European Museum Academy conference

In 2023, the Hungarian Money Museum and Visitor Centre — opens in a new tab won the DASA Award from the European Museum Academy, recognizing excellence in museum education. At the organization’s request, the Money Museum was able to participate as a co-organizer in the planning of the conference and award ceremony held in 2025. On the final day of the international conference, held between September 25 (Thursday) and September 27 (Saturday), a workshop titled “Digital Challenges and New Opportunities in the Museums” took place, to which our colleague András Simon was invited as one of the two Hungarian speakers.

He delivered his English-language presentation under the title “User Generated Content in public collections.” Perhaps the most frequently recurring theme among the presentations given at the conference was storytelling. According to the speakers, museums can no longer be satisfied with merely preserving and presenting objects—although this remains the primary mission of these institutions—but they must also present and tell the stories connected to the objects, both on-site and for virtual visitors. Furthermore, these stories connected to objects must not only be told but also collected, thereby saving the community’s memories for posterity. This is why content created by users, User Generated Content (UGC), is so important in modern museum work, and particularly during its digital support.

(Image sources: Money Museum, Monguz Kft.)