The main theme of this year’s twenty-sixth Seminar “Archives, Libraries, Museums”, which regularly gathers representatives of heritage institutions from Croatia and abroad, and was held in Poreč from November 29 to December 1, 2023, was protection in crisis situations. This topic is current and important to everyone because the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the earthquakes in 2020 greatly influenced the need to change the way of acting in crisis situations.

The direct impact of the earthquake required urgent organization of rescue and relocation of endangered materials, renovation of damaged buildings in which archives, libraries and museums were operating until then, as well as organization of their work in new conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to combat it have directly affected the basic principles of archives, libraries and museums. Both crises caused us to face a new type of management in which the emphasis was placed on strengthening resistance to such situations and at the same time recovering from the consequences they caused.
(Ivica Poljičak and Ivana Prgin, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia: Archives, Libraries and Museums and Contemporary Crisis Situations. Book of abstracts of the 26th seminar “Archives, Libraries, Museums”. Zagreb: Croatian Museum Society, November 2023)

The director of the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy Silvija Brkić Midžić participated in the seminar with a presentation entitled Protection of the materials of the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy CASA after the earthquake in which she described the specific situation in which the Museum is located and presented a summary of all the activities of the Museum aimed at protecting the museum materials, with an emphasis on the project Creation of project documentation and implementation of measures to protect the museum materials of the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy CASA, Gundulićeva 24, Zagreb, which was financially supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia through the Call for grants – Implementation of measures to protect the cultural heritage damaged in earthquake on March 22, 2020 in the area of the City of Zagreb, Krapina-Zagorje and Zagreb Counties. As part of the project, a conservation-restoration study was prepared with a cost list of restoration works for two art objects from the funds of the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy damaged in the earthquake. At the same time, the project Development of project documentation and implementation of building protection measures at Gundulićeva 24/1, Zagreb, which was financed from the European Union Solidarity Fund, was approved, and works on the structural renovation of the building are being carried out. In a way, the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy was “lucky in an accident” – as it does not yet have an organized exhibition space and a permanent display, at the time of the earthquake, the museum’s materials were for the most part safely stored in a temporary storage room on the ground floor and in the space of the Division for the History of Medical Sciences on the third floor, so that only two of the approximately 6,000 museum objects were damaged in the earthquake. In addition, the structural renovation of the building at Gundulićeva 24/1 includes the preparatory phase of arranging the space on the ground floor intended for the Museum, which contributes to maintaining hope and persistence in the effort to realize the main strategic goal of the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy – opening its own exhibition space and permanent display for the public.

A more detailed report on the program of the 26th Seminar “Archives, Libraries, Museums” with photos and the entire presentation of the theme Protection of the materials of the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy CASA after the earthquake are available on the Facebook page of the Croatian Museum of Medicine and Pharmacy: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063739112448