Professional paper
Croatian School Museum’s Toy Collection
Sanja Nekić
; Croatian School Museum, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
As an independent museum collection, the Croatian School Museum’s Toy Collection was established in 2018. Until that time, toys had been kept within the Collection of School Equipment and Items and the Collection of Teaching Tools and Aids. As an inseparable part of the children’s world, games and toys have become an increasingly important object of interdisciplinary investigation of childhood history and culture of living in specific eras.
The “Sweet Memory of Childhood” campaign conducted by the Croatian School Museum in 2019 aroused public interest and showed individuals’ willingness to donate sentimentally important personal items – toys they played with while growing up and in childhood. Around 500 toys were collected, made mostly by local manufacturers such as the Biserka Toy Factory in Zagreb, Jugoplastika in Split, Tila – 25. maj in Labin, including also Mehanotehnika Izola (Slovenia), as well as toys made in other countries of the region.
The Collection includes dolls, plush, wooden and rubber toys, board games, various vehicles (cars, trucks, trains, airplanes…) and other toys used by children to play from the late 19th century to date. Audiovisual games/records and electronic games are a separate class of records that have since the second half of the 20th century become an inseparable part of both children’s and adults’ lives. There remains the question of what sort of legacy such multitude of electronic games leaves us with, however, models and most popular items should certainly be archived.
The collection now includes over 800 toys and all of them have been professionally processed using the Modulor information system designed for processing museum materials.
Keywords
Croatian School Museum (Zagreb); Toy Collection; museum collections
Hrčak ID:
296303
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2021.
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