Ministry wants regions to promote museums

Hasyim Widhiarto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 01/25/2010 11:37 AM

Attracting not more than 3 percent of the country’s population, it’s not unfair to claim that Indonesia’s museums are unpopular.

This year, however, the Culture and Tourism Ministry had decided to promote the country’s flailing cultural sites by launching the “2010 Visit Museum Year.”

The program also marks the beginning of the ministry’s 5-year program called the “National Movement of Loving Museums,” which is aimed at revitalizing the country’s museums.

Intan Mardiana Napitupulu, the ministry’s director of museums, said the ministry would spend the year urging local governments and other institutions to spend more time evaluating the condition of museums and start making significant changes.

“We will help finance the renovation of more than a dozen museums,” she said, adding that she hoped that up to 90 museums could receive similar support by 2014.

Intan said it was not easy for most of the country’s museums to make major changes, which would attract an increasing number of visitors, due to financial limitations.

According to Intan, more than half of the country’s 272 museums are currently run and financially supported by regional administrations, while the remainder are managed by businesses, private foundations, government institutions and the army.

The ministry itself is responsible for only 10 museums, including the National Museum, also known as Museum Gajah (Elephant Museum), and the Proclamation Museum, which are both in Central Jakarta and the 250-year-old Vredeburg Fort in Yogyakarta.

“Such decentralized management should have made it easier for local governments or other institutions to develop their museums,” Intan said.

“Unfortunately though, only a small number of them have the budget to maintain their museums properly.”

Many museums even struggle to meet the ministry’s minimum service standards, including cleanliness and good air circulation, because of a lack of funding, said Intan.

In its 2009 survey, the directorate found that only 40 percent of museums met the standards of comfort and other basic functions specified by the ministry.

As well as poor maintenance in the majority of museums, more than 11 museums have shut down due to financial constraints.

“Some of the museums weren’t regularly open for visitors, while others didn’t have enough staff to manage the maintenance of their collections,” she said.

Intan said human resources was also a problem as few staffers came from an archeology background.

Many museums in Jakarta have vast and complete collections, but most of them are kept in storerooms.

More developed museums in European countries, for example, have a permanent exhibit, but several times a year they hold thematic exhibits of the collection they have in store. Jakarta’s museums, however, never do this.

Data from the ministry showed that Indonesia attracted 6.46 million foreign tourists last year, an increase from 6.2 million visitors in 2008. Many foreign tourists visit museums.

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