's museum exterior design approaches, evaluations of the design setup of the museum open spaces were carried out on the basis of literature research and spatial experiences of the museum examples visited. In addition, using the content analysis method, by creating statements about usage, satisfaction level, and expectations, a questionnaire was planned and designed to be applied to a volunteer user group. According to the examples given and the survey data, museum open space designs were carried out. Four groups of factors - planning and design, social, functional and perceptual-having the greatest impact on visitor satisfaction were identified. The examples given include a discussion of museum open space facilities, along with commentary from the literature. For the evaluation of the users, a survey was conducted with 74 people. The survey asked about their satisfaction levels and their expectations in terms of museums and open spaces. Since there was not chance to conduct face to face survey in pandemic conditions, the study was conducted that questioned the general qualifications. In addition to reaching the users visiting the museum were limited. When we look at the literature, multi-dimensional research has been carried out on museum architecture and design. However, no comprehensive study has been carried out on museum open spaces. Consequently, this study focused on the interaction between museum open spaces and visitors.

Poetry that “will live and do good”: Fulfilling Wordsworth’s Hopes for His Work Through Interpretation and Outreach at Dove Cottage in Wordsworth 250

ABSTRACT Just over 200 years ago, while living at Dove Cottage in Grasmere from 1799 to 1808, William Wordsworth wrote ground-breaking poetry that he hoped, as he wrote in a letter to Richard Sharp on 29 April 1804, would “live and do good” (Collected Letters 1: 470). Wordsworth calls for us to reconnect with nature; he asks that we show empathy for others; he encourages us to nurture our creative imagination. Were his hopes fulfilled? Does his poetry “live and do good” today? This article examines the function of a literary house museum in fulfilling the wishes of its central figure, examining the role that new interpretation techniques can play in bringing the writer’s life and writing to new audiences. In particular, the article seeks to describe the developing role of Wordsworth Grasmere as a hub of poetry, people and place, with associated collections, that has its roots in European Romanticism c. 1800, but which aims to make the literature “live and do good” in the modern world. While the roots are in the past; the purpose of Dove Cottage and Museum today is very much more than simply preserving them.

Ventriloquised voices: the Science Museum and the Hartree Differential Analyser

This article builds on previous literature on museums and material culture by presenting an examination of the changing stories that a particular object — a rebuilt version of Douglas Hartree’s Differential Analyser — has been used to tell in the Science Museum, London. The analogy of ventriloquism is introduced to explore the ways that the object has been presented and interpreted in the Museum. It is used to illuminate how objects can carry the various meanings, interests, and prejudices (conscious and unconscious) of the human actors involved in their creation, collection and display. The article describes how the voices ‘ventriloquised’ through Hartree’s rebuilt ‘Trainbox’ have imbued this later version of the machine with the physical and instrumental functions of the original Analyser to make the object ‘fit’ with varying stories of computation, differential analysis, and models. The paper argues that the voices ventriloquised through the Trainbox have turned the object into the ‘material polyglot’ that sits in the Information Age gallery of the Science Museum today. The article concludes with the question of whether we can truly understand how objects change at the ‘hands-on’ level in museums, without including the simultaneous stories that an object shares with its audiences.

De la « participation inclusive » à la « participation citoyenne », comment le musée Stella Matutina s’ancre-t-il dans la transition territoriale de l’île de La Réunion ?

It is a fact that the museum today is no longer seen just as a single light in the darkness, a guardian of the temple of human genius, but more as an actor in the society which interacts with it through conservation and presentation for the purpose of knowledge, education and the pleasure of the public. The scientific and cultural project (Scp) has thus become the most powerful and intimate expression of the museal project, drawing on an analysis of the institution’s vocation and environment. Nevertheless, even though the publics are among the target groups they’re aimed at, the mechanisms to meet them still have trouble taking them seriously into account. Certainly, identifying them follows a well-established typology, increasingly diverse and continually renewed. Still, these categories derive more from rationales of communication than from appropriation. Many museums have been able to find a degree of approval by communicating on the reputation of their collections and the attractiveness of their cultural programming; however, there is a negative turn-over of publics over time. Recent events linked to the global COVID-19 pandemic forced them to forge a new relationship with the publics, since events could no longer be staged. Despite all efforts to democratize and to build public loyalty, museums are still restrained in terms of the official manifestation of inclusion in their scientific and cultural projects. No doubt one of the main reasons is that inclusion has not yet assumed its full place. Even if we agree to accept the social role of the museum, its position in the scientific and cultural project remains at the discretion of the writers. This look at the museum’s territorial attachment was developed within the Culture et territoire research program at Île de la Réunion, where inclusive participation was studied from the perspective of the actors’ strategy to understand how certain museums like Stella Matutina interact with their territory and their systemic dimension (social, economic, political, cultural . . .). The analysis also included a study of cultural mediation at Stella Matutina in order to understand how the populations living near the museal institution were involved in their establishment and development within their territory. At the time when the debate asked about inclusion in the political sphere in connection with “citizen participation” and “social justice” (Salguero, 2020), to what extent are museums evolving and participating in the territorial transformation?

Отражение медицинской проблематики в художественной литературе как основа музейной выставки

Nowadays we can state the culture medicalization. It means the great extension of medical knowledge in daily practices. Medicine determines the individual life: the personal care topics, the beauty cult and health become the subject of public discussions. In this regard, the role and importance of medicine is increasing. The medical museum today faces a challenge. On the one hand, the heritage which he preserves is relevant, on the other hand, medical knowledge has a specificity that makes it difficult for an ordinary individual to understand it. Thus, the medical museum is forced to look for ways of updating its issues. The proposed article examines the way how medicine can be presented through literature. The advantage of the literature as a presentation type is that it adapts medical material in the art form, which is more suitable for ordinary individual. Due to the medicalization of the culture, medicine is widely represented in the literature. This fact gives a terrific opportunity for interpretation the medicine.

МУЗЕЙ - ЭТО ДУХОВНО-ПОЗНАВАТЕЛЬНАЯ СРЕДА, В КОТОРОЙ ХРАНЯТСЯ ЭКСПОНАТЫ ДРЕВНЕЙ ИСТОРИИ

The purpose of the article is to conduct a scientifc analysis of the history of the development of the Turkic peoples through the exhibits of the State Historical and Cultural Reserve - Museum “Otyrar”, one of the largest historical monuments of Kazakhstan. In addition, to show an original approach to the spiritual and social aspects of the current activities of this museum. One of the tasks of the research work is to determine the essence of the historical and spiritual reasons that determine the signifcance of the formation and development of the museum. Today, the assessment of the museum’s role in state and public spaces is relevant. We set ourselves the task of analyzing the statistical data of museum visitors and developing a general judgment. As the relevance of the research work, we would call the inadmissibility of the stagnation of the consequences of spiritual and cultural consciousness in modern information and global movements. We especially promote the activities of museums as one of the sources of education of the younger generation in order to protect themselves from the fow of information waves and not lose their national and cultural identity. It is obvious that the ability to properly convey the historical and cultural resources of the “Otrar” Museum to the consciousness of the younger generation enriches their spiritual values. As a result of the research, a comprehensive analysis of the historical ways of formation and development of the «Otrar» Museum was carried out. At the same time, on the basis of various examples, an assessment of the historical and spiritual activities of the museum today is given. Opinions were expressed on the future signifcance of the development of museums.

The effects of physical environment in Ottoman healthcare facilities: 2nd Beyazid Complex in Edirne

Healthcare facilities have an important place in Ottoman Architecture. Started to be built during the Anatolian Seljuk period and continued into the Ottoman in many cities, they manage to survive. However, it is not possible to use them with their original functions today. Most of them are used by serving as exhibition and museum buildings like Edirne Sultan 2nd Beyazid Health Complex. In the use of such historical buildings, the examination of their response to changing living conditions and needs is important. This study investigates how the physical environment affected the design of the complex, and the impacts of its planning and building envelope on today’s IEQ. The physical environmental data were discussed about thermal, daylight, ventilation, and acoustics performances by calculating and evaluating the existing energy consumption of the building. Methods like literature review, direct observation, on-site examination, simulation, and documenting with photographs were used. It was determined that five hundred years ago, the building was compatible with its physical environmental data in terms of its function, planning, and building envelope, and, as being a museum today, it provides all the necessary comfort conditions for its users, and that the energy consumption is at an acceptable level.

THE ACTIVITY OF THE MUSEUM AS A SOCIO-CULTURAL INSTITUTE ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE NIZHNEVARTOVSK MUSEUM OF LOCAL LORE NAMED AFTER T.D. SHUVAEV

Modern museums, transforming their excursion services, develop new areas of activity and introduce current methods of working with visitors of different categories. The museum today is not just a place of storage of valuables and objects of cultural heritage, but also, to the full extent, a socio–cultural institute that implements its functions.

University Students' Views on the Efficacy of a Museum’s Historical School Lessons – The Case of Ancient Emona

Museums today engage in a range of educational activities, including simulated museum's historical school lessons. The article uses the Slovenian School Museum as an example and describes the education it offers, especially concerning museum's historical school lessons. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the views and reactions of university students (n = 19) from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana, concerning what they learned from the enactment of a historical school lesson. An open-ended type of questionnaire was given to participants in the study year 2019/20 and used to evaluate the “Ancient Emona” school lesson. The study's findings show the historical school lesson conducted in the museum to be an effective, living, and active means of education on the history of teaching for university students.

USING TECHNOLOGY AS A WAY OF ENHANCING VISITORS’ EXPERIENCE IN MUSEUMS. A CASE STUDY IN ALBANIA

INTRODUCTION
 The digital area has affected various sectors of the economy; both commercial and non-commercial. Successful organisations are those that are able to adapt their processes and activities relating to these digital innovations.
 This article focuses on museum sector development in Albania and the way that the use of digital technology contributes to the visitor experience, as well as to analyse the extent to which new technologies are being used in museums in Albania.
 Albania reveals sufficient potential in cultural tourism products (Caca et al., 2016). The usefulness of our research results from the fact that cultural tourism development is closely related to museum product development, and museums are considered as main cultural tourist attractions.
 This article begins with the assumption that museums can use digital technology and enhance visitors’ experience.
 The research carried out so far has proven that the use of virtual reality (VR) provides an immersive environment that can enhance the storytelling process (Suroto, Dewantara, and Wiradarmo 2020), and technology can create a communication bridge that contributes to the process of transmitting knowledge to visitors in current ways that depend on modern technologies.
 Augmented Reality (AR) is increasingly being used in museums as a way of providing added value to the museum experience by attaching virtual content on physical evidence (Ming 2018).
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
 The purpose of this paper is to analyse the way digital technology has affected the visitor experience and how the use of digital technology can capture visitors’ attention and interests. This paper also analyses the current situation of museums in Albania. In this regard, this paper discusses the possibilities of incorporating digital technology for visitors as a way of increasing public appreciation and accessibility. The new technologies adopted in the museum sector form a new relationship between cultural heritage objects and the public.
 This research was carried out in Albania, as Albania is considered a country distinguished for the development of cultural tourism and museum experience and is considered a main attraction in this regard. The usefulness of our research results from the fact that cultural tourism development is closely related to museum product development, and museums are considered main cultural tourist attractions.
 20 museums were visited and given a set of questions designed to analyse the current situation of their management, the implementation of digital technologies, the way their visitors interact with these new technologies and the evaluation of their experiences.
 We believe that this study will not only be useful for the museums analysed, but for all museums in Albania. The collected data were correlated with the conclusions presented in the literature and with our experience as visitors in the selected museums.
 RESULTS
 The results of this paper show that the use of virtual technologies positively contributes to enhancing the visitor experience and interactivity, but we found out that there are still museums which do not use digital technologies. This is because these technologies are not cheap and also require special knowledge and accurate planning. The application of new technologies in museums is a MUST.
 DISCUSSION
 New technologies adopted in museums help form a new relationship between the public and cultural objects, make them more visible and offer new approaches in reinforcing the role and importance of museums. Therefore, it is easy to notice from the results of the survey that technological innovations positively impact exhibitions of cultural products and thus the visitors’ experience. New technologies also influence the decision to visit museums. This study points out the fact that with technological changes, there is a possibility to increase the number of visitors and become a key economic and social actor.
 CONCLUSIONS
 Museums today are required to explore the great potential offered by digital technology and demonstrate the ability to understand visitors’ needs and expectations. In order to become more visible to the public there is a need to implement changes in the development strategy and mission of museums.
 There is a need to understand how to use and fully benefit from the digital technologies as a way to communicate their products and contents to the public.

Identification of Chinese herbs in the Qing Royals--Fu Shen and Fu Shen Mu

The use of Fu Shen and Fu Shen Mu as medicines has had a long history. Today Fu Shen is still taken as bulk medicinal materials, whereas Fu Shen Mu had disappeared in the medical market. Fu Shen, Yun Fu Shen, Bai Fu Shen, and Bao Mu Fu Shen were used in clinical application in the Qing Royals. Bai Fu Shen and Fu Shen Mu are still kept as speciment in the Palace Museum today. It was found that Bai Fu Shen in the Qing Royals was the same as Fu Shen after peeling and pine roots recorded in the herbal literatures of the Ming and Qing dynasties, with their character tests and historical analysis. It can be inferred that Fu Shen, Yun Fu Shen and Bai Fu Shen recorded in the Qing Royals were actually Fu Shen, with pine roots in sclerotia and after peeling and pine roots removed in processing. Bao Mu Fu Shen and Bao Fu Shen should refer to Fu Shen with pine roots. Fu Shen Mu should mean Fu Shen without white sclerotia and peel during processing. Fu Shen, currently used clinically, is Bao Mu Fu Shen in the Qing Dynasty. Fu Shen distinguishes greatly from Fu Shen Mu in their effects. Such identification and analysis of herbs provides a way of thinking for further hurb studies of the Qing Dynasty.

Scenting the imperial residence: objects from the Topkapı Palace Museum collections

ABSTRACT Following every major meal in the Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, the sultan was incensed with amber and aloewood, and every evening, an amber-and-aloewood-scented candle perfumed his bedroom, according to page-boy Albert Bobovi’s seventeenth-century account of everyday life. Talikizade’s Şehname (ca. 1596–1600) shows Süleyman the Magnificent seated with his son in his library, next to a censer emitting tendrils of smoke. Approximately sixty such censers are preserved in the Topkapı Palace Museum today. Taking as a vantage point this rich textual, pictorial and material evidence, this essay examines olfactory practices and objects employed in the imperial residence. Against the background of the Topkapı Palace’s sensescape and Islamic and Ottoman traditions in general, we discuss the prominent examples of five incense burners and three rosewater sprinklers of varying material and date, in order to arrive at conclusions about the objects’ form, function, and symbolic role in contributing to cleanliness, sacrality, as well as imperial and elite culture.

The Use of Digital Solutions in Museums Today and in the Future

In this paper we look at digital solutions in museums today and with a view to the future. We believe that they have a potential to innovate museum practices and reach audiences with relevant content. We have found the Norwegian Government’s Museum Framework (Kulturdepartementet 2009) a useful starting point to consider ‘digital’ through the lens of the areas of collection care, research, content dissemination, innovation and business development. In this paper, our focus is on smaller museums and heritage organisations. We contribute our thoughts, experiences and give some practical ideas how small museums can better utilise digital media and digital solutions. 
 This paper was written by staff members of Museum Nord who are part of the Research and Development Team. Museum Nord was lead partner in the CINE project, 2017-2020 (CINE project 2017) which enabled the team to gain valuable insights into this area of knowledge and practice.

Review: Libraries, Archives, and Museums Today: Insights from the Field, by Peter Botticelli, Martha R. Mahard, and Michele V. Cloonan

Review: <i>Libraries, Archives, and Museums Today: Insights from the Field</i>, by Peter Botticelli, Martha R. Mahard, and Michele V. Cloonan

The impact of the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions and the EU directives on the international art market: an analysis fifty years after the introduction of the obligation to return stolen or illegally exported cultural goods

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between international conventions and European Union law on the restitution of cultural goods, highlighting how the adoption of rules on this matter has produced a real change of mentality in the international community, which is now much more careful in monitoring the lawful movement of cultural goods. The effects of such a change of mentality are evident: museums today are much more careful in verifying the origin of the objects they buy and are more inclined to return the items that are part of their collections, but that have been illegally exported from their country of origin; moreover, the ICOM has adopted a code of ethics to ensure the transparency of acquisitions. Merchants and collectors have also begun to promote a serious reflection on their role as guarantors in the conservation of cultural heritage.

The Labor of Curating: Fandom, Museums, and the Value of Fan Heritage

The Labor of Curating: Fandom, Museums, and the Value of Fan Heritage

SOGUT ERTUGRUL GAZI MUSEUM WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE CONSERVATION OF RECONSTRUCTED CULTURAL HERITAGE

Today, developed societies consider it as a necessity to protect the buildings that are accepted as cultural heritage and represent the life and architectural technologies of the past years. Historical buildings that are transferred to future generations with new functions by keeping original values alive provide continuity both economically and culturally. According to this understanding, the building, which was used as a Winding House in the Ottoman Period in Sogut district of Bilecik Province, but lost its function in the process and served as a Tekel warehouse; it has been taken under protection in order to protect its historical, original and architectural elements and has been re-functionalized as the Sogut Museum today. The aim of the research is to reveal the location and history of the building, which was built as a dressing house, and the transformation process into Sogut Ertugrul Gazi Museum by re-functioning: space, environmental features, economic and socio-cultural aspects. In the qualitative research, the data were collected by observation, interview and document analysis. As a result of the evaluations made, the original spatial constructs of the building have adapted to the new function with little intervention without any change, the re-functionalized structure meets the spatial needs with the museum function, the museum has intense visitors outside the province and its location, bringing the life of the Ertugrul Gazi period to today. It has been observed that it sheds light on its values. Keywords: Re-Functioning, Sogut Ertugrul Gazi Museum, spatial analysis, environmental features, economical, social and cultural evaluation