The permanent exhibition “The Role of Printing” can now be visited. The only printing museum in Catalonia was officially opened on 18th November. While it is a scientific exhibition, it also takes a look at printed paper from the social standpoint; how this material has been used and also pursued by the establishment and anti-establishment movements in different societies.

In just over 150 m2 it depicts the relationship between paper and printing systems. The items on exhibit include a replica of Gutenberg's printing press, an incunabula, a type foundry and a Francisco de Goya etching. The space has a Minerva which was loaned by the Romanyà Valls printers, as well as different mobile-type collections. The exhibition also showcases offset, flexography and digital printing systems.

The project involved an investment of more than 300,000 € and was founded by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, mNACTEC, the County Council of Barcelona, Caixa de Terrassa, Caixa Catalunya and “la Caixa”. The exhibition guide was produced by the museum itself and the design and technical project were developed by the architect Joan Sibina.

The project was included as part of the reform programme which began in 1993 with the refurbishing of the 3rd floor of the museum for different uses. The museum is expected to be completed in 2 years with another permanent exhibition on the manufacturing of paper in the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries.

Innovation has driven socioeconomic progress, but since the 19th Century, diversification has moved at an increasingly rapid pace and certain sectors of the population have been unable to comprehend all of these changes.

Through a number of different activities, the mNACTEC Connect with Innovation project seeks to transmit information about the work of Catalan research centres, universities and companies. The project is part of the Ciència, Innovació i Salut (CISS) [Science, Innovation and Health] project and the idea is for it to be applied to a further twenty-five museums in the Catalan network.

The mNACTEC Connect with Innovation temporary exhibition will be officially opened at 7 pm on 24th November, within the framework of the 14th 2009 Science Week, and will remain on show until 7th March, 2010. Moreover, it is scheduled to go on tour to different locations in Catalonia. At the same time, a virtual version will be avaliable as a communication platform between researchers, companies and society.

The project received a major boost from Catalan research organisations, and was implemented jointly with the Leitat Technology Centre and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), with the collaboration of the Catalan Autonomous Government Department of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise, the Universities and Knowledge Society Area of the City Council of Terrassa, Parc Tecnològic del Vallès, and Enginycat.

Connect with Innovation was funded by the Fundació Española para la Ciencia y la Technología (FECYT)[Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology]and developed within the Programme of Science, Innovation, Sustainability and Health.

The 9th Modernism Festival was held on the mornings of 17th and 18th October in the Colònia Güell. These festivities recreate aspects of life in the colony a hundred years ago, by means of dramatised snippets of everyday life and musical, theatrical and arts and crafts activities.

The morning market of country workers, the figure of the wet-nurse, the comber, the baptism of the child of the office manager, women washing clothes in the washing place, being received by Eusebi Güell in his residence in Can Soler de la Torre or talking to Antoni Gaudí, are some of the situations conveyed in this dramatisation. The industrial site can also be visited on a guided tour by former workers of the textile factory.

Modernism is the predominant architectural style in this colony, of highly important architectural heritage, headed by a Gaudí church which is a World Heritage Site. Accordingly, theatrical performances have often been staged to recreate these movements, featuring celebrities such as Santiago Rusiñol and the painter Casas, and works by Apel·les Mestres have also been staged.

Each festival has a different theme. This year our references are the centennial of the local football team and Setmana Tràgica [Tragic Week], which also occurred one hundred years ago, although at the time it barely affected the colony.

In order to afford the Festival even greater splendour, a new colony reception and interpretation centre was opened, located in the former workers' cooperative.

Recent years have witnessed the outstanding development of what has been termed the “new museology”, which seeks the democratisation of cultural products.

Museums have changed their focus of interest and, rather than the object on show, their main objective is now to reach all areas of the public. The visitors are seen as the backbone which gives meaning to the exhibits. The dynamics of this new outlook, however, have overlooked the following groups: people with physical and sensory difficulties.

The Museum of Esplugues addresses accessibility as a policy of the institution, seeking to allow as many people as possible to take part in the activities. We define “accessibility” as all proposals and strategies which might facilitate people’s appreciation of the museum's message and the visit. More particularly, the idea is to establish mechanisms to break down communication barriers against groups at risk of social exclusion, such as people with seeing, hearing or cognitive impairment.

We undertook this task by adapting the route through La Rajoleta Ceramics Museum, for people with sight problems, generating the tour “Ceramic modernism in your hands”. Other projects have gradually been added, such as the workshop-tour “Looking at tiles” for people with cognitive impairment or the adaptation and transcription of the Can Tinturé Museum audio guide for groups with hearing difficulties.

This project heralds the beginning of a path towards a new way of understanding the museum as a space for social integration, as a meeting place, in short, a space that is open to everyone.

PATRIMONI-UB is a multidisciplinary group engaging in applied research into historic heritage, and is comprised of chemists, geologists, physicists and biologists, whose work focuses on research into the materials used in historic heritage, its or their behaviour, the mechanisms that cause them to degrade and the most suitable processes for preserving and eventually restoring them.

This group has authored a study on the building and manufacturing materials of the old Pujol i Bausis factory in order to assess the premises' state of preservation and consider mechanisms for the restoration of the structures that will be part of the future Ceramics Museum project, La Rajoleta d’Esplugues.

Last April, the 4th International Congress on the Heritage and the History of Engineering (CIPHI) was organised in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria by the Polytechnic University School of the University of Las Palmas and the International Centre for the Preservation of Architectural Heritage (CICOP).

The meeting seeks to consolidate its position as a forum for knowledge and exchange of experiences in areas such as the preservation, rehabilitation and restoration of engineering heritage, both in Europe and America, with different experts from all over the world.

The La Rajoleta d’Esplugues Ceramics Museum was represented through a presentation by doctor F. Xavier Villasevil, director of the INSIDE-UPC research group, of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, with the title “La Rajoleta, tradition and modernity in a ceramics factory”. The INSIDE group and the Museum have undertaken common research to reconstruct the structure by means of multimedia productions and to simulate the operation of the different kilns preserved from the old Pujol i Bausis factory.

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) has awarded 7 subsidies to different institutions which form part of the mNACTEC Territorial Network. The Palafrugell Cork Museum, the Bellmunt del Priorat Mines, Castelló d’Empúries Flourmill-Ecomuseum, the Capdella Hydroelectric Museum, the Sal Gerri Saltworks, the Torrella de Sabadell Terracota and Mill Museum have received these grants, which will be put to different actions in the sphere of their reform, conditioning and rehabilitation.

On 20th November, the “Cultural Heritage in the classroom through ICT” Congress was held to exchange heritage and technological knowledge within the framework of education.

This congress was organised by the Fishing Museum, Documare (Documentation Centre for Fishing and the Sea), and the Department of Sea Studies, and enjoys the collaboration of the Institute of Science of Education of the University of Girona and the support of Girona County Council.

In October, a benchmark meeting on industrial tourism was held in the Loire Region (France). Benchmarking is about comparing, and this is what the meeting was about.

At the Congress, different institutions introduced themselves to other institutions to share experiences. The Museum of Science and Technology participated with a representation that visited important heritage sites and debated experiences with a number of French professionals.