РГКП «Национальный музей Республики Казахстан»
Fund Work Service
The museum fund of the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan is an integral part of the national cultural heritage, and its protection is the most important duty of the Museum as an institution of socio-cultural memory.
The collections of the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan are a repository of unique cultural values of the national heritage of the country. The museum's funds include collections of paleontology, archeology, ethnography, weapons, numismatics, gold and precious metals, decorative and applied and fine arts, archival photo, video and audio documents.
An indicator of the study of the museum fund, its introduction into scientific and cultural circulation is the accounting, scientific inventory and preservation of museum objects.
The main subject of our activity is the work on the preservation and accounting of a scientifically organized collection of Museum objects and scientific and auxiliary materials belonging to the Museum.
Employees of the Service carry out such activities as classification and systematization of museum objects by funds and collections, organization of a storage system of various types and types of museum sources, control the safety of storage, the condition of preservation of museum objects and collections. At the same time, employees contribute to the organization of scientific research; take part in the development of scientific and methodological issues of fund preservation and accounting, the development of scientific cataloging.
The number of museum items of the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan is 217,286 units of storage: 169 774 of them are in permanent storage (in the main fund – 118,671 units, in the scientific and auxiliary fund - 51 103 units), and the number of museum items of the temporary fund – 47 512 units of storage.
The Fund Work Service of the NM of the Republic of Kazakhstan consists of three departments: acquisition and new receipts, accounting department and fund storage department.
One of the fundamental activities of the museum is the picking of funds. The sources of picking of funds are various: collection of materials in scientific research expeditions, purchase, gift or transfer from individuals and organizations, etc. The main goal of the department is to provide a targeted process based on the methodological principles of museology for the identification and collection of museum objects and collections, as a result of which a source base is created that is necessary for the work of the Museum.
The accounting department is also one of the main areas of fund work. The accounting of museum objects is the registration of their composition and quantity in special accounting and storage documentation for the purpose of identification and organization of their normative storage. The accounting documentation records all events concerning the existence of the object in the museum, starting from the moment of its inclusion in the collection. The accounting of museum items is carried out in two stages: the initial registration of items received by the museum and their inventory. Currently, the staff of the service works in the "Museum" automatic system, which allows providing effective systematization of data.
The Department of storage of funds is engaged in ensuring the safety of museum objects.
The storage of funds is carried out throughout the existence of objects in the Museum: in the storehouse, in the exposition, during all kinds of movements. The storage of museum objects and collections is carried out according to their types (clothing, written, pictorial and others) and necessarily separately, in the appropriate repositories. In addition to the organization of the storage of museum funds, the safety of museum objects and collections is ensured; the prevention of damage, destruction, aging of objects; favorable conditions are being created for the provision of museum items to the exposition and for research work. Compliance with temperature and humidity, light conditions, monitoring of air pollution and the safety of objects, fixing damage and transferring the object for restoration - all these processes are controlled by employees of the fund storage department.
The museum collections are:
Digitization
Since 2017, the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan has been working on digitization of museum objects. The main purpose of the digitization work is undoubtedly: preservation, popularization, as well as increasing accessibility to museum collections. Currently, 625 storage units have been digitized, of which 225 in 2017, 200 in 2019, and 200 in 2020.
Digitization is the process of converting any museum objects into digital data for further storage and use. The process of digitizing museum collections goes through several stages. At the first, preparatory stage, the selection of exhibits is carried out, an inspection of the condition, if necessary, restoration work, after which it is possible to proceed directly to digitization. It is worth noting that for each type of museum collections, their own digitization technologies are used. The resulting digitized models are subsequently uploaded to the museum website, used in multimedia kiosks, etc.