Sports Museum: Safeguarding Sports Heritage in the USA

The committed work of collecting, preserving, and exhibiting sports heritage, which was initiated by sports societies, zealous individuals, and some other museums, is now continued with devotion in the Sports Museum. Our work in the field includes recording interesting and invaluable materials for the museum, which consist not only of objects but also books, written documents, photographs, and, last but not least, testimonies. When possible, we seek to secure such materials for our museum collections. We document and research each acquired item and then include it in a museum collection. Based on expert assessment, some of them are also declared cultural monuments.

Our primary objective is to cover all areas of sport and as many disciplines as possible. For each of them, we seek to acquire objects that have marked each area the most and are crucial to understanding its history. The procedure of accepting an item into our collections involves a thorough conservation inspection of its condition. Should an object have any deficiency, these are carefully noted and if the condition permits, eliminated. With minimal intervention, we wish to give them their former appearance. The conditions and manners of storage are then specified for the restored and impeccable objects to ensure that they are kept most appropriately in the designated repositories. Another part of working with objects is to ensure that their condition is monitored and inventoried on a regular basis.

The same attention that is given to the work with objects is also given to the work with the public. Thus, we continue the pioneering work of our predecessors while also fulfilling the tasks to be expected of a modern museum. We strive to present museum objects to the public in the most varied and modern ways and to ensure access to cultural values and information contained in each of the items. The primary means of communication applied in the Sports Museum is through permanent, temporary, and visiting exhibitions. However, there is far more to our work with the public than this. We seek to bring closer to the public museum objects as well as sports heritage and past through various educational programmes for children and adults, round tables, lectures, researches, articles in publications intended for the general public and experts, and other types of content. Finally, we make sure that information on museum items and Slovenia’s sporting past is readily available and accessible to our visitors and users.

Here in front of you is one of the results of our efforts to bring the sports heritage and the sporting past closer to the public. The exhibition Sports Museum: Safeguarding Sports Heritage presents a range of disciplines based on photographs from our extensive photo library and selected museum items. Some of them can be seen in the premises of the Slovenian School Museum (Plečnikov trg 1), but most of them are safely stored in museum repositories. We have chosen to present the sports events that are richly documented, i.e., those we can claim to have covered satisfactorily, at least with objects and photographs. Other highlights include Stanko Bloudek, after whom the highest sports achievement award has been named since 1965, and the collection in the Planica Nordic Centre, to which the Sports Museum provides professional support in museum activities.

As we want to build on our collections and to present and preserve the heritage of Slovenian sports fittingly, we invite you to become part of the Sports Museum by helping us supplement our museum objects. If you have a piece of our common sports heritage at home and would be willing to donate it to the Sports Museum, please get in touch with us.

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