What is the Central Registry of Collections?

img In 2000, the Parliament of the Czech Republic adopted Act No. 122/2000 on the Protection of Museum-type Collections and on Amendment to Other Act. This Act, by which the previous legislation on museums and galleries was repealed, defines the rights and obligations of collection owners and establishes the Central Register of Collections (CES), which is maintained by the Ministry of Culture. The CES is a publicly accessible list of collections, which indicates how rich this part of the nation's movable cultural heritage is. You can now look into it. We plan for the future to enrich it by pictorial information about the collections, individual collection items and the museums and galleries, and by adequate links to other web pages.

What Can You Learn from the Central Registry of Collections?

The Ministry of Culture inscribed on the Central Register of Collections (CES) all collections (owned by the State and the regional and local municipalities), whose managers - museums and galleries - were obliged ex lege to apply for registration of the collections. Collections owned by other legal entities and individuals have also been inscribed, provided that the owners decided to have them inscribed.

The list of collections inscribed on the CES includes:

  • the name of the collection
  • information about the owner of the collection
  • information about the manager of the collection, which is as a rule a museum or gallery (a gallery being a fine arts museum)
  • separately recorded parts constituting the collections; each of these parts ("subcollections") is focused on a specific area
  • characteristics of each subcollection, containing:
    • indication of the territory from which the subcollection primarily comes
    • the period that is primarily documented by the subcollection, and a brief history of the subcollection
    • the types of objects and materials that are primarily represented in the subcollection
    • indication whether the subcollection includes cultural relics or archival documents

Hence, the CES primarily is:

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  1. a complete overview of museums and galleries founded by the government or by the regional or local municipalities and a list of their collections, briefly characterised and not published anywhere else
  2. information about the specialised areas in which museums and galleries do their collecting work
  3. information about which collections enjoy, or may enjoy, subsidisation from public funds
  4. and also information about a number of other collections that are owned by other legal entities or individuals