A new Policy Brief «Actual Issues of Museology and Practice of Museum Management in the XXI Century» has been published
Within the framework of the UNESCO/IFESCCO Pilot Project «Running a Museum – XXI Century: Thematic Regional Capacity-building UNESCO/ICOM Trainings and Expert Meetings for CIS Countries» (2011–2014), a Policy Brief was prepared. It is based on the results of expert meeting on «Actual Issues of Museology and Practice of Museum Management in 21st Century», which was held on 18 November, 2013, at the State Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation.
The publication is prepared by the Russian Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM Russia), with the support of the UNESCO Moscow Office and in consultation with the State Hermitage Museum and with the participation of experts from the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Author-compiler of Policy Brief «Actual Issues of Museology and Practice of Museum Management in the XXI Century» is Elena Mastenitsa, the assistant manager chair of museology and cultural heritage department of St. Petersburg State University of culture and arts.
The Policy Brief includes social and cultural context of the issue, analysis of the current situation in the field of museology, museum management and training of museum professionals in the CIS member states, tasks and prospects of the development of museum community, recommendations.
The recommendations on the development of the potential of museums of the CIS countries in the field of museum management and museology are designed with the participation of leading specialists in museology, museological education and museum management as trainers and experts, and also with the participation of representatives of museums in the projects’ target countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine.
The recommendations are sent to competent representatives of the Ministries of Culture, and to competent representatives of the museum community and non-governmental profile organizations of the CIS member states.
Within the last decades, conditions of museum activities have changed considerably, museum contacts and mechanisms of their interaction with each other and with other institutions have expanded many-fold and become more elaborate, and museums have gotten involved in commercial activities.
The processes in the development of museology museum management that are now going on in the CIS countries are conditioned by a combination of various external and internal factors, and by the macro- and microenvironment, and therefore they cannot be judged categorically.
This process goes on rather intensively, although unevenly in different countries. Value systems of museum directors and employees are a combination of perceptions characteristic of both new market economy and previous times. The general direction in the development of the museum sector in the CIS countries allows us to speak about the increase of the role of museological reflection and of the significance of specialized museological education, about the social and cultural determinacy of training of museum personnel, about use of the methods and principles of project culture in museum practice, and also about the gradual emergence of «new generation» museum managers who actively introduce innovations in the field of collection management and presentation to the public, which coincides with global tendencies.
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