WHAT IS THE MAIN IDEA OF THE PROJECT AND WHO IS THE TARGET GROUP?

The initial motivation of the project was connected to stimulating the relation between the visitor and the cultural products offered by the National Museum of Romanian Literature. From a conceptual point of view, the project started from the idea of giving new meanings to the literary expositional discourse, according to the latest evolutions in the field, as things usually happen in the great European museums, by associating multimedia technologies. The main purpose of the project was to promote and encourage reading, the priority being to draw young people close to the European common cultural values in the framework of non-formal education. The project managed to attract young people between 7 and 18 years old by offering a quality literary content in a multimedia package that was easy to use and had information that was easy to access.

WHAT DOES THE PROJECT INCLUDE?

EuroliteraTur was a literary touring exhibition in Europe, realised exclusively by electronic-digital means (in digital multimedia system). The project aimed to promote the European cultural literary values through a literary exhibition presenting: photos (writers, books, manuscripts); audio and video recordings (movies, interviews, music and poetry recitals, theatre performances etc.); literary-historical dates; e-books. This project implied a modern design vision of the exhibitions and a multilingual approach, using digital multimedia technology.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE PROJECT PARTNER/S?

• Documentation (collecting data, literature, history and art).
• Renting the technical support (touch screens, video projectors or plasma displays etc.) of the exhibition in Saragossa.
• Arranging all organisational details of the travelling exhibition in Saragossa (exhibition room, press releases, publicity, promotional materials etc.).
• Translation of exhibition texts (script) into the Spanish language.
• Help in finding (assuring) of exhibitions materials.

HOW IS THE PROJECT FINANCED?

The financing from the European Commision was of 149 950 Euro, while the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affaires of Romania co-financed the project with 10.790 Euro and promoted the events of the project on the portal.

WHAT ARE THE OUTPUTS?

The project accomplished all the proposed activities during a year of implementation. The project successfully reached its goal, objectives and results, adding new elements regarding the growth of the impact over the public and the dissemination of the project on a larger scale. EuroLiteraTur is now an innovative cultural product at European level: a virtual encyclopedia, presented as a multimedia interactive exhibition both on the internet and as a part of the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of Romanian Literature.

All the five main anticipated results were fully achieved the project offered a competitive product that successfully contributes to European cultural development – EuroLiteraTur: a multimedia interactive permanent exhibition, now part of the Permanent Exhibition of the National Museum of Romanian Literature:

• There were five travelling multimedia interactive exhibitions in five European cities (Athens, Saragossa, Rome, Lodz, Prague);
• There was a promotional web site of the project, with direct link towards the online virtual encyclopedia;
• 6,400 people visited the exhibitions; at least 4,230 visitors went to the promotional website and the online encyclopedia, and there were 6,900 beneficiaries of the DVDs;
• 1,000 DVDs were distributed, containing the application created by Macromedia Flash in English.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PROJECT ENCOUNTERS DIFFICULTIES?

The budget is perhaps the most difficult component of a project. In order to ensure accurate and efficient financial management of the project, one has to collaborate with an experienced specialist in the field and with an external auditor, for cross-checking the budgetary expenses. In the case of this project, this issue was solved through two professional and efficient external collaborations: a financial expert and an independent auditor. Nevertheless, the main problem in implementing a project in Romania is the participant’s own financial contribution. Basically, this was possible through a very balanced management of the expenses, from the point of view of the Romanian and European financial legislation, especially through allocating and distributing them upon the six budgetary chapters, according to the contract signed with the European Commission.

WHAT ADVICE CAN YOU OFFER RELATING TO THIS PROJECT?

The project intended and succeeded in attracting young people between the ages of 7 and 18 by offering quality literary content in a multimedia package easy that is to use and contains easy access to information. The project intended to attract them, to inform them, to teach them and to provoke the young people to read the hard copy version of European literature. The co-organisers used multiple methods to reach the target group and also promoted other events based on the content of the project: film projections, created after literary works, in Romania and Greece; literary workshops in Spain; thematic exhibitions in Poland. Our surveys regarding the visitors have indicated that almost 70% of the visitors to the exhibition in Bucharest were younger than 30. Most of the visitors preferred the themes of the multimedia exhibition.

The content of EuroLiteraTur was organised under the direct coordination of experts in the History of European Literature and Comparative Literature. Considering that the museum was both the main beneficiary and the project leader, professionals from the liberal arts field were interested in the way the project was carried out from a technical and thematic point of view. In all the locations where the exhibition was presented, the visitors were divided in two categories: people whose hobbies are represented by reading and art, and professionals from various cultural fields. They all showed their appreciation and views regarding the project and its content. The exhibition also attracted ordinary people and specialists who came due to the technical innovations offered by the project. The fact that the exhibition offered free access encouraged the public to visit EuroLiteraTur.

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?

The implementation of this project led to important consequences and benefits for the project leader and its partners and actively contributed to the cultural development in Romania: the promotion of a reliable internal and international institutional image; the creation of a cultural projects department and of a young, dynamic and professional team; the development of a new concept of the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of Romanian Literature; the development of new internal partnerships; the organisation of an experienced external group of partners; the development of new European cultural projects; foreseeing of the first museums' national network and its affiliation to the European network NEMO; foreseeing the national thematic network of museums and memorial houses; the insurance of a partnership framework in order to create a European literary thematic network; the creation of the necessary premises for applying to structural funds.

ANYTHING WE'VE FORGOTTEN TO ASK?

Through its very nature, the project encouraged cooperation between different institutions in the member states of the European Union. The success of the project can be measured by the way it was implemented and, over the long term, by taking into consideration that the coorganisers are interested in working together in new cultural projects starting from EuroLiteraTur. Now, although in a nascent form, the National Museum of Romanian, together with the coorganisers and some of the partners in the project, is preparing a framework in order to develop a European cultural network, based on EuroLiteraTur's structure.

The content of EuroLiteraTur and its presentation represent a combination of specialised literary information and the latest media technologies. This combination has proved to be extremely attractive, especially for young people. Because the project aimed to increase the public's perception about European cultural values, the initial number of 278 authors was increased to 800 (of which 608 were included in the multimedia exhibition). The public thus had the possibility to get in touch with the cultures of various countries, across a larger area. The European public had the opportunity to be informed about authors from the European Union and from South-East European countries whose literary representatives were not well known in the past.

THANKS TO

The Cultural Contact Point of Romania for the Programme "Culture 2000": Mr. Vladimir Simon, Mr. Alexandru Oprea, Mrs. Mioara Lujanschi.