Since the 13th Symposium in 2009 that took place in Rouen, the national Museum of education knew
big evolutions. First of all, collections renovation, planned for the moving of the museum, finished in 2011. The architectural planning of the 6 street of Bihorel offered the museum a remarkable place for preventive
conservation and research. The contemporary architecture, designed by the studio of N.Fahmy, includes not
only the collections (950 000 items) but also the scientific and the documentary activities.
So five reserves on about 2600 meters square conserve collections according to different typologies and
materials, since the textbooks and the literature youth until pupil writing desks, photos, games and toys, lantern
slides, etc.
The key point of our documentation centre is certainly the possibility for researchers, teachers, students
to see and study the originals works of art and originals documents which arrive directly from the reserve
toward the study room. This access is permitted also thanks to our database and our web site, actually in
revision. To date, half of the collections is digitized.
This profound restructuration was also an institutional change since the dissolution of the INRP in 2010.
By decree, the national museum of education was integrated since the 1st of January 2011 to the Centre national
de Documentation Pédagogique (CNDP).
This change of supervision offers new opportunities. Indeed, the scientific activity and the Research are
maintained but also the national museum benefits from CNDP network, that counts one centre in each region of
France (Centre Régional de Documentation Pédagogique, CRDP). We could imagine itinerant exhibitions all
over the territory and also new ways of meeting people. At last, the expertise of the CNDP about digital
technology used in education will help us to think about the digital creation in museums and become a ”digital
museum”.
An association “ Friends of the National Museum of Education” was born in 2011 compound of
teachers, researchers, professionals of education and culture. The driving force behind this association allowed
the entrances of news collections.