Between the 17th and 20th of July 2023, three staff members of the ELTE University Library and Archives participated in a study trip at Humboldt University in Berlin as part of the Erasmus+ Programme. The program was implemented at the invitation of the organization that coordinates scientific university collections in Germany.
During the visit, our staff had the opportunity to get to know the details of collection coordination activities at the national level as well as at the university level. In addition to the workshops, where they discussed each other's results and problems, the colleagues from Berlin presented their collections located in the various faculties of the university, which can therefore be visited on a limited basis, i.e. the replicas of statues and the objects found during the excavations at the Institute of Archeology; the exhibitions located in the classrooms and corridors of the zoology and human anatomy departments of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, as well as the art collection in the closed warehouse, accessible only to employees.
The university has several natural science exhibitions, which our colleagues could visit as part of a guided tour. In addition to the permanent exhibition, the TAT - Animal Anatomy Theater building located on the Nord Campus also houses a number of temporary exhibitions, during the visit there was an exhibition on the tradition of Chinese foot binding and the issue of feminism. In the Humboldt Forum (the building opened in 2021), the university also got a smaller exhibition room, called the Humboldt Laboratory, which explores contemporary social, ethical and scientific issues. In addition, the Museum of Natural History, which has not been maintained by the university since 2009, but its collection and results linked to the institution in the past.
The study trip was a great opportunity to gain a lot of useful experience and valuable professional contacts, which will be used in the future throughout our university heritage coordination work.