He not only supported the travelling party of five scientists and a servant, he also carefully instructed them to deliver whatever objects or items they could assemble to the Royal Library in Copenhagen. In this case the Spanish king required that all objects should be transported to Madrid and stored in the Royal Museum there after the king himself had inspected them. Years of searching and national mourning were ritually terminated. These cases raise questions about the symbolic character of objects, about the nature of possessing and the sublimation and ideologization of desire. Hometaken objects became trophies and signifiers of the achievements of the hometaking scientist and of the status and enlightened standing on the part of the sponsoring institution, be it head of state, academy, museum, library or private person.
Today there are several reasons to stress the importance of local museums.
At the same time we find big museums growing even bigger and observe an explosion in the number of small museums all over the world . This need of historicity is different from the professional historians' research aiming at new knowledge. The existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre gives some important perspectives in understanding the importance of history, and how man always has to liberate himself from his past. The choices in the present are partly determined by the past, and partly by the visions of a possible future. The local population as an actor in the present within a limited territory, forms a strong contrast to the traditional museum with its general message to a non-defined and anonymous public.