The publication Museums, exhibits, museum
professionals complements our knowledge of how
museums functioned in the Communist period and their
situation after 1989. The book includes discussions or memoirs
by eleven people vital to Polish museology, who were
connected with National Museums (in Cracow, Poznań and
Wrocław), museum-residences (the Wawel Museum, the
Royal Castle in Warsaw), specialised museums (the National
Maritime Museum in Gdańsk, the Museum of Literature in
Warsaw, the Jagiellonian University Museum), ethnographic
museums (in Cracow and Toruń) and the Tatra Museum,
which is an example of an important regional museum in
Poland. Among the people are Zofia Gołubiew, Mariusz
Hermansdofer, Jerzy Litwin, Janusz Odrowąż-Pieniążek, Jan
Ostrowski, Andrzej Rottermund and Stanisław Waltoś.
The book presents the image of Polish museology in
a scattershot but interesting way. It also mentions more
detailed aspects, such as how particular museums were
founded or developed in the Communist period, and the
individual role of museum professionals in founding and
developing the establishments they managed. However,
the most attention is paid to issues regarding the state of
museums after 1989. The most important of these include
the contemporary functions and tasks of those establishments
and the challenges they will face in the future, and
the role of a musealium and its place in a contemporary
museum. The observations regarding internal changes in
museum institutions, in the “master-disciple” relation in the
past and today, the appearance of new specialities, and the
change of their status and role in institutions (for example,
of people responsible for education) are also noteworthy.
Another significant thread is the discussion on the definition
of a “museum professional” and which museum employees
may use this title.