Stakeholders meeting in Lithuania

The meeting was divided into four parts:

• Presentation of the summarized questionnaire results carried out in 5 countries (Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden) – Partick Rang
• Presentation of questionnaire results collected in Lithuania – Daiva Jonuškienė
• Roundtable discussion of 15 representatives from 7 different museums, and cultural institutions – moderated by PhD Simonas Strelcovas
• Study visit to Museum of Pharmacy “Valerijonas”

During the meeting, it emerged from the discussion that museums’ activities during the pandemic was disrupted only in the first year of the pandemic (it was influenced by the strict governmental regulation) after which the sector has shown strong growth and is often better off than in 2019. Representatives of cultural institutions emphasized that people really missed museums and need somewhere to go out.

Trying to discuss what exact effect examples occurred, participants listed the boost of e-shops with services and educations. Museums shared experience how they cooperate with other museums and have such solutions as 1 ticket for 4 museums at one region or sell e-tickets and present cards at e-ticket platforms (tiketa.lt, bilietai.lt, geradovana and etc.). It was carried out, that universal equal rules of crisis management allowed to search cooperation tools and find out the best ways to work in crisis time.

A huge attention during discussion were paid to IT experience. Participants explained that virtual expositions were created, websites were prepared for expositions demonstrations, a lot of artefacts and objects were digitalized. That allowed to widen museums possibilities to work and there were no need to dismiss staff. Staff competence were increased during inner museum communication and that allowed easier to adapted staff to crisis period without any visitors and create a positive work atmosphere.

Here was carried out that state and private museums resilience to crisis was enough according to financial support provided by the Ministry of Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania or Ministry of Culture. Need to pay attention that state museums still have financial instruments, governmental support such as free of charge last month Sunday for museums (tickets are reimbursed by Ministry of Culture), Cultural passport (free educations for schoolchildren; reimbursed by Ministry of Culture). Museums still continue different kind of projects (national, international) to ensure their services and create new ones, also to raise funds for stable museum activity.

During discussion some pross of crisis also was mentioned. Everybody agreed that crisis (not only COVID19, Ukraine war or electricity crisis) forces a shift in priorities and a need of new activity methods. For example, few museums start to use their outdoor territory for concerts and outdoor events (involving into social events such as picnic day, fascination of Plants Day and etc.) or created travelling expositions.

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