Museum Vestsjælland is offered many objects. The objects that the museum chooses to say yes to are selected according to a number of criteria that Museum Vestsjælland has adopted and meet the requirements set by the Danish Cultural Heritage Agency for a state-recognized museum. 

The criteria for whether the object should be included in the collections can be grouped into five points:

1. Does the object fall within the museum's focus area? 

Museum West Zealand's focus area covers Sorø, Slagelse, Ringsted, Odsherred, Kalundborg and Holbæk Municipalities and covers topics within market town history, building culture, harbor histories, school history, trade, crafts and industrial history, agricultural history, coastal culture, leisure culture and archeology.

2. Provenance - as home

If the item does not originate from the collection area, it belongs to another museum.

Provenance - the good story 

It is important that an object adds new knowledge to the museum and the museum therefore knows as much as possible about the object's origin and "life history", the more one knows, the greater the cultural-historical value.

Archaeological objects must be able to be located relatively accurately. For example, it is not enough to state that the object was found in Ugerløse; it is necessary to be able to designate the field on which it is found.

4. Condition of preservation 

The museum has to look critically at the condition of the objects before they are collected, it costs a lot of money to preserve and restore.

5. Is the item in the collection already available? 

It is not necessary to collect an object if the museum already has similar objects at its disposal, but perhaps the good story should be collected.

Write you have an item that you would like to donate, then write an email to historie@vestmuseum.dk, with as much information as possible, we will contact you as soon as possible.

What happens to the submitted item?

When the museum has said yes to an object, it is cleaned (possibly preserved), given an object number, photographed, registered with all information, measured, described and stored. 

The museum registers according to the Danish Museum's Documentation Standard. This means that all relevant information is gathered in a museum case and entered into the museums' registration system SARA. Once the case has been registered, there is access to some of the information as well as photos of the object on the Internet: 

http://www.kulturarv.dk/mussam 

Unfortunately, the museum cannot exhibit all the objects at its disposal and therefore most of them are stored in the museum's climate-controlled magazines. From here, the objects are taken out for changing exhibitions and research projects. The museum also lends objects to other museums and exhibition venues. In addition, researchers and other interested parties can access the collections by contacting the museum.

In order for your possible donation to the museum to comply with the requirements for a museum object, it is important that you make an appointment with the staff of the local museum, so that there is plenty of time to have all the information collected together with the objects.

Download a copy of the text here