Article 1 – Establishment
At the Center for Documentation and Research on the History of School Books and Children’s Literature, established with D.R. of 20 February 2004, n. 475 at the Department of Education and Training Sciences of the University of Macerata, the «Paolo and Ornella Ricca» School Museum is set up.
Article 2 – Purpose
The aims of the Museum are those listed below:
preserve, order, exhibit and make accessible – for the purposes of public use, educational enhancement and scientific research – the collections of the Research Center;
operate as a Third Mission tool of the University of Macerata through the public communication of the results of historical-educational research;
acquire and preserve additional materials of a book, archival, iconographic and object nature of historical-educational interest;
provide scientific support to census projects of educational collections and historical-educational materials conserved in schools in the Province of Macerata;
promote a national network of school museums based on the census carried out by the permanent Observatory of educational museums and research centers on historical-educational heritage (OPeN.MuSE) established within the Museum on 9 April 2014;
collaborate with the museums of the aforementioned network in order to promote projects and initiatives aimed at the census, collection, conservation and enhancement of the national historical-educational heritage;
sensitize the school world and civil society towards the historical-educational heritage through targeted initiatives such as:
cultural initiatives: guided tours, exhibitions, events, festivals, competitions, etc.;
permanent education initiatives: seminars, workshops, masters and internships;
publishing initiatives (catalogues, museum collections, educational notebooks, etc.);
cultural animation initiatives and public communication through the mass media and new social networks;
communicate the historical-educational heritage towards different target audiences: primary and secondary school pupils; University students; trainee and in-service teachers; families; elderly people; people with sensory and intellectual disabilities; foreigners; general public and/or cultural tourism, etc.
Article 3 – Assets
The heritage preserved and exhibited by the Museum is made up of book, archival-documentary and “object” type materials. The latter definition refers to all the material evidence of education in the various forms, ambits and contexts (formal, non-formal and informal) in which it has historically taken place in Italy. In this sense it is possible to distinguish between:
1.a: materials of historical-scholastic interest or those relating to the history of the Italian school, including: school classroom furnishings and furnishings, textbooks, school registers, school notebooks and diaries, school pupil objects, tools for writing, pedagogical aids (Montessorian, Froebelian materials, etc.), aids for teaching the various sciences, photographs, boards and wall maps, materials for school meals, games and toys for recreational and after-school activities and other objects school use;
1.b: materials of historical-educational interest relating to the history of education in Italy and attributable to the culture of education but also, for example, to the culture of childhood and/or youth, to the culture of the family, or to religious culture etc.;
The collections and holdings exhibited in the Museum are based on the original donation of the spouses Paolo and Ornella Ricca, to which have been added, and continue to be added, new object, archival-documentary and bibliographic collections received by the Research Center and/or the Museum through donation, purchase, loan for use and/or other methods. The constantly updated list of object collections, mainly functional to the mission of the Museum, is managed by the Museum Director.
Article 4 – Inventory
The inventory of object materials, mainly functional to the mission and setting up of the Museum, is coordinated by the Director of the Museum and agreed and carried out in close collaboration with the Department of Education and Training Sciences of the University of Macerata.
Article 5 – Headquarters
The School Museum is housed in the premises of the Research Centre, of which it is an emanation.
Article 6 – Operation
To achieve its goals, the School Museum makes use of:
tenured professors and researchers belonging to the Research Centre;
external collaborators: undergraduates, trainee students, scholarship holders, PhD students, interns and scholars, from the University itself (and/or from other Italian and foreign universities and research centres), finally the volunteers of the Univers Civil Service