Departments

Road Vehicles
In its nearly 70-year-long history, the museum amassed extensive collections of road vehicles of every imaginable type which, in terms of their communicative value, considerably exceed the mere topic of the development of road transport in the territory of modern-day Slovenia. The museum acquired its first car in 1953. Over the years, it was joined by a series of motor vehicles that the museum, for decades, treated as “vintage cars”. In fact, the museum was not only involved in the activity that is usually the domain of private enthusiasts of historic vehicles, but also organised “vintage rallies”. Today, the restored historic vehicles speak of the origins of said activity in our country as well as make a part of the development and history of the Technical Museum of Slovenia as a whole. In the 1980s, the museum acquired a collection of limousines that were in possession of Yugoslav President Tito. Complemented with the first diplomatic armoured vehicle purchased in the independent Slovenia, this collection has a special place in our museum. Since 1990s, the museum has put much effort in the acquisition of the last examples of domestic production-line vehicles, in particular those that were the fruit of domestic know-how. Together with the automotive industry, these vehicles are displayed in open storage and at the exhibition Motorcycles from Koper. An extensive collection of bicycles, which in addition to the bicycle’s long evolution illustrates the achievements of local cycle manufacturers, is showcased at the exhibition Two Wheels and a Pair of Legs. Last, but not least, the museum preserves the collection of animal-drawn vehicles located at Soteska open storage, and a smaller collection of cars which are on long-term loan from the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin.

Boris Brovinsky, , M.Sc., museum councillor: 01 251 54 02, boris.brovinsky@tms.si

Agriculture
As one of the principal and basic economic activities of the great majority of the Slovenian people in the past, agriculture is relevant also in terms of heritage preservation. The museum collects and preserves artefacts and other material related to the development of basic agricultural industries, i.e. crop production, grassland management, animal husbandry, fruit growing, viticulture and winemaking. In line with the museum’s mission, the artefacts geographically originate from various Slovenian regions, while chronologically they stretch from the second half of the 19th to mid-20th centuries. The exhibits from earlier period mainly include hand tools, small devices and equipment used in agriculture. Mechanisation of agriculture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries provided farmers machinery and equipment which substantially facilitated their work. Many artefacts testify to ingenuity and adeptness of individuals who often made tools, accessories, and devices themselves or in small craft workshops.

Irena Marušič, museum councillor: 01 436 64 90, irena.marusic@tms.si

Forestry & Woodworking
The collection Forestry includes tools that foresters use in their work, in particular in forest management, forest surface and wood measurements, measurements of annual increment of individual trees and the stand as a whole, as well as in making harvesting plans (determining the volume of timber to be cut). Other than that, it exhibits a great deal of the most common tools, accessories and machinery used in timber harvesting, i.e. tree cutting and assortment production, timber extraction from forests to roads and its transport (non-mechanised and mechanised) to the processing plants. The collection includes many models that help understand techniques and practices used in forestry.

The Woodworking collection roughly contains three groups of exhibits related to roundwood processing into semi-finished and finished products. The first comprises many exhibits from woodworking crafts, such as carpentry (in rural and urban centres), wheelwright’s trade, woodenware, barrel making and joinery. These trades are illustrated with a number of unique models. The second group pertains to hand, water, steam, and electricity-powered sawing of logs into lumber (planks, boards, and beams), while the third demonstrates the production of chairs, the most common product of furniture industry. It includes non-working and working models of water-powered sawmills and a frame saw which clearly demonstrate the mechanical principles of sawing, and the original woodworking machines produced by the Gustav Tonnies company. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Tonnies was the leading manufacturer of such machinery in the Slovenian ethnic territory.

Vladimir Vilman, M.Sc., museum councillor: 01 251 54 04, vladimir.vilman@tms.si

Printing
The origins of the printing department date back to 1980 when the Technical Museum of Slovenia prepared the reconstruction of Valvasor’s graphics workshop at Bogenšperk Castle. It was the first museum’s permanent exhibition in this field, and the collection has to this day remained one of TMS off-site units. The department’s permanent collection The Written Word – Printing on Slovene Territory was open to public in Bistra in 2006. The written word is one of the earliest forms of communication between people, generations, and civilisations. Before the invention of printing, texts had been manually transcribed and it was its emergence in Europe in the 15th century that facilitated a faster and cheaper reproduction of texts, together with dissemination of ideas and knowledge. The so-called black art reached the territory of modern-day Slovenia in the 16th century with Trubar and his first printed work in the Slovenian language dating from 1550.

The aim of the printing department is to collect, preserve, study and exhibit artefacts of technical cultural heritage in the field of printing and reproduction of the written word, in relation with intangible heritage. Telling its own story, every exhibit testifies to the development of printing, economic flows and people engaged in this activity, and also to their skills and know-how. Most exhibits in the collection date from the late 19th to the 20th centuries.

Martina Orehovec, M.Sc., museum advisor: 01 251 54 01, martina.orehovec@tms.si

Textiles
The department collects, preserves and studies artefacts, devices and processing techniques used in textile craft – and later industry – in order to illustrate the history and development of textile manufacture in the territory of present-day Slovenia. The collection displays the objects related to the spinning, weaving, knitting, tailoring, hat and cloth-making crafts. From the 18th century onwards, hand tools and devices were gradually replaced by machines which prompted considerable production growth. Spinning and weaving mills from the first half of the 19th century were the first textile factories in Slovenian land. The department preserves spinning, weaving, knitting and other machines from these and other local textile plants. A considerable group of artefacts includes devices used in testing the quality of raw materials, fabric defects and faults, as well as products’ quality and value in use.

Milojka Čepon, senior curator: 01 750 66 74, milojka.cepon@tms.si

Electricity
The department preserves the collections in the fields of optics, digital computing devices and electrical engineering (heavy current). The collection of digital computing devices contains exhibits covering the period from the turn of the 20th century to the 1980s. The oldest calculating machines use the mechanism developed as early as in the 17th century by Blaise Pascal, improved by G. Leibnitz and eventually put to practical use by Thomas de Colmar’s arithmometer. These are pinwheel calculators (when extended, pins act as gear teeth). Odhner’s machines, which use a true variable-toothed gear, are another step forward in the development of calculating machines. In the early 20th century, the American Burroughs Corporation began to manufacture full-keyboard adding machines which were dominant until the emergence of the ten-key printing manual machines (Dalton Little Giant). Initially manual, mechanical calculators were gradually replaced by similar machines powered by electricity. The development of electronics and logic circuits prompted the production of electronic calculators, initially desktop and later also pocket-sized. They could perform increasingly more complex calculations, and some of them were also programmable. With the development of digital computers – such as ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 from the collection – mechanical and electronic computing devices became relicts of the past.

The optics collection comprises laser systems manufactured by Iskra Elektrooptika, in particular from its earlier period when PL6 was an extremely successful export product. Other objects appertain to military technology. Special place in the collection is given to four original holograms recorded in the mid-1970s by Jože Petkovšek and prepared for occasional displays.

The collection of heavy-current electrical engineering comprises the items from the permanent exhibition Caution, electricity! These are a distribution panel and two generators from the Jelendol power plant, which are among the oldest preserved items related to the electrification of Slovenia, and one of the electric generators of the old municipal power plant in Ljubljana.

Orest Jarh, Ph.D., museum councillor: 01 436 34 83, orest.jarh@tms.si

Wildlife & Hunting
As one of the oldest collections of the Technical Museum of Slovenia, Slovene hunting museum contains several hundred exhibits, including taxidermic specimens, trophies, hunting weapons and accessories, medals and other objects which bear witness to the hunting tradition in our land. The collection is complemented by a wealth of archive and documentary material, in particular photographs and postcards. The department’s aim is not only to preserve and exhibit artefacts that testify to the local hunting tradition but raise public awareness of the protection of nature and the environment, in particular wildlife ecology.

Barbara Rezar Grilc, curator: 01 251 54 03, barbara.grilc@tms.si

Fishing
The fishing department was founded to give a full overview of freshwater fishing, past and present, in the Slovenian ethnic territory. Several hundred exhibits tell the story of a rich history of fishing in our country. The museum collects, preserves and exhibits various objects; from archaeological remains which support the fact that fish have been an important food source since ancient times, to the latest fishing gear and equipment. The items are supplemented by archive and documentary material, the latter including watercolours of fish species from Slovenia’s fresh waters painted by Jurij Mikuletič.

Barbara Rezar Grilc, curator: 01 251 54 03, barbara.grilc@tms.si

Museum of Post and Telecommunications
The museum collects artefacts and documents related to the history of post and telecommunications in our country. It preserves objects in relation to the transmission of information, money, and goods. Most of the collection contains post offices’ furnishing and equipment (such as furniture, postal scales, stamps, post office signs, cash registers and similar, telephones and telegraphs) and telephone and telegraph exchanges and systems. In addition, the museum collects the uniforms of mail carriers and telephone line installers from different periods, and various means of transport (a carriage, motorbike, bike, car). Other than artefacts, it also preserves a wealth of documentary material related to the operation of the former PTT Slovenije – divided into Pošta Slovenije (postal services) and Telekom Slovenije (telecommunication services) in 1995 – and their staff. The prephilately letters from the period before the introduction of postage stamps are of special value, while the 20th century introduced many novelties, including picture postcards, postcards, letter envelopes, money orders, telegrams, etc.

Estera Cerar, Ph.D., museum councillor: 01 25 15 406, estera.cerar@tms.si
Ajda Kozjek, senior curator: 01 364 00 83, ajda.kozjek@tms.si

Documentation
The Documentation Department of the Technical Museum of Slovenia collects, digitizes, processes, researches and presents and submits a wide variety of visual, written, audio and audio-visual documentary material. Most of the collected documentary material is directly thematically related to the areas of the exhibited collections. It also includes material on those economic and industrial branches in Slovenia that have not yet been presented in the museum. The main source of museum documentation is the photo library, which began with the establishment of TMS. We possess some very valuable photos of important technical heritage pieces before they were renovated or even destroyed. We also collect and archive original old photos and postcards. Among the most important acquisitions of the photo archive are the two extensive photo archives of two important post-war factories: Tomos, the Koper-based motorcycle factory and Iskra, the electrotechnics and mechanics company with branches all over Slovenia. The rest of the documentation includes various papers and materials of companies such as printed catalogues, brochures, technical specifications and descriptions of products, price lists, instruction manuals …
We intentionally upgrade and improve the fund of the technical documentation, including technical drawings, blueprints of technical devices, machines, products, inventions, technical improvements and the like. We also have a collection of various ground plans and maps, a collection of posters and a hi-quality graphic collection with mostly hunting motifs. At the same time, the documentation department manages electronic databases on museum objects and other documentary material, on exhibitions and pedagogical-andragogical public programs, and on other events organized by the museum.
The materials and various information on the collections of technical heritage objects are available to the professional and general public on the premises of the administration and on the museum’s website.

Martina Orehovec, M.Sc., museum advisor: 01 251 54 01, martina.orehovec@tms.si

Conservation and restoration services
In 1948, Ivan Šepulj became the first caretaker and preparator at the Forestry, Wood Industry and Hunting Museum in Bistra, which was the predecessor of today’s museum. He founded a preparatory workshop, which is considered to be the beginning of all today’s conservation and restoration activities. After 1976, the museum began to restore cars, motorcycles and agricultural machinery. Between 2002 and 2006 the restoration workshops on the ground floor of the Bistra castle were completely renovated. Today this department employs 6 specialists in charge of various aspects of conservation and restoration. Their basic task is the protection and preservation of cultural heritage for future generations as a material proof of our heritage and environmental history. The work of conservators includes technical investigations, preventive protection, and active conservation and restoration of cultural heritage.
There are over 18,000 items kept by the museum, more than half of which are in and storage buildings at various locations. On average, we annually conserve 300 to 400 objects and restore about 40 to 50; the actual number depends on the size and complexity of the objects in question. In the case of larger and more demanding objects – such as a car or a textile machine – work is usually carried out by two conservators-restorers, and restoration usually takes at least a year. A special way of preserving objects or protecting them against insects is fumigation, and in this way we can process up to 700 objects a year.

Drago Štimec, conservator-restorer adviser: 01 750 66 86, drago.stimec@tms.si

Pedagogical-andragogical service
Ever since 1995, its founding year, the employees and external collaborators of the pedagogical and andragogical team have
been working together in order to bring permanent collections and occasional exhibitions closer to a wider audience in an understandable and informative way. We started with demonstrations of old crafts during the weekends: forging horseshoes, baking bread in a bread oven, wheelwrighting skills, demonstration of threshing grain using a locomobile … In 1997, a weaving workshop was prepared as the first workshop for schoolchildren, and in 1998 we began offering general and professional guided tours of the museum for various age groups. Our most numerous visitors are primary school students, so we adapt the themes of our permanent collections or occasional exhibitions to the curriculum.
Today we have 33 workshops (25 in Bistra and 8 in Polhov Gradec) and 2 permanent demonstrations (Nikola Tesla and Jurij Vega). Some workshops are suitable for kindergartens, others for primary or secondary schools, and the two permanent demonstrations are suitable for the last three years of primary school, for secondary school student
and also for adults. Within the DiZiT program (i.e. Days of Science and Technology) we carry out several specific thematic sets, which we organize once a year, where various faculties and other scientific or academic instittutions have booths where they present interesting projects, inventions and experiments. Groups can combine different guided tours with different workshops or demonstrations and thus spend a quality natural or technical day with us or in a dislocated unit of the Museum of Post and Telecommunications in Polhov Gradec. Besides all of the above, we have by no means forgotten about families or individual adult visitors. . In addition to guided tours, we offer the latter a variety of Saturday workshops – and families can spice up their Sunday with our themed Sundays, take part in public guided tours of museum collections, thematic guided tours of occasional exhibitions, free workshops for children, demonstrations of old crafts … Summer Wednesdays are intended for young knowledge-seekers, so they can become familiar with the attractions of our museum in suitable, age-appropriate ways.

Ana Katarina Ziherl, senior curator: 01 750 66 72, 041 957 146, akziherl@tms.si
Barbara Hrovatin: 01 750 66 72, 031 583 461, programi@tms.si

Public Relations
The service started operating in 2005 and aims to provide visitors with informationmabout the museum, take care of its promotion and visibility in the public, and regulate contacts with the media that report on the museum and its program. The public relations department is often the first contact of our visitors with the museum – before their actual visit. We strive to provide people with all the necessary information that can motivate them to visit and improve their experience, and to ensure that their feedback is properly received and taken into

Katja Kresse: 01 251 54 00, info@tms.si