A Békés Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 33. (Békéscsaba, 2009)
Sinkó Rozália: A békéscsabai Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum Néprajzi Adattárának mutatói (1954-2004)
Sinkó Rozália The first inventories were destroyed during the World War II and professional registration did not start before 1952 under the direction of György Tábori. Records were first broken into independent scientific branches in 1978. Out of the documentation of natural science, history, arts, archaeology, ethnography, consisting of all together 13,000 items, exceeding 40,000 pages, we publish now just a small part, the indices of the ethnographic inventory. The substance of the database includes the papers submitted to the national ethnographic and dialectic collecting competition announced from the end of the 1950s under the aegis of the patriotic movement. The rate of the questionnaires filled up or collecting notes put down by the participants of the national minorities’ youth ethnographic camps and manuscripts acquired from inheritances (e.g. László Dutkon’s and József Banner’s rich heritage) are high, while the fourth main unit of our inventory is composed by our colleagues’ notes relating to field-survey, collection-growing and exhibitions. Documentation of the ethnographic inventory may be searched by the following indices: index of location, name and topic. Some principle for using indices:- Indices are based on the inventory number, inventory book record. The numbering is permanent, its first member is the inventory series number, the second four-digit number shows the year of acquisition and recording, e.g. 1-1954.- In topic-indices we often have simplified, compacted the title-words of the ethnographic catalogues, adapted to the local material.- In the name index we have not made difference between papers submitted by school groups, special non-professional teams or private persons, following the inventory entry.- For locations we have indicated the settlements regardless of if it is situated within or beyond the geographic border of Békés County. Since 1978 the Munkácsy Mihály Museum of Békéscsaba is a basis museum for collecting Romanian and Slovakian local historical and ethnographical materials from all over the country, therefore in the inventory there can be found numerous locations inhabited by Romanian and Slovakian national minorities. Sinkó Rozália H-5661 Újkígyós, Kossuth u. 39. 282
