Sjæklen 2017

39 • Lundbæk, Morten (red): Lovsamling. Museale og antikvariske love i Norden . København: Skandinavisk Museumsforbund 1979. • Nielsen, Viggo: Nyere museumslovgivning i Danmark. Fortid og Nutid. Tidsskrift for kulturhistorie og lokalhistorie 1966 s. 303-311. • Pentz, Peter: En kommission ser dagens lys. Nyt fra Nationalmuseet. København 2007 nr. 114, s.4-9. • Rasmussen, Holger: Dansk museumshistorie. De kulturhistoriske museer . København: Dansk Kulturhistorisk Museumsforening 1979. • Skyggebjerg, Louise Karlskov: Industri på udstilling , 100 danmarkshistorier , Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag 2017. • Statens Museumsnævn: Oplysninger om danske museer. Perspektiver 1980-1990 . Køben- havn: Statens Museumsnævn 1980. • Stoklund, Bjarne: Varer som våben. Industrisamfundet, nationalstaten og de store udstillinger. Tingenes kulturhistorie . København: Museum Tusculanums Forlag 2003, s. 171-192. • Vedtægter for den selvejende Institution (fond) Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseet, Saltvandsakvariet i Esbjerg 2011. Interviews • Morten Hahn-Pedersen, tidl. direktør for Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseet i Esbjerg, 25. oktober 2017. • Søren Bak Jensen, direktør for Arbejdermuseet og formand for Forening for special- museer i Danmark, 30. oktober 2017. • Nils Jensen, formand for Organisationen Danske Museer, 8. november 2017. Summary The role of the specialised museum in the overall museum landscape: celebrating the 50th annivers- ary of the Fisheries and Maritime Museum This article about the specialised museum as a museum type is written to mark the 50th anniversary of the Fisheries and Mari- time Museum. But first of all, what is a specialised museum? When did this type of museum become a feature of the Danish museum landscape? What characterises a specialised museum? The article shows how specialised museums emerged at the end of the 19th century as part of the strong museum movement that evolved during the period heralded by the introduction of democracy in 1849. With the constitutional change from abso- lute monarchy to democracy, the museum landscape and admin- istration and preservation of the country’s cultural heritage be- came increasingly decentralised. It was against this background of state museums in Copenhagen and local museums scattered all over the country that the specialised museum first emerged, adding another dimension to Denmark’s burgeoning museum scene in the early 20th century. The first specialised museums were founded in connection with the great industrial exhibitions of the time, such as the Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1879 and the Nordic Agricultural, Industrial and Art Exhibition of 1888. These led to the country’s old industries getting their own mu- seums. The Danish Museum of Art and Design opened in 1890, the Danish Fisheries Museum in 1899, and the Danish Agricul- tural Museum in 1901. These museums typically bear the pre- fix “Danish” or “Denmark”: the specialised museums differ from the local museums of cultural history by covering the area of the whole country and assuming a nation-wide responsibility. With regard to cultural policy, the specialised museums were not included in the government subsidy system until the Mu- seum Act was amended in 1971. However, the government subsidy to specialised museums – unlike that awarded to local museums – was not conditional upon matching municipal sup- port but only upon support from other parties. In practice this support often came from the sector with which the specialised museum was associated. However, with the revision of the Mu- seum Act in 2012, the distinction between the different types of museum was amended and the category of “specialised mu- seum” was dropped. Today, being a specialised museum is therefore more a matter of a particular self-concept that has its historical roots in the devel- opment of the Danish museum landscape. A specialised museum typically has a relatively narrow focus on a trade or particular theme of national importance but – as in the case of the Fish- eries and Maritime Museum – it is also a resource for its home area, supporting its locality in its search for an identity. In the past few years, the specialised museum has helped to underpin Esbjerg’s transformation from a fishing port to the land base of the offshore industry. The specialised museum puts the march of history into perspective. It forges a link between the national and the local, the past and the present, and in Esbjerg’s case also between nature and culture, and thus turns an area of knowledge that at first seems quite narrow into one of general interest.