Museum management: perspectives of museum audience development and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cultural sector

Potaknuti Covid-19 pandemijom koja je onemogućila kvaliteta ili barem uobičajen rad većini ustanova, posebice onima u službi kulture, ovim ćemo radom pokušati dočarati utjecaj Covid-19 pandemije na muzejske institucije i kulturni sektor. Muzej nam je poznat kao kulturna ustanova kojoj je cilj razvoj društva, a zadaća mu je da prikuplja, čuva, istražuje i reprezentira materijalna kazivanja čovjeka i okoline, a radi znanosti, obrazovanja ili zabave. Muzej je tzv. banka podataka o predmetima koje čuva. Znanstvena disciplina koja proučava muzeje i njihovu djelatnost naziva se muzeologija, a pripada informacijskim i komunikacijskim znanostima. U posljednje je vrijeme, ukorak s vremenom u kojemu živimo, muzejska publika bila primorana sadržaje istraživati putem raznih digitalnih kanala i platformi. Od muzeja se očekuje da trebaju držati korak s vremenom i pripremiti se za digitalizaciju svojih sadržaja, što velika većina muzeja na prostoru Istočne Hrvatske nije uspjela, a o čemu ćemo saznati više kroz intervjue s čelnim ljudima muzeja. Važnu ulogu u tome ima muzejski menadžment, sintagma kreirana od dviju riječi koje mogu opstojati jedna bez druge, ali zajedno čine važan alat u upravljanju muzejom. Jedno od najvažnijih pitanja na koja suvremeni menadžment muzeja mora odgovoriti jest kako se koristiti novim tehnologijama, a jedna od osnovnih pretpostavki za primjenu istih jest osiguravanje dostupnosti građe korisnicima muzeja. Osiguravanje dostupnosti građe jedan je od najvažnijih pokazatelja kvalitete poslovanja muzeja. Rad teži ka dokazivanju glavne hipoteze: „COVID-19 pandemija pridonijela većoj posjećenosti online kulturnih sadržaja.“ Pokušat ćemo potvrditi hipotezu dvjema metodama: intevjuima s trojima čelnim ljudima muzeja na području Istočne Hrvatske, te anketiranjem posjetitelja muzeja. Kako bismo dobili što relevantnije podatke, intervjuirane osobe odgovorile su na isti set pitanja. Važnim dijelom rada smatrat ćemo i teorijski dio rada koji nešto više govori o samoj definiciji menadžmenta muzeja, odnosno novih trendova u menadžmentu muzeja.Encouraged by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has disabled the quality or at least the usual work of most institutions, especially those in the service of culture, this work will try to show the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on museum institutions and the cultural sector. The museum is known to us as a cultural institution whose goal is the development of society, and its task is to collect, preserve, research and represent material narrations of man and the environment, for the sake of science, education or entertainment. The museum is the so-called a database of the items it keeps. The scientific discipline that studies museums and their activities is called museology, and belongs to the information and communication sciences. Lately, in step with the times we live in, museum audiences have been forced to explore content through a variety of digital channels and platforms. Museums are expected to keep up with the times and prepare for the digitization of their contents, which the vast majority of museums in Eastern Croatia have failed to do, and which we will learn more about through interviews with museum leaders. An important role in this is played by museum management, a phrase created from two words that can survive without each other, but together they form an important tool in museum management. One of the most important questions that modern museum management must answer is how to use new technologies, and one of the basic prerequisites for their application is to ensure the availability of materials to museum users. Ensuring the availability of materials is one of the most important indicators of the quality of the museum's business. The paper seeks to prove the main hypothesis: "COVID-19 pandemic contributed to greater attendance of online cultural content." We will try to confirm the hypothesis by two methods: interviews with three leading people of museums in Eastern Croatia, and surveying museum visitors. In order to obtain as relevant data as possible, the interviewees answered the same set of questions. We will also consider the theoretical part of the paper to be an important part of the paper, which speaks more about the very definition of museum management, i.e. new trends in museum management