From 4 to 6 November we will be taking part in the 14th European Registrars Conference (ERC 2026) – the leading European industry event for museum collections professionals, organised by Registrars Deutschland e.V. under the motto “Culture Connects”. We will attend as a Silver Sponsor with an exhibitor stand, and we will also present our own talk in the conference’s scientific programme.
ERC 2026 brings together specialists from Europe and beyond working in collection management, exhibitions and the movement of museum objects. The programme includes presentations, panel discussions, expert sessions and networking opportunities. Many parts of the programme focus on digitalisation and the role of new technologies, including artificial intelligence, in museums’ everyday work.
Our presentation was selected for the ERC 2026 programme through an independent peer review of the submitted abstract. This took place as part of an open international call, in the “Digitalization / AI” track. For us, this is an important confirmation of the merit of our approach to using AI in registrar work.
A packed programme: who else is speaking at ERC 2026
The main programme runs on Thursday and Friday, 5–6 November. It includes three parallel session tracks and talks from more than 60 speakers. Our presentation will take place in the main plenary hall (Plenum/Hall 1), which also hosts the opening, the keynote and most of the conference’s key talks.
The programme also includes:
- “V&A East Storehouse: Creating and Managing Radical Collections Access” – the Victoria and Albert Museum on its new “Order an Object” access model and on using AI to document collections;
- “Enhancing Documentation Practice: Collaborative Approaches to Audit and Documentation Programmes at the British Museum” – the British Museum on collaborative documentation audits and its five-year project to document and digitise its entire collection in line with the Spectrum standard;
- “Round table – AI” – a round table on artificial intelligence in museum professionals’ everyday work;
- “Registrars in Uncharted Territory: Moving Sacred Treasures from Kyiv to London” – a panel on lending and transporting sacred objects from Kyiv to London during wartime, and on heritage protection and risk management;
- “Museum Professionals in the Protection of Archaeological Heritage – The Lubiąż Project” – a presentation on taking over, securing and re-inventorying 12,909 archaeological artefacts from former storage facilities in Lubiąż.
Our talk: AI in registrar work – a case study from the Museum of Warsaw
On Thursday, 5 November, Katarzyna Reszka from the Museum of Warsaw and Łukasz Ściebior, representing MobileMS, will talk about how AI supports collection management. Join us for the case study “AI-Assisted Collection Management: Rethinking Registrars’ Work — A Case Study from the Museum of Warsaw”. The session will be chaired by Carina Korab.
11:30–11:55
Kosmos Berlin
The Museum of Warsaw manages a large and diverse collection, ranging from historical artefacts and archaeological objects to archival materials and extensive photographic holdings. After the first stage of implementing MUZA in 2024, the museum identified a need to speed up the preparation of object documentation. Our experience of working with the Museum of Warsaw became the starting point for AI development in MUZA. The initial concept involved generating suggestions for basic inventory data from an object image and a short contextual description.
Further work and the needs identified by Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź led us to revise and broaden this concept. We are now developing four complementary areas of support:
- Natural-language queries – searching data in MUZA and selected museum documentation through questions phrased in the user's own words, with the option to create lists of objects for further work;
- Digital collections accessibility – preparing drafts of alternative text, transcripts, captions and audio descriptions;
- Translation of metadata and controlled vocabulary terms – generating draft translations that respect the museum's terminology and are subject to review and approval;
- Object descriptions and records for different audiences – using data held in the system to prepare content tailored to researchers, curators, children and people who need simpler language, among others.
In our talk, we will discuss how our experience of working with museums has shaped our approach to AI – from the initial ideas concerning the Museum of Warsaw's collection documentation to the current direction of AI development in MUZA. We will present the planned applications, our approach to data security and the role of expert review. AI is intended to prepare working drafts that support specialists – each proposal will require human approval before it becomes part of the production data.
Katarzyna Reszka
Chief Registrar in the Inventory and Collections Access Department at the Museum of Warsaw. She is responsible for collection protection and care standards – from accession, through cataloguing, to loans. Throughout her career she has worked at the intersection of culture and IT, implementing collection management systems in various types of museums. She co-founded the Polish Association of Museum Registrars, which she led as president for many years. She currently serves on its board.
Łukasz Ściebior
Expert in digital transformation for cultural institutions, working with MobileMS on the development of the MUZA system. He oversaw the implementation of MUZA at the Museum of Warsaw and its integration with the public online collections portal. He also works on developing technology solutions for museums, including AI-based tools.
MUZA stand at ERC 2026
During ERC 2026 you can also visit us at stand no. 28 in the conference’s exhibition area, in the KOSMOS hall in Berlin. There we will showcase the capabilities of the MUZA system for managing collections, documentation and processes at cultural institutions. We will show how object registration and digitisation, document workflow, queries, reporting and user permission management all work.
exhibitor stand no. 28
Let’s meet at ERC 2026
We look forward to seeing you at our talk and at the MUZA stand. We’ll talk about your collection management needs and show live how the system works.
Book a meeting at ERC 2026
If you’d like to talk about the MUZA system, collection management, a planned implementation, or the AI tools we are developing to support work with collections, get in touch with us and arrange a meeting at stand no. 28 during the conference in Berlin.