Five museums – the Fedderwardersiel National Park Centre (Lower Saxony), the Ovelgönne Craft Museum (Lower Saxony), the Lötschental Museum (Kippel, Switzerland), the Angeln/Unewatt Landscape Museum (Schleswig-Holstein) and the Werratal Museum in Gerstungen (Thuringia) have joined forces with the Institute of Material Culture at the University of Oldenburg to form a research network. What these selected museums have in common is that they see themselves as ‘new local history museums’ and have a particular connection to the landscape and its representation within these museums. The project is scheduled to run for three years. The research project focuses on investigating the specific types of knowledge production that are characteristic of local history museums. Of particular interest are the nature, timing and intention behind this knowledge production, as well as the associated forms and processes of collection development. In principle, early-career researchers are to work on site in teams with experienced museologists. In this context, all those involved in knowledge production within the museums are significant, which is why their active involvement in the research process plays a central role. A further aim of the project is the sustainable promotion of co-operation and networking amongst the participating museums.
Consequently, the project process is made transparent to all participants through participatory accompanying research, which is intended to initiate exchanges between theory and museum practice, leading to reflection on and the further development of research in and about local history museums. Furthermore, the project addresses questions regarding the verifiability of the quality of museum work in local history museums – questions that are increasingly being raised by small museums as well. The aim of the cooperating museums and the participating researchers/
is to further develop the institution of the local history museum in a self-assured and productive manner. The specific research objective is to identify and examine collections of objects specific to the ‘New Local History Museums’ and the associated forms of presentation through which
statements about nature, region, homeland, gender and ethnicity are conveyed both implicitly and explicitly. Based on this analysis, a guide is to be developed which will, for the first time, provide small local history museums with a set of tools
– developed within a scientific research context – for qualitative self-evaluation and for reflecting on their own forms of presentation. Regular working meetings with an advisory board comprising recognised academics and museum professionals will serve to ensure quality assurance.