Heritage collections
The heritage of the National Village Museum "Dimitrie Gusti" is preserved, protected and researched within the 12 collections (Wood, Folk Costume, Bark, Customs, Religious, Textiles, Ceramics, Documentation, Foreign Countries, Toys, Museum of Folk Costume and Contemporary Ethnography). Formed through acquisitions, donations or transfers, the collections are balanced both in terms of the representation of ethnographic areas of the country and the variety of categorical types. Some of the objects are known to the public through temporary exhibitions and exceptional publications.
The built heritage in the permanent exhibition includes 398 complex monuments of folk architecture and more than 10,000 objects in traditional interiors from different regions of the country.
More than 50,000 objects are housed in the modernly furnished and equipped heritage storerooms in the multi-purpose building. A large part of these are classified in the FOND (FUND) and TEZAUR (TREASURE HOUSE) categories, and since 2005 extensive research and publication programmes of the collections have been undertaken. The series of collection catalogues of the Village Museum was born out of an acute need to order the collections according to European registration rules, but especially out of the desire to bring out of the shadows of the heritage repositories objects that are rarely part of temporary exhibitions. Based on these considerations, the museum has considered fit to publish at least one collection catalogue annually.
The staff of the section meticulously and professionally manages the material and informational heritage, from the organization of the storage and the constant monitoring of the health of objects, to the identification and recording of every scientific and historical detail, in a close and necessary collaboration between the curators of the collections, the treasurer and the museographers.
The identity card of a heritage object, its identification data, its unique story, the values that give it this status are to be found in the records of the section, in the database, inventory registers, analytical record sheets, whose continuous updating and revision involves an impressive amount of work.
