The Information and Communications Technology Department of Zagreb City Museum was founded in 1999 when the museum employed its first information specialist.
Information technology has been a feature in world museums since the second half of the 1960s. The early use of computers really boiled down to the implementation of processes in which museum documentation and collection management were automated and to the development of standards in documentation. In the 1980s a key role in the much more vigorous breakthrough of technology into museums was played by the development of personal computers, and in the 1990s by the Internet and the growth of the Web. Personal computers found their way into all departments of museums and today no single museum task can be performed without the employment of digital technology. On the other hand, the Web has led to dramatic shifts in the conceptualisation of the users and in the culture of digital museum communication.
Profound consequences of these changes can be seen in the manner in which museum collections are used, not only any more as collections of objects, rather as collections of knowledge, which can be communicated most successfully via the Web. The museum is increasingly perceived not as a building, rather as a process and an experience. In line with contemporary world theory and practice of the production of the digital heritage, we think of the museum, today and in the future, as an information and media museum, which communicates its concepts in diverse perceptual modes, for differing groups of users.
The digital productions of the ITC department can be divided into five basic groups.
1. Museum databases
- accessions book
- register of donors
- digital catalogue of the permanent display
- donations of the city of Zagreb safekeeping books
- directory and mailing list
- register of archaeologists
- database of exhibitions and publications
- database of Zagreb events and personalities, etc.
2. digitalisation of material – internal digital collections
- the photographic collection digital collection,
- the museum exhibition posters digital collection
- the Ivan Gerersdorfer digital collection,
- the Tilla Durieux digital collection,
- the Zvonimir Faist digital collection,
- the Viki Glovacki digital collection,
- the Ivo Robić digital collection,
- the Ruža Cvjetičanin digital collection,
- the Rudolf Klepač digital collection, etc.
3. digital gallery assets – multimedia products at occasional exhibitions
- A chronicle in pictures from Jurjevska Street: Anka Krizmanić – the Zagreb portfolio, 2000
- Vladimir Guteša: the first museum photographer of the Zagreb City Museum, 2000
- In search of the old Zagreb playgrounds, 2001
- Ljerka Njerš: Tribute to Milka Trnina – raku ceramics, clayprints, 2001
- The Bela and Miroslav Krleža Memorial Space, 2001
- Stereoscopic photography at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries from the holdings of Zagreb City Museum, 2002
- Discards of the past, 2002
- Zvonimir Faist: the Dictates of the time – posters from the late 1930s to the early 1960s, 2003
- The art of the street: Zagreb graffiti 1994-2004, 2004
- You're heartily welcome, my friend - Viki Glovacki, 2006
- Mister Morgen – Ivo Robić, 2007
- Photographic albums of the Hellenbach family, 2009
- MORS PORTA VITAE - DEATH THE GATE OF LIFE: Old Zagreb cemeteries and funerals, 2011
4. Digital reference products – CD-ROMs
- Zvonimir Faist: the Dictates of the Time – Posters from the late 1930s to the early 1960s, 2004
- Documentation and Users. Proceedings of the CIDOC Annual Conference, 2005
- Viki Glovacki, 2006
- Svijet, illustrated talkie review: Zagreb, 1926-1936, 2007
- An image preserved: Photographic albums of the Hellenbach family, 2009
- Music out of a Box : a Selection from the Repertoire of the Mechanical Musical Automata of Ivan Gerersdorfer, 2010
5. Web sites
- Zagreb City Museum Web site, 2000 – 2017
- Annual CIDOC Conference – Documentation and Users, 2005
- Tilla Durieux and her collection of artworks, 2006
- The Collection of mechanical music automata of Ivan Gerersdorfer, 2008
