Museum is collections. Their safe and appropriate
storage has always been and will remain the basic statutory
activity of every museum. As can be found in both domestic
and international sources, merely a fraction of museums’
collections is on permanent display, while their remaining
part is kept in museums’ storerooms. Therefore, the priority
goal of every museum, of its management, and organizer,
should be the availability of an adequate storage area.
Regrettably, history and praxis demonstrate that it is precisely
within this field that museums have always had and continue
having the greatest needs. Worldwide museology faces the
ongoing challenge of museum collection storage, and this is
the challenge that Polish museums face as well. Fortunately,
for over two decades a process of actual transformation in
this respect has been occurring, the latter resulting in modern
storage facilities being built. These, complying with the latest
standards, shall guarantee high-quality protection to the
collections, as well as a low-budget construction, and low
energy consumption in the course of operations. Poland, too,
has been participating in these changes.
Recently, the topic of museum storage areas has
entered the list of priority tasks of the Ministry of Culture
and National Heritage, which in 2016 commissioned the
National Institute for Museums and Public Collections
(NIMOZ) to provide appropriate reports, analyses,
and concepts, while in 2018 it formally assigned the
Construction of the Central Storage Facility for Museum
Collections Project (CMZM) to NIMOZ. A new position of the Director’s Proxy for the Central Storage Facility for
Museum Collections has been created. This means that
a major development in the history of Polish museology
has taken place: at the Ministry of Culture and National
Heritage and its subordinate cultural institution definite
steps have formally been taken in order to resolve the
problems of museum collection storage in Poland. The
assumption has been made that CMZM will be a pilot and
model solution that can be followed by subsequent storage
facilities for museums in Poland’s other regions.
Temperature effect on gypsum-bearing soil and supported (building) foundations: The case of the Central Storage Facility of Villar de Cañas, Spain