Romanian Journal of Museums Volume 1/2021 (call for papers)

The editorial staff of the Romanian Journal of Museums is pleased to announce that the National Institute for Cultural Research and Training is preparing the next volume of the publication.

The Romanian Journal of Museums is a platform for debates on the field of museology, adapted to new trends in the field, the upcoming issue being dedicated to the following topics:

Romanian Journal of Museums Volume 1/2021

Museum institutions during the COVID-19 Crisis

One year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the inherent crisis and the measures taken to protect the health and safety of citizens still affect cultural institutions and their public in various ways. In the previous issue of the Romanian Journal of Museums there were a few articles tackling this subject by examining the first months of the pandemic. They have pointed out interesting arguments, but more importantly, they raised prominent questions regarding the museum institutions. Consequently, this subject remains of high relevance for the evaluation and understanding the prospects of museums for the near and medium future. Thus, what were and still remain the most difficult challenges of the crisis for the museums? How have museums adapted their activity and mode of operation during this period? What do museums look like one year since the beginning of the pandemic? What will museums look like after the pandemic or what future solutions can be born from this experience? What changes for the museum institutions are brought about by the new context?

The actuality and relevance of the development policies of the museum collections in Romania

Re-examining the cultural meaning of museum collections and consequently changing the development policies of museum collections is a topical concern in the international museum world. Reconfiguring exhibition discourse to meet the cultural and educational needs of the community in which a museum operates is only one form, the most visible, of these concerns. But what happens at the level of the collection structure, at the level of collection policies? What ideas, trends and evolutions now influence the way museums collect and (re)-organize their collections? How do these concerns materialize in reconfigurations of the mission statements of museums, of museum policies, of programmes, of the collections themselves? What are the most current topics for reflection for Romanian museums?

The future of museums: recover and reimagine  

In the world of today, museums should imagine, and share to their communities, new practices for creating cultural values, economic models – which should bring revenues – and innovative solutions, in order to cope to the new social, economic and environmental challenges. We are interested in more than a simple narration of projects that were already implemented, but rather in what museums should do from now on, in a foreseeable future of 5 – 10 years.

Museum restitutions

In the last 20 years, Romanian museums have faced a significant number of requests for restitution or restitution of movable and immovable cultural property that have generated significant and often irrecoverable losses for publicly managed cultural heritage: museums have lost headquarters, sometimes lost entire collections. The issue of restitutions mobilizes the museum community, but an overview of the consequences of these evolutions of the museum heritage is still awaiting documentation.

Museum statistics

The collection of statistical data from and about museums is at first sight an arid concern and without immediately palpable results in the economy of museum activities, but the analysis of these data, their interpretation and use is (or should be) the basis of decisions that influence the development directions of museum institutions: from funding to re-orientation of development programmes. How do we approach this issue in our museums? What data do we collect and use and for what purpose? What are the problems, but especially what are the prospects for using statistical data in museums?

As with previous issues, in order to ensure the highest level of quality of published materials, articles must comply with a well-defined set of editing rules and will be subject of the peer review process.

We invite all museums specialists to send original articles for the two volumes at revistamuzeelor@culturadata.ro, until June 1^st, 2021 (Volume 1/2021). We mention that the authors of the best 10 articles selected for each volume will be remunerated with a gross amount of Lei 1.400 / article.