The Mentality of a Museum on a Library Site: Book Exhibitions and the Representative Function

In: Observatorija kul'tury: Observatory of culture, Band 19, Heft 3, S. 236-246

Abstract

The development of digital culture has made significant changes in the field of culture and information, in particular in the field of library activities. Digitization of library collections forms a digital resource of knowledge, which requires reflection and identification of its potential, strengths and weaknesses. The strengths of the digital resource include a multiple increase in the availability of the book collections and a qualitative change in the opportunity of their research. The problematic aspects of digitalization include the issue of reliability of the digital sources and authenticity of a book unit translated into digital format. One of the verification solutions to this issue may be creating a digital information block accompanying a digital book to collect, accumulate and preserve information about the paper book unit and the history of its existence.Due to the development of digital technologies, a paper book ceases to be the only medium of information. From an information document, it turns into an object of culture with a memory value, historical and artistic features. The translation of the book into the category of a cultural object brings together the position of libraries and museums as medium socio-communicative institutions that act as a platform for the presentation of their collections, one of the most optimal forms of which are exhibitions. The article considers the issues of representativeness of book exhibits and book exhibitions in the conditions of development of the digital environment and digital technologies. There is examined the representativeness of book exhibitions using the example of thematic and artistic-mythological exposition methods.The article considers the activities of the Museum of Painting Culture (MZHK) and the Higher Art and Technical Workshops (VKHUTEMAS) and their experimental searches of the first third of the 20th century in the field of creating new museum exposition forms and exhibition formats. The author draws parallels between universal methods of working with an art object developed by MZHK and VKHUTEMAS and working with book exhibits when creating an exhibition today. The article briefly outlines the tasks solved by the curatorial and design group to strengthen the representative function of an exhibit-book. There are analyzed modern forms of real and virtual exhibitions, their interrelation and mutual influence, formats of interaction. The article notes the importance of exhibitions for the self-presentation of cultural institutions in the digital space.