The ERM collections are large (over 800,000 museum objects) and diverse, covering all kinds of subjects and materials, from a pin and a handkerchief to a horse-drawn carriage and a ball gown, and from wool to plastic and from glass to digital files.
The ERM collections have been entered into the Estonian Museums Information System and can be accessed there (www.muis.ee). When searching, use ERM in the ACR field and the collection code in the KT field. For example, using ERM and EA will display all items belonging to the ethnographic archive.
To distinguish materials from the Heimtali Museum, the Postal Museum, and the Tartumaa Museum from the rest of the ERM collections, the accession book code (the numerical field TRT in the Museums Web Portal) is used, namely HM, PM, and TM, respectively.
Of the collections, 69% have been digitized (including 94% of objects and 75% of photographs). In the case of objects and photographs without copyright restrictions, high-resolution digital files are freely available to all interested users in the information system and can be downloaded.
The museum blog contains many overview articles introducing materials found in the collections (under the categories museum object, photograph, and conservation). In addition, the collections department’s video blog, which can also be found on the blog, offers engaging glimpses into the work of the collections field.