#Exhibit of the Month

One of the great technical achievements that revolutionized the idea of time and space, opening a new era in the history of communication, is telegraphy. It is based on the transmission of electrical signals through a cable over long distances, allowing people to communicate instantly. The telegraph spread very quickly and a network of wires stretched around the world.

In 1837, the American painter and physicist Samuel Morse invented the first electromagnetic device for telegraphy, patented in 1840. To send messages by wire, Morse developed in 1838 a simple code of dots and dashes, which represented the letters of the alphabet, known as "Morse code ".

Both Morse code and the telegraph machine were improved over time, with the telegraph becoming the most widespread system of communication and information transmission for more than a century, until the advent of the Internet. The telegraph system consisted of a series of stations repeaters along the transmission line route. Each station had an operator who received and transmitted messages by telegraph. The Morse machine transmitted about 25 words per minute, which were recorded in code on a paper tape. The operator in charge of transmitting the message would decode it and write it on paper using a special typewriter.

In Bessarabia, the telegraph entered in 1860: on April 8, the Bender telegraph station began its activity, and on April 24, the one in Chisinau, following the construction of the first Odesa-Chisinau-Leova telegraph line. Currently, telegraph services have been discontinued. The only ones who still use coded communication are radio amateurs.

The Morse telegraph machine shown comes from the Osinoostrovsky electrotechnical plant, Soviet Union, and dates back to 1934. The exhibit was restored by Mihail Culașco.

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Research Research Projects

"Role of museum heritage in the development of contemporary society" (2015-2018)

Since 2015 the museum's researchers will implement the institutional project Role of museum heritage in the development of contemporary society part of strategic direction National heritage and development of society.
Project director is dr.hab. Elena Ploșnița

Cultural heritage, important component of culture, is resultant of social-cultural and political-economic developments. Cultural heritage, including museum heritage, is of particular importance for the human community to which it is associated and for society as a whole.

In an open society, democratization of culture and of museum institutions which, permanently broaden their cultural offer, presumes a responsibility for research and scientific or public valorification of museum's assets. In recent years, public institutions, national and international forums have argued various concepts such as valorification of museum heritage, museum brand, cultural tourism, museum marketing and management. This orientation of public institutions, mass-media and society in general is owed to the importance of social-cultural factors as levers and main components of sustainable social-economic development. This change, which envisions a reassessment of economic importance besides the cultural one of national cultural heritage, including museum heritage, requires shifting the focus to areas not addressed so far or insufficiently taken into account, such as the role of museum institutions in the development of a sustainable society.

The project proposes several major research directions:

- systematization of archaeological collections, medieval period;
- documentation, research and scientific and public valorifiation of several categories of museum assets: collection of gold and silver objects from ancient times to the end of twentieth century, collection of advertising posters, collection of watches, coin collection from the archaeological site Costești, thirteenth-fourteenth century;
- identification of museum's educational role throughout its existence and impact for society;
- improvement of the ways of communicating the scientific message to contemporary Moldovan society;
- promotion of museum heritage in the Moldovan society and abroad through a broad program of scientific valorifiation, exhibitions and publishing.

The project will contribute to scientific systematization of museum collections, to enhancing the dialogue between museum and society (public), to the development of an open society aware of the value and necessity of promoting the museum heritage at home and abroad.

The role of museum heritage in social development presumes primarily valorification. Museum cultural heritage valorification means, on one hand, good conservation and preservation and, on the other hand, proper systematization so to fulfill its cultural, social and educational mission. The valorification of heritage has both a scientific and cultural aspect, related to the analysis and dissemination of information about the significance of cultural heritage, and an economical one. A good activity leads not only to preservation but to a well informed society. Today, the performance of cultural institutions, their accomplished missions and objectives are increasingly measured by economic criteria: profitability, efficiency, degree of public satisfaction, number and impact of programs and products developed etc. What differs is the assessment perspective: the first is social-cultural perspective; however the economical one cannot be ignored.

Three basic principles:

- sustainable cultural development (heritage enrichment and transmission to future generations)
- serving a wide audience
- adaptation to external and internal environment should be extremely dynamic.

These are three principles underlying the correlation of results to be obtained in this project with the results obtained by museums around the world in their relation with the contemporary society.

Scientific research results will be summarized in articles, monographs, catalogues of heritage collections, thematic exhibitions.

The following results are expected for the first year (2015) of project:

- will be identified the heritage value of various categories of museum assets with the aim to introduce them into the scientific and public circuit, national and international for the benefit of society,
- will be systematized the theory and practice of Moldovan museology under the aspect of museum role and place for the educational system of Moldova,
- will be developed and published a catalogue with pieces from the collection of precious metals, a monograph focused on Cucuteni-Tripyllian culture, a monograph arguing museum-public and museum-society relationships from the end of nineteenth century till our days,
- will continue the process of digitization of museum collections,
- will be organized exhibitions home and abroad.