Zerlin abstract 2008
From circumstances to structure: currency redenomination. The interactive competition “from the first Bolivar to the Bolivar Fuerte”
The currency redenomination in Venezuela was carried out in the space of a year; this demanded that the Banco Central de Venezuela organize a communications strategy.
The Numismatic Collection of the Banco Central de Venezuela was used as a means for disseminating the history of our country’s currency to a larger number of people. As part of this communications strategy, an invitation was extended through the press, personal correspondence, radio and interviews, to all primary and secondary schools in the country to participate in an interactive competition. This fact led to benefits for the Collection.
Though the obvious purpose of the competition was to help people reach a thorough understanding of the currency redenomination, in essence, it obliged participants to become interested in historical,
social, political and economic processes, with special reference to the evolution of our nation’s currency, from the appearance of the first economic exchanges, through colonial times and the XIXth century to the latest emissions and mintings of the XXth and XXIst centuries.
This contributed to forging closer links with the student population and to interesting them in a patrimony which until now has attracted little attention within the range of possibilities offered by the country’s museums, and was a way of confronting the challenge faced by all managers of collections: how to increase the number and frequency of visitors to their collections.