Auxiliary collections as active collections: the case of Estonia

ABSTRACT

This article explores a recent trend in Estonian museums – the increase in the auxiliary collections against the background of the general slowdown in the development of the main collections. The article demonstrates that the rise of auxiliary collections occurred because of the tension between the regime of eternal preservation supported by the national heritage practice and the new museum practice of active collections implemented by the museums. Based on a study of 20 state-administered museums, the article examines the ambivalent status of the auxiliary collection by juxtaposing its legal and practice-based conceptualisations. The article will demonstrate that auxiliary collections confer on museums the necessary buffer zone to navigate the state’s regulations and the lack of resources. In the context of the eternal preservation regime, an auxiliary collection is a liminal collection waiting to be made meaningful by administrative, curatorial, and preservation processes. However, auxiliary collections tend to dominate exhibitions and programs that understand heritage as emerging through active co-creation and sensory engagement. The rise of the significance of auxiliary collections can be anticipated vis-à-vis the national heritage repository plans as they offer solution for museums to maintain their relevance in the local communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Auxiliary collection
• active collection
• heritage regimes
• liminality
• heritage repositories

Introduction

This article explores a trend in Estonian museums over the last decade, according to which the importance of auxiliary collections (AuxColls) is increasing against the background of a continuing slowdown in the development of main collections. An AuxColl is ‘formed to support the tasks of the museum, the objects included in which are not museum objects’ (MuuS § 2, point 5; authors’ emphasis). A synonym for AuxColl in this context, is usage collection, which comprises an interesting semantic contradiction considering the challenge museums face to increase the usability of their collections (Pettersson et al. 2010). Why, in this context, would museums develop a separate collection? What, and how, does the legal status of auxiliary collections compare to the practice-based status in museums? What are the museum’s considerations behind preferring AuxColls over main collections? In what way is the growth of AuxColls in museums related to how they are used?

This article argues that the growth of AuxColls in Estonian results from museums’ negotiations with, and appropriations, of the two divergent heritage practices. Led by the regime of eternal preservation, the state carefully governs the object-centred heritage practice, which contains a set of principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures that regulate the acquisition, conservation, preservation, deaccessioning and scientific description (categorisation) of objects. Contemporary conservation and preservation practice is based on ‘the protection of values and significance […] as a unifying principle’ (de la Torre 2013, 155) and is thus subjected to change. However, from the moment the object is singled out for protection, it falls under the strict control of state bureaucracy tied to inventories as well as relatively static regulations of authenticity and worth (De Cesary 2013, 409).

On the other hand, the development of AuxColls is informed by a more diffuse heritage practice of new museology. This influential concept combines ideas ranging from inclusive (Sandell 1998) to participatory heritage (Black [2010] 2012; Simon 2010), as well as a dialogic and co-creative museum experience (Barnes and McPherson 2019; Graham 2016). New museology also involves accessibility and greater usability of collections (Keene 2008; Matassa 2010; Wilkinson 2005) and enabling a sensory and tactile museum experience (Dudley 2010). This heritage practice draws not only on ideas of democratising the museum but also on changing educational concepts that focus on meaning-making as an active constructive process, developing transferable skills such as critical thinking and communication, and self-reflexivity (Paris 2002). Active learning needs active collections.

The idea of an active museum is not an entirely new invention but is, in a sense, a return of museums to their original principles. Focusing on the biographies of the objects of nineteenth and twentieth century museums of science and natural history in North America and Europe, Alberti (2005, 567) points out museums were not a ‘static mausoleum but a dynamic, mutable entity where specimens were added and preserved, discarded, and destroyed’. Indeed, as Classen (2020) maintains, museum heritage practices have historically been controversial in orientation. The opening of museums to the public in the nineteenth century increased the need for control over the visitor, which ruled out the possibility of tactile examination of exhibits during museum tours and led to heightened concerns about the conservation and preservation of the objects. Today, museums continue to manoeuvre in the tense field between collection-centred and visitor-centred discourses and practices.

This article analyses practices related to auxiliary collections in Estonian museums. The analysis is based on 21 semi-structured interviews with professionals from 20 state-administered museums in Estonia.¹ The interviews were conducted under the auspices of two research projects. In 2020–21, ethnographic collections of state-administered museums were researched on behalf of the Estonian Heritage Board (Kõresaar et al. 2021). The ongoing research project ‘Practices and Challenges of Mnemonic Pluralism in Baltic History Museums’ (2021–2025) examines museum collection practices related to the exhibition and other mediating activities in history museums. In addition, the analysis uses documents related to the policy and management of museum collections.

The first section examines the ambivalent status of AuxColls in museums vis-à-vis the Estonian Museum Act and museums’ collection policy documents. The second, based on interviews with museum treasurers analyses the reasons museums decide to filter objects through their AuxColl before (eventually) granting them the legal status of a museum object. This practice has a significant role in increasing the volume of AuxColls in museums while at the same time rendering them invisible for the state. The third analyses the use of AuxColls as ‘active collections’ in museum exhibitions to explore the reasons for their growth. The fourth and final section points towards the Estonian museum field’s centralising tendencies, which strengthen the regime of eternal preservation and may increase the significance of AuxColls in museums.

The active collection as a favourite of the new museum paradigm

The phrase active collection stands for critical discourse in the new museum paradigm, which assumes that museum collections must be useful to society beyond their preservation for the future. Taking collections as primary targets to complete the paradigmatic transformation of museums, notions such as mobile (Pettersson et al. 2010), active (Wood, Tisdale, and Jones 2018), and dynamic (Wilkinson 2005) are used for collections. Although research, in the context of the new museum paradigm has questioned collections as the primary reason for the existence of museums (Vergo 1989; Weil [1999] 2012), the paradigm did not initially focus on collections. However, since the 2000s, awareness has increased that ‘museum collections, mostly maintained at public expense, are under-used as a resource’ (Keene 2008, 11), and museums worldwide have revised the collection and usage policies of their objects (see, e.g. Keene 2005). Accentuating the need for the museums to adopt a more dynamic policy of collections with an emphasis on access and activities, Matassa (2010, 108) argues that ‘[i]t is no longer enough to care for and preserve; we also have a duty to share the objects in our care and to make sure the widest possible audience has the benefit of learning from and enjoying them’.

Within the more recent active collection discourse, however, critics have argued that the change to the openness and relevance of museums to society occurs too slowly for collections (Smeds 2016, 112). More radical projects have emerged to push for paradigmatic changes in collection management, such as the Active Collections project in the USA, initiated by Rainey Tisdale and Trevor Jones in 2012. Aiming at ‘changing the conversation from caring for objects to caring about people’ (Jones and Tisdale 2018, 8), the authors declare there is no point in preserving collections if they do not actively support the museum’s mission (Jones and Tisdale 2018, 7). Consequently, the museums’ long-standing commitment to collections ‘that will last forever’ (Jones, Tisdale, and Wood 2018, 1) is questioned by symbolically contrasting active collections to the presumed passive collections stored in repositories.

Furthermore, the active collection discourse re-problematises access to physical objects in museum exhibitions. While digital technology is widely considered the way to ensure better accessibility and usability for collections, several researchers point out that access should not be understood in only a virtual sense. Smeds is not alone in criticising the tendency in museum exhibitions to ‘use more and more methods that are entirely detached from the authentic object itself’ (2016, 111) while attempting to create authenticity and participatory affordances. Accessibility should be possible for a unique feature of museum collections, i.e. authenticity, which refers to physical access to collections ‘by visitors or users who are not museum staff’ (Keene 2008, 12). By getting collections out of the store, ’museums can extend the possibility of people encountering objects’ (Keene 2008, 4). Indeed, as Smeds (2016) argues, the phenomenological approach to object-visitor interaction suggests real engagement does not happen if visitors are left only with the object’s vision but cannot engage their senses of touch and smell. One of the ideas of this trend is, for example, the promotion of hands-on exhibitions and educational programs.

At first glance, the AuxColl is one that is not hampered by the restrictions set by the Museum Act and is free for active use, for ’doing things with visitors’ (Smeds 2016, 123). However, as will be demonstrated below, AuxColls lie between things that ‘could be pulled apart’ for educational purposes and the main collections that are subjected to ‘taxonomy, documentation and truth’ (Smeds 2016, 123). The AuxColl’s legal status and the reasons museums create and expand them refer to such an ambivalent position.

The status of the auxiliary collections

Estonian museum law does not define objects belonging to AuxColls in any way other than excluding them from being museum objects. The Estonian Museum Act defines a museum object as ‘an object of cultural value inventoried in a museum, which is recorded following the international documentation principles of museums’ (MuuS § 2, point 2). There are other types of objects, such as deposited ones or objects belonging to AuxColls that the Museum Act mentions but does not account for as a part of the museum collection. In state-administered museums, the state holds ownership of the objects listed in the museum collection and supervises all museums that have joined the national museum information system (MuIS). The latter are subject to nationally approved requirements for the organisation of museum collections. These constitute norms and criteria for making the heritage proper that fall under the eternal preservation regime defining the heritage artefact (Geismar 2015, 78–79).

The Museum Act mentions AuxColls as supporting a museum’s functions, however, the items in these AuxColls are not museum objects in the legal sense (MuuS § 2, point 5). When adding new items to a collection, a museum does not have to prove the value of the item as a heritage object, i.e. ‘what benefits will society and the community derive from the assets preserved in the museum?’ (Kipper and Reismaa 2013, 6). The guidelines of the Ministry of Culture on the listing and depositing of items as museum objects state the museum has the responsibility to decide ‘what, how, why and when the museum will include objects in the [auxiliary] collection’ and there is no need to keep records of this in the MuIS (Kipper and Reismaa 2013, 13).

Thus, although AuxColls do exist in the eyes of the law, the items in them are neither officially registered in the museum collection, nor included in official statistics, and lack the status of a museum object. Therefore, from the state’s point of view, the objects in the AuxColls are not heritage proper and the state does not take any closer interest in them. However, the museums’ views may differ significantly from that of the state. The collection policy documents, which regulate the internal organisation of museums define the status of AuxColls. Although abiding by national guidelines, each museum’s collection policy documents is individual. If they present the AuxColl as part of the museum’s collection, this differs from the spirit of the law but reflects the museum’s approach.

Based on the documents of the collection policy, there is a tendency for museums to deviate from the state guidelines, treating the AuxColl as part of the museum collection (see Figure 1). Museums indicating the existence of an AuxColl add the specification ‘main collection’ to the museum collection. For example, according to the collection policy of a rural museum, ‘[t]he committee for the museum collection will evaluate donations and determine whether they belong to the main or auxiliary collection’ (Museum 19 Collection Policy 2020). Accordingly, museums do not consider the legal meaning of a museum object but use the term in the sense of an object acquired by the museum. Other museums tend to separate their collections into museum and auxiliary, while defining the latter as a separate one with a specific location (Museum 16 Collection Policy 2019; Museum 11 Collection Policy 2014).

Figure 1. The status of the auxiliary collection (AuxColl) between state regulations and museum practice.

Hence, museums handle their collections in the museum, including the AuxColl, in a holistic manner. This is different from the view of the state, according to which a museum collection requires record keeping. Thus, the definition of an AuxColl falls between a user-centred and a law-centred approach. Some museums also voluntarily keep records of AuxColls and make inventories, thus maintaining a supplementary accounting system besides the nationally regulated one (Museum 15 Collection Policy 2017; Museum 16 Collection Policy 2019; Museum 11 Collection Policy 2014; Museum 19 Collection Policy 2015). A central cultural history museum even enters items from its auxiliary collections into the national museum information system MuIS (Museum 1 Collection Policy 2022).

Museums may structure the AuxColl by type and material in the same way as the main collection. For example, the AuxColl of a central technology museum is divided into an object collection, a photo collection, and an archive collection (Museum 8 Collection Policy 2015). Museums also define the conditions and purposes for which an object is assigned to, and the terms of removal, from the AuxColl (Museum 19 2020; Museum 16 Collection Policy 2019; Museum 7 Collection Policy 2015; Museum 11 Collection Policy 2014).

The detailed organisation and management rules of AuxColls indicate the importance of this type of collection for the museums and point to legitimising this set of objects, and demonstrates the growing role of AuxColls in museum work. The next section analyses the most noticeable trends in the Estonian museums’ collection and exhibiting practices, which drive the importance of AuxColls.

The auxiliary collection as a liminal zone

The museums’ collection policy documents and the interviews show that the AuxColl is used as a buffer zone, from which the object can later reach the museum collection. As such, the AuxColl allows for a liminal space for objects before transferring them to‘heritage proper’. Other researchers have conceptualised museum objects as being in an endless, albeit changing, state of in-betweenness (Basu 2017), defined by the museum as a ‘contact zone’ (Clifford 1997, 213). The liminality characteristic of the ‘buffer zone’ derives, on the one hand, from the heritage management regime’s legal constraints and administrative rules and, on the other, from the availability or the lack of resources in museums.

The tendency for objects offered to the museum to be taken into the AuxColl instead of the main collection has been increasing in the last decade in Estonia (Kõresaar et al. 2021; Reidla, Kõresaar, and Jõesalu 2023). For people offering their possessions to a museum, the (chief) treasurer is the initial contact, and then the collection acquisition committee has to decide what to do with the items offered. Donors expect a quick decision; museum representatives also have the worry that if the museum does not accept it, the object will be condemned as being valueless. Nevertheless, the acquisition decision must be made against careful consideration of complex aspects as suggested by the Ministry of Culture concerning every object: the justification of cultural value, the estimate of the physical state suitable for eternal preservation as well as storage conditions, personnel, and other resources available for examination and preservation (Kipper and Reismaa 2013, 8). An AuxColl enables the museum to take time over making the decision.

As a buffer zone, the AuxColl is particularly vital for museums that lack storage space. However, with the Museums Act coming into force in 2013, even those museums that do have plentiful storage space carefully consider what to accept.

A lot will go into the auxiliary collection initially; then there will be time to consider whether it needs to go into the main collection.

(Museum 16)

This emphasis of the chief treasurer of a regional museum on the need for reflection is a result of the impact of the introduction of national collection policy documents in Estonia after 2013. The museum treasurers also observed that the Heritage Board tends to speed up the acquisition process into the museum collection. To counterbalance the rush – and because the treasurers feel that the value of an object may ‘settle down over time’ (Museum 17) – items are first put in the AuxColl.

Objects in the AuxColl may end up in the museum collection. This may be the case if the museum, after thorough research, has changed its assessment of the object’s cultural value (Museum 15; Museum 12) or has significantly improved its condition through conservation (Museum 7 Collection Policy 2015).

Recently, museums have begun to pay more attention to deaccessioning as a necessary part of organising their collections. Treasurers feel that national museum policy favours deaccessioning as the regulations have recently been simplified. Attitudes towards deaccessioning are split among the chief treasurers, with some being cautious, only wanting to implement it when an object is destroyed or lost. Others have initiated an analysis of the collections to start deaccessioning (Kõresaar et al. 2021, 42). For example, the ethnographic collection of a central cultural history museum underwent a thorough inventory and substantive analysis in 2019–2020. As a result, museum objects that duplicate each other or were incompletely researched and described were transferred to the AuxColl (Museum 18). As a buffer zone, the AuxColl softens the process of deaccessioning, and some museums even foresee having this option in their collection policy document (Museum 12 Collection Policy 2019).

Finally, the AuxColl is a beneficial buffer zone when the museum lacks storage space and resources for the stricter maintenance of the main collection or the personnel to handle the scientific descriptions of the acquired objects. The lack of skilled staff for the scientific description and interpretation of collections is part of a long-term paradox, in that museum recruitment tends to develop communication and outreach jobs in the marketing department, but resources are scarce for either or both the creation and maintenance of researcher jobs (Reidla 2018, 2020). Several interviewees revealed that when collecting, the museum considers that the collection department has an insufficient workforce and tries to collect only as much as there is the capacity to document, research, and digitalise the material (Museum 7; Museum 17). The practice of consideration influences the decision in favour of admittance to the AuxColl because it is easier to manage in that the objects do not need: to be approved by the commission; to have a certificate of acceptance; or to be described in the MuIS. Also, keeping them does not entail responsibility for their preservation. Thus, in the context of the eternal preservation regime, these objects can be described as a liminal collection waiting to be made meaningful by administrative, curatorial, and preservation processes (cf. Way 2015, 115).

However, there are not any restrictions on the active use of the objects placed in a liminal state, which perversely favours their active use. As the next section demonstrates, liminal objects of an AuxColl begin to replace those in the main collections in the exhibition halls.

The auxiliary collection as an active collection: the case of the Estonian open-air museum

As a buffer zone, an AuxColl is an invisible collection for the state. From the visitor’s perspective, however, the main burden of mediating the museum experience may fall on the objects of the AuxColl. The educational and entertaining hands-on activities characteristic of the new museum rely in many ways on AuxColls. Regarding their primary function, AuxColls are usage collections (see the Introduction). Active use of collections has become increasingly common in Estonian museums in the last decade. The hands-on function is already considered when collecting the objects for the exhibition. In the context of contemplating the future (active) life of objects, the ever-frequent decision is not to officially register them as museum objects. By keeping them in a liminal state, the museums want to prevent problems arising when the object is lost or broken in action.²

Open-air museums, where visitors can enter the exhibit, prefer to use objects from the AuxColl when creating a period-appropriate milieu. As the interviewee at a farm museum expressed concerning the objects of the AuxColl, ‘one does not have to borrow from anyone, nor fear that they will disappear’ (Museum 5). Another farm museum dedicated to an author intends to re-design the exposition so there are more hands-on items, which enhances the AuxColl’s importance (Museum 10). Often the development plans of such museums focus on supplementing the AuxColl with original, in good condition, and working items and bespoke replicas, although procuring the latter is often more expensive than acquiring any originals.

One of the most striking examples of the active use of an AuxColl is the newest exhibit of the Estonian Open-Air Museum (EOM) – a collective farm housing (CFH) block built in 1964—that opened in the summer of 2021. The CFH block exhibits four apartments featuring homes from 1967, 1978, 1993, and 2019, for unusually in Estonia’s museums, the CFH exhibition involves a radical exposition concept: visitors can touch and use everything as if they lived in any of those four apartments. The exposition has gained praise for its novel visitor-friendly concept and a complete package of sensory experiences (Kannike 2021). According to the curators, ‘the exhibition changes all the time’, because visitors rearrange things, children play with toys belonging to, and sometimes even open the pickled cucumber jars placed in, the exposition.

Exposition curators have foreseen that certain losses are natural with such a concept. For this purpose, there are thousands of objects on display that are not museum objects in the official sense. The curators admitted that they do not know the exact numbers, but according to an estimate, about the same quantity is still waiting to replace the broken or lost items of the exhibition. At the time of the interview in 2022, the museum had yet to decide whether to include these objects in the AuxColl, which may reflect the curators’ disinclination to do so. Although we have given the example of the EOM here, in the context of the increasing importance of the AuxColl, the concept of a museum collection may get challenged even further.

Long before the CFH exposition’s opening, collecting Soviet everyday life objects was a priority at the EOM and in the context of the number of objects obtained and put into active use, the mission was successful. However, most of these Soviet period items do not appear in the official collection statistics, as all the objects collected for the CFH exposition do not exist in the national heritage registers (i.e. in the museum’s main collection). The transference of exhibited and stored items into the main collection is still under consideration.

In the Estonian context, the EOM’s CFH exhibition represents an extreme example of how far the idea of active collections can go. The more active the collections seem, fewer are the objects registered as national heritage. Correspondingly, the practice with the CFH exhibits changes the concept of the main collection as one of the priorities of the EOM’s collection policy – is not reflected at all in the dynamics of the main collection. The CFH exposition does not use main collection’s heritage proper (except for the collective farm housing block itself). Thus, the CFH example also points to the relative incompatibility in Estonian practice of the two concepts of heritage – that oriented towards eternal preservation and that which understands heritage as emerging through active co-creation and sensory engagement.

Auxiliary collections and centralisation of museum repositories

The above analysis demonstrated how the increasing importance of AuxColls in museums is directly related to how they cope with eternal preservation regulations while trying to offer interaction and active engagement with the objects to their visitors. Therefore, the development of AuxColls is inseparable from whatever happens with the main collections. Recently, the Estonian Heritage Board, in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, has embarked on a project to create centralised storage sites – the national heritage repositories (NHR) project – which could significantly impact both main collections and AuxColls. As the strictly regulated operation of the centralised NHRs may reduce the use of main collections, this will likely lead to an even greater significance of AuxColls in museum activities, as we indicate below.

According to the NHR project, a custom built storage will be built in each of Estonia’s two largest cities (Tallinn and Tartu) to solve the problem of preserving collections in 22 heritage institutions. Saving resources and ensuring ‘better and uniform preservation, use and research of artefacts’ are the keywords for this project (Estonian Heritage Board’s website). The Ministry of Culture and the Estonian Heritage Board characterise the future heritage repositories as competency centres (Niinemaa 2017) focusing on services related to storage, conservation, digitisation, and consultations (Civitta 2022). Preservation and digitisation are essential arguments in justifying the need for a heritage repository, as these competencies and workforce resources, in general, need to be improved in smaller and regional museums (Civitta 2022, 14).

Thus, the joint repositories’ perspective considers not only digitisation, preservation, and conservation as the main goals of the museums’ collection work, further strengthening the eternal preservation regime but also digitised images of a physical museum object as the primary form of access to museum collections. Also, according to the NHR project, museum staff (referred to as ‘clients’) are only allowed to enter the repositories on an exceptional basis to minimise the need to move things out of each repository (Civitta 2022, 36)

The interviewees’ attitudes towards the joint heritage repositories in the NHR project varied dramatically depending on the location and type of museum. Museums, especially the large ones located near the planned repositories, will undoubtedly benefit. Indeed, the managers of these museums have written an open letter in support of the project (e.g. Veeremaa 2020). Small and medium-sized museums located farther away from the two major urban centres (and thereby also from either of the national heritage repositories) see several risks in the remote management of collections, including the effect it would have on the active use of collections and the museum’s relevance in the local community.

The identity of local museums relies heavily on the active engagement of their collections and close, flexible cooperation with the community. The distanced storage service offered by the NHRs has led curators in these museums to question the future aims of museum work. The limited possibilities inherent to transporting over considerable distances put the relationship between a museum and its collections into a new perspective. The curators anticipate that the new working arrangements will make using collections more rigid in their daily work. Keepers of small museums tend to move around their collections daily, fulfilling all the tasks of a classic curator, from caring to educational work. Additionally, all interviewees involved in object research and consultancy stressed the materiality and aura of physical objects over digital museum versions and pointed out the different competencies required of curators in eventually finding the relevant artefact compared to using an electronic database (Museum 14; Museum 6; Museum 7).

Smaller local museums, especially those of the open-air type, generally exhibit their collections on a larger scale than large museums. Small museums also practise more hands-on engagements and notice that ‘[the objects] do not wear out very much when on-site’ (Museum 5). Small museums consider it important that objects be quickly available for educational programs: they have flexible relations with local schools and open programs to meet the visitors’ needs. The same children frequent the local museum, so more than a few standard programs are required. If the locals need something from the museum, they call and come by:

[T]hey do not think in advance that [—] I will need it the day after tomorrow. Well, they reckon it is there on the ground [—]; they will get it now.

(Museum 6)

Museum staff value close community engagement and expressed concerns about the plan to fully transfer the collections to the remote repository (see Civitta 2022: 36). They see the risks of alienating the museum and the community. Several local museum professionals argued that ‘the community will be offended if things collected from them in the area are taken away’ (Museum 5) and that ‘there is no point in having a local museum if you remove all the stuff’ (Museum 7). In practice, local people often donate possessions of past residents of the community to a local museum. They donate with the idea of preserving these objects in a community context. The chief treasurer of a regional museum presented a vision where a person who wants to donate comes to their local museum, only to be told that they must drive to the central repository. That person is unlikely to drive there because first they need a trusting relationship with the central repository. The museum envisions that ‘we then cut off that contact [with the community]’. (Museum 6).

The museums’ anxieties regarding the NHR project point to the risk of both museums and community becoming increasingly distanced from their collections as the regulations on their use become more bureaucratic, and the physical distance and financial costs involved also have an impact. The state’s goal of improving the conditions for preserving national heritage and saving administrative costs can be fulfilled by bringing together the collections of multiple museums in extensive, modern storage facilities. However, it will probably be at the expense of the preservation conditions and staff development at museums far from the the two major urban centres. In the context of this article, it is worth emphasising that distancing and strict regulation of access is likely to increase the importance and number of AuxColls and reduce the activity of the main collections even more. While the centralised NHRs attempt to address the most pressing problem in the current museumscape, which is the provision of the conditions for the preservation of artefacts, they also have the potential to disrupt many other museum functions, including the museum’s engagement with its communities and collections. Using AuxColls as active collections offers a solution for small and medium-sized museums to maintain their relevance in their communities.

Conclusion

This article discussed the auxiliary collection (AuxColl) and its relationship to the museum’s main collection in the conceptual framework of active or usable collections. The article demonstrated that the development of AuxColls takes place in the tension field between the regime of eternal preservation supported by the national heritage practice and the new museum practice implemented by the museums. It was also suggested that the importance of AuxColl could be further enhanced if the state strengthens the eternal preservation regime through the centralised heritage repositories project.

The article showed that AuxColl is an active collection in many ways in the spirit of new museology. AuxColl allows for more flexible and dynamic selection principles than the museums’ main collection and (hypothetically) for greater mobility and inclusiveness. While the main collection is governed by national regulations and the museum’s long-term development plans, AuxColl gives the museum a leeway to interpret the question, ‘what benefits will society and the community derive from the assets preserved in the museum’ (Kipper and Reismaa 2013, 6) and to include themes and issues that will be actualised in the short term, were not considered worth collecting before or are introduced by community members donating their possessions. Whether and how the AuxColl differs from the main collection in collecting trends would be a separate research topic for the future. However, the article particularly pointed out that since the use of the AuxColl is not limited by the management regulations of heritage proper, it also has a growing role in introducing new interpretation methods in the representation and museum education. In other words, the AuxColl an active collection, has an ever-increasing role in terms of museum relevance (Nielsen 2015).

However, does AuxColl solve the problem of active use of collections like the active collection discourse envisions? Does the cultural heritage preserved in the museum become active through implementing the AuxColl? The analysis showed that in activities that require tactile interaction with artefacts, the AuxColl is preferred. The same happens when it is considered whether to take responsibility for an artefact borrowed from another museum’s main collection or to replace it with an object from the AuxColl. Therefore, what appears to be active use of the museum collection from the visitor’s point of view may not refer to the museum’s main collection or heritage proper. Although it would be an exaggeration to conclude that the main collection is instead passive and the AuxColl retains the role of an active collection, there are certain tendencies in this direction. Moreover, as the EOM example demonstrates, with more radical exhibition concepts, museums are tempted to prefer to display objects that are not constrained by any collection management rules.

Thus, the question arises as to whether and how the increasing importance of AuxColl in museum practice affects the eternal preservation regime. The analysis showed that the AuxColl as a buffer zone does not mean museums critically view the eternal preservation regime. Instead, as an adaptive practice, AuxColl supports and reinforces the eternal preservation that involves careful selection, value creation, appropriate classification, and purposeful, rigorous requirements for object preservation. Using the AuxColl as a buffer helps maintain the main collection. Moreover, it appeared that other new museum trends, such as the preferential development of the museum’s mediation function, which, due to the lack of resources, can threaten collecting, preserving and object-based research in many museums (cf Lehmann-Brauns, Sichau, and Trischler 2010, 4; Reidla 2020, 100) further increase the of AuxColl’s buffer role. At the same time, it keeps the main collection intact as heritage proper and enforces the eternal preservation regime. The rise in importance of AuxColl indicates a gap between the ideals of eternal preservation and of active collection, which museums need new practices to fill.

Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank the museum staff who participated in the study and the anonymous reviewers for the inspiring discussion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Estonian Heritage Board Grant (LHVKU20328) and the Estonian Research Council grant (PRG1097).

Notes on contributors

Jana Reidla

Jana Reidla is a Researcher of Ethnology at the Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu. She has a background in museum studies focusing on museum collection, management, and curatorship. She has also been a museum practitioner. Her Ph.D. dissertation (2021) dealt with the recent transformations in curatorial work in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Finnish national museums as a result of implementing ideas of the new museology, structural reforms, and increasing prioritisation of communication function of the museum. Her previous research interest includes the study of material culture, particularly Estonian traditional ornament and jewelry. [email protected]

Ene Kõresaar

Ene Kõresaar is a Professor of Oral History and Memory Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia. She has published on the memory of World War II and Stalinism, the post-communist narrative periodisation of the 20th century, and the dynamics of social and cultural remembering since 1989. She has studied mnemonic processes in oral history, grassroots recognition politics, commemorative journalism, and museums. Her current research project investigates Baltic history museums from the perspective of mnemonic [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-9611-0460

Notes

1. This study was granted research ethics clearance by the University of Tartu, Estonia. In line with the terms of the research ethics approval and with what the participants were informed and consented to, the participating museums and individuals have been anonymised. The case of the Estonian Open-Air Museum is an exception, as the curators consented to participate under their name. The profile of museums participating in this study is as follows.

Museum 1: cultural history museum; central; state museum, large; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 2: ethnographic museum; local, state museum; small; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 3: cultural history museum; local; public foundation; small; chief treasurer and curator interviewed.

Museum 4: open-air museum; local; local authority funded; small; manager interviewed.

Museum 5: open-air museum; local; local authority funded; small; manager and chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 6: regional history museum; local; local authority funded; small; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 7: regional history museum; local; state museum; medium; curator interviewed.

Museum 8: technology museum; central; state museum; medium; senior manager and chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 9: general history museum; central; public foundation; large; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 10: open-air museum; local; local authority funded; small; curator interviewed.

Museum 11: open-air museum; central; public foundation; large; chief treasurer, chief curator and curator interviewed.

Museum 12: regional history museum; local; public foundation; medium; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 13: regional history museum; local; public foundation; medium; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 14: regional history museum; local; public foundation; medium; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 15: regional history museum; local; public foundation; small; chief curator interviewed.

Museum 16: regional history museum; local; public foundation; medium; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 17: regional history museum; local; medium; public foundation; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 18: technology and cultural history museum; central; large; public foundation; curator interviewed.

Museum 19: rural museum; central; public foundation; large; chief treasurer interviewed.

Museum 20: rural museum; local; public foundation; small; chief treasurer interviewed.

2. Since the MuIS electronic database does not have a register of AuxColl objects the database’s statistics do not reflect the usage (activity). The statistics only refer to registered museum objects, which means that MuIS can only provide a partial overview of the holistic usage by museums of their collections.