Are regional museums necessary alongside local authority town museums and county museums, and with what function?
MúzeumCafé 40.
The state secretariat for culture at the Ministry of Human Resources points to the legal possibility for the functioning of a regional museum, whose collecting area coincides with the administrative area of a large district. The justification for such an institute involves tasks reaching beyond a local museum.
Art historian Zoltán Székely, director of the Hanság Museum in Mosonmagyaróvár, points out that a local museum can choose whether its area of collection covers just one place, several places or an entire region. In the current fragmented museum scenario a regional museum must fill the still rather empty legal category with content.
Archaeologist Szabolcs Rosta, director of the József Katona Museum in Kecskemét, believes that by establishing regional museums the provincial museum structure would not be proportionately formed and balanced. It would result in professional supervision on the part of stronger local museums over smaller museums, which would take away tasks from the local authority museums. There can be no real reason to justify the creation of a regional museum.
According to ethnographical researcher Gyula Perger, director of the Domokos Kuny Museum in Tata, the almost reflex-like answer to the question must be no! Following the 2012 consolidation of the county-funded museums, from 1 January 2013 the new model broke up (or rearranged) the county museum organisations such that generally in each county the former main institutes of county directorates continue to function as local museums with county rights. Regional museums are only justified in those areas where, after the dissolution of the county organisations, a vacuum was created and the local geographical, cultural, ethnographic and historical specifics justify it.