The project Emil Isac – the museum inside the library aims at building a unique point of access for an impressive collection of documents, photographs and objects related to the life and activity of a local writer, Emil Isac. The history of the museum begins in 2001, when the memorial house, initially hosted by the house where the writer lived, was closed. The collection of the memorial house became part of Cluj County Library patrimony. The library set up a small exhibition space, displaying the furniture, decorative objects and part of the documents. At the same time, the library staff started the digitization of the most important documents that were published, over the year, on various platforms (Omeka, Greenstone or the Qulto previous solution, Jadox). But the objects (paintings, furniture, various decorative objects) were not digitized yet.
In 2024, the library did the last step in digitizing the Emil Isac extensive collection, by cataloguing also the museum objects, in a database created in our museum management software, Qulto Museum. At the same time, all the previously digitized objects related to Emil Isac were converted to the same database, thus creating a database of 1500 records.
The database can be accessed by anyone, in the form of a rich and eclectic online catalogue, that gives the visitor a lot of information not only about the writer, but also about how political, cultural and everyday life was in Cluj, in the past century.
The project was completed by creating a webpage, presenting the life and work of the writer through several stories (created with our Qulto solution: Storytelling). Also, in order to enrich the visitor experience in the physical museum space, the library placed a touchscreen terminal offering details about the objects on display. For this terminal, the Q360 solution was used, allowing the library to convey a multitude of details and fragments of history related to the objects, in an interactive and intuitive way.
