The project "www.muzeach" is carried out by a total of about 250 people. They are specialists in various fields – art historians and conservators, warehouse workers, responsible for the transport of works, photographers and specialists in advanced digitisation techniques, educators, specialists in usability and accessibility, IT specialists taking care of the IT infrastructure and data security, programmers, public procurement, legal and accounting specialists, and administration employees. All have a common goal: making museums' digital resources available in one place, easily and free of charge, and thus improving access to cultural resources.
For many employees of the five museums, participation in the project means typical activities of a given specialty on the one hand and a certain novelty on the other hand. The latter sometimes due to the scope of activities, sometimes due to the possibility of cooperation in such a diverse team. At the end of 2021, we asked the employees about their opinions on the participation in the project. What was typical and what was unusual about it?
Time-consuming but rewarding job
The prevailing view is that although project tasks fit into the profile of daily duties, they are more intensive and require a holistic approach to specific issues. “The tasks are typical, but they’re not done in a typical way. In everyday work, various types of tasks are intertwined; we often deal with several independent projects at the same time and on a smaller scale. In this project, however, we process data in bulk, we prepare models, websites and maps in series. This requires a different organisation of work and the development of methods of task automation,” says Aleksandra Tobiasz, who dealt with e.g. the development of 3D models of selected sculptures.
Many people pointed to the interdisciplinary nature of the activities and the possibility of increasing their competencies, both thanks to training and the constant exchange of experiences within and between the institutions. The possibility of establishing contacts and learning about the specifics of work and solutions in other places allows the employees to look at their own professional everyday life from a broader perspective. “It is communication, both between the team members and the institutions they represent, that is the greatest challenge for me in this project. Working in an interdisciplinary team was the most interesting,” says Michał Ochremiak, project manager until the end of 2021.
An aspect of work on the project that was strongly emphasised was the satisfaction with reaching the main goal: making the collections and museum resources available to the general public. The project made it possible to digitise over 7,000 objects from 5 museums. More than 10,000 will be made available on the website www.inmuseums.pl. The objects were digitised with the use of various techniques and provided with popularising descriptions. Selected works of art will appear in educational paths and exercises. “Creating popularising notes was an interesting experience for me. I wrote narratives about objects that included facts from the life of donors and used my knowledge from Judaic studies. I am glad that I was able to introduce the users of our website to the history of everyday objects and religious life of Polish Jews. Teamwork is a great adventure for me,” tells us Natalia Różańska, author of popularising notes on Judaica from the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
The implementation of a project of such scale is the effect of synergy – joining forces gives a chance to create an interesting, valuable and lasting effect. It is also very important for us that other institutions will be able to join the development of the www.inmuseums.pl website and co-create it, thus increasing number of people involved in the project.
Daily challenges in unusual situations
The project required that full-time museum employees manage to add project-related tasks to their regular duties. Another challenge was the performance of some of the project works during the renovation work carried out by the National Museum in Lublin and the Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów. Also, the National Museum in Szczecin and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews experienced difficulties in adapting or establishing digitisation workshops. The Castle Museum in Łańcut, in turn, suffered the most from the forced closure of the institution due to the global pandemic, which undoubtedly revolutionised the functioning of museums and forced a reorganisation of activities. Remote work, online meetings, and sanitary restrictions – we had definitely not expected that when launching the project. “The pandemic also changed the form of communication between the museums: the meeting place changed from Warsaw to an internet platform, but it did not affect the quality of cooperation. Still, we miss each other – maybe we will meet at the end of the project,” comments Ewa Kmiecińska, project coordinator at the National Museum in Szczecin.
In terms of the digitisation itself, the logistics of the works, the smooth interplay of the successive, dependent stages of the digitisation of the collections was a big challenge. Which objects are the most difficult to digitise? Our photographers pointed to large-size monuments, works with shiny surfaces reflecting light, as well as extremely delicate objects of decorative art, which must be handled with particular care and rendered in great detail at the same time. “Items from the exhibition in the palace or from the museum warehouse had to be transferred to the photo studio for one day, and after taking the photos, returned to their places as soon as possible. It all additionally depended on the weather conditions, because antique items cannot be transported in conditions of increased air humidity. It was enough to rain in the morning and the whole schedule had to be changed. Fortunately, our photographer was a master of organisation,” recalls Karolina Alkemade, the inventory manager at the Museum of King Jan III's Palace in Wilanów.
Teamwork
What exactly were the tasks of the people working in the project? Conservators, people taking care of the collections who prepared their descriptions, educators and accessibility specialists, photographers, IT specialists and project managers – their important role is easy to imagine. But there were also others involved in the project on a daily basis, contributing to its efficient implementation, proper reporting and supervision. Those were employees dealing with the project administration, such as accountants, public procurement and legal specialists, employees of museum warehouses and staff supervising the transport of objects for digitisation.
What was the most difficult part of the project? “Reconciling the interests of five partner museums is a great challenge. But it is equally important to take care of team members so that our joint project is an interesting, well-remembered experience, developing and motivating to carry out further, even more ambitious projects,” sums up Michał Ochremiak. Without communication in our interdisciplinary, multi-museum team, nothing would work.
The project “www.muzeach” is co-financed from European Funds and from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National of the Republic of Poland. The project is implemented under the Operational Programme Digital Poland for the years 2014-2020, Priority Axis 2 “E-government and open government,” Action 2.3 “Digital availability and usefulness of public sector information,” Sub-action 2.3.2 “Digital availability of culture resources.”
