The IMD was established in 1977 with the aim to open museums on a wider scale and serves as a platform to raise public awareness on the role museums play in the development of society today, on an international level. It is coordinated by ICOM, the International Council of Museums and features a different motto every year, 2014 it is "Museum collections making connections".

The ICOM's definition of a museum is the following one: "a museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment." The IMD should therefore bring museums a step closer to this ideal.

Around the world, museums provide their visitors a special experience on this day: they open their collections to the public, organise workshops and free guided tours or even concerts in the museums. Last year, over 35.000 institutions around the globe took part in 146 countries and this year there won't be less.

Also a decent amount of Slovene museums will be part of the annual celebrations taking place around the 18th May. Listen to a concert in the Slovene Ethnographic museum, participate in a WW1 photo session in the National Museum of Contemporary History or visit the introduction of the new project "work with sounds" in the Technical Museum of Slovenia. The full list of events can be found here.

To wrap it all up in a nutshell, if you don't visit a museum this Sunday, you completely missed out: free entry and loads of activities promise a interesting and good time.