How could issues of ownership reassuringly be resolved in the successors of county museums?

MúzeumCafé 36.

According to Zoltán Székely, art historian and director of the Hanság Museum in Mosonmagyaróvár, the proprietary rights of artworks in a museum is one of a number of problems involving numerous questions. Some concern the basis of the institutional system. If local authorities do not contribute to financing the running costs of museums, was there any point in handing them over to be maintained by the local authorities?

 

Zsófia Demeter, historian, museologist and director of Székesfehérvár’s King St. Stephen Museum, thinks the separation of regional museums with independent collections from the county organisation is the main problem. Our new tasks are defined by co-ordinating the professional duties of museums and the centrally assigned responsibilities concerning museology, museum education, training and restoration methodology.

 

Éva Szirácsik, historian and director of the Béla Dornyay Museum in Salgótarján, believes reorganisation has provided a good opportunity to review and bring up-to-date the issues of loaning objects of art, records and ownership among the individual institutions.

 

János Zsolt Kapás, historian, ethnographer and director of the Finta Museum in Túrkeve, finds that the proprietary rights of collections raise several questions. The history and material heritage of the provinces belongs to Hungary as much as those of the county seats and the capital. The role of local museums is at least as important as that of those in large towns. They can represent important tourist destinations in villages and they also meet educational and cultural tasks. In vain are collecting and processing vital in a museum if their significance is not visible for the public, or at least only as far as museums are developed via donations.