MUSEUMS IN MALAYSIA: CHALLENGES AND DEVELOPMENT

Dato' Dr Adi Haji Taha Director-General Department of Museums Malaysia

Introduction

Museums in Malaysia were among the first to be established in the region. The Perak Museum was the first museum to be established in Malaysia in 1883 by the Resident of Perak, Sir Hugh Low at Taiping, a popular town in Perak. Not long after that Sir Frank Swettenhan, Resident of Selangor established the Selangor Museum in 1888. This museum was unfortunately destroyed during the Second World War. After the war British Governor Sir Gerald Templer rebuilt and replaced it with a small museum in Kuala Lumpur. The proliferation of museums in Malaysia started after Templer's enthusiasm. During the same period, Raja James Brooke of Sarawak built the Sarawak Museum after inheriting a large collection of the natural history specimens from Sir Alfred Wallace. Museum and her roles were never clearly defined and taken seriously. It was after Malaysia's Independence in 1957 that museums in the country were accorded importance as they became a symbol of the identity of the people of Malaysia and carries the role of nation-building. By the 1980s many museums were built in many states of Malaysia, in many government departments, institutions of higher learning, foundations and private organisations. Museums in Malaysia face many challenges. Being a non-profit and a high maintenance entity, museums have to constantly make sure that they create value and contribute towards society to justify their existence. Museum must be an asset and not a liability. We are faced with questionings and queries from Auditor-General and financial
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providers (the Ministry of Finance) on the effective use of funds and collections, especially those collections in the repository. The museum's performance is always measured against financial terms and not the intangible value that we create for the nation. To ensure continued support and funding, public's perception of museum is important. The public must see and appreciate the purpose of keeping the museums. We also have to address and change the general perception that museums are nothing but a dull repository of curiosity and artefacts. We have to ensure that we continue to stay relevant by questioning ourselves, "What is a Museum?" and what are our roles and the purposes of existence because knowing 'who we are' is important as it helps us to know how we can matter to the society and create a positive impact on the lives of people. We need to make our museums relevant by organising outreach programmes and pursue to serve the educational function for students. Museum is a semiacademic and educational institution. Thus, the strength of a museum lies in its role in education since it holds a great wealth of information in the form of material heritages which are evidences of our past. Museums are similar to libraries and the encyclopedic collections are useful for helping us know who we are, our identity and history. Material heritage in museums provide rich resources for useful learning and nation-building. A good museum boosts tourism and contributes to the economy of the country.

Recent Developments

In recent years museums in Malaysia underwent a series of changes and improvements. In his inaugural visit to the National Museum in 2003 the new visionary Minister of Culture, Arts and
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Heritage, the Honourable Datuk Seri Utama Dr Rais Yatim challenged and urged museums to think 'out of the box' to move away from the conventional way of museum management and its exhibitions. He stressed that improvements must be carried out in the areas of exhibition concept and themes; displays; lighting; the use of interactive technologies to attract and engage its visitors. This was in view of the competitions and distractions from other tourist attractions that pull visitors away from museums. The Honourable Minister also reflected that museums had not done enough to maximise its potentials and urged for revolutionary changes which included injecting creativity and innovations in exhibitions and public programming. He also said that museums should do quality exhibitions to closely mirror and represent one's culture and assume the important roles to bridge the increasing social gaps by presenting our history and highlighting our roots and commonalities that binds people, which makes us a nation. He wanted to see museums in Malaysia play a more significant role in education, showcasing the nation's culture and history to visitors and reaching to wider audiences through outreach programmes. With this vision and support in the form of generous funding from the government, the National Museum embarked on a journey to revolutionise by setting goals to become a world class museum in both the content and display of the exhibition, and a role model for other museums in Malaysia. Recent developments included engaging experts and museum professionals from museums in Britain, France and the United States of America to survey and assess the 'state of the art' exhibits on display at the National Museum. Working with local museum professionals the team reviewed and made proposals in areas including the theme and concept of the exhibition, its contents and caption-writings and design techniques. Technology to
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make exhibitions more interactive was introduced. Improvements on the physical layout of the galleries were made for the general public and especially the physically challenged. In addition to these improvements, the government also provided funding for training to enhance the professional development of staff. The National Museum is making great progress. The upgrading of the museum is due for completion by middle of 2008.

Museum and the Community

Innovation and creativity is also injected into the museums' education and discovery programmes. Museums in Malaysia have adopted schools and integrated their programmes with the school's curriculum. Children are brought to museums to cultivate the museumgoing habit as they participate and enjoy these activities. One notably successful programme organised by the Education Department of the National Museum that I think worth mentioning here was the "Sleep Over" programme. 60 children from a few schools in Kuala Lumpur were invited to spend a night in museum. During their stay, they were taught the history of Malaysia's road to independence and the making of the Federation. Their experience of the preindependence life was the dinner served in limited quantities, comprising food consumed by the people during the war. Videos on the fight for independence were then screened. The children then walked to the padang or 'Merdeka Square', the actual site where the Union Jack was brought down and the new Malayan Flag was hoisted to mark the birth of a new nation. They experienced the reenactment of the historic event of 31 August 1957 of Malaysian history. The children were encouraged to participate in the in-depth discussion session on Malaysia's independence.

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Another example of activities involving school students was an overnight programme organised in conjunction with the opening screening of the famous movie, "Night at the Museum". This was carried out in collaboration with the local press. This programme attracted mass participation. After dinner, the students watched the movie, and spent the night in the museum. Such programme was effective and attractive as it was quite an experience for the children to stay overnight in the museum, learning together, outside the confines of the classrooms. The museum also engaged the community to join in the fun as many volunteers were recruited to help and were involved in organising and coordinating the logistics of the programme. Organising a programme like this also provided the National Museum with the opportunity to fulfil its role in nation-building. This programme was a success because there was mass participation from schools and members of the public as learning was carried out in a fun way. Museums are often creative and innovative in their public programmes. Another such programme worth mentioning here was the annual Rice Festival organised by the Paddy Museum in the State of Kedah. The state was also designated as the 'Rice Bowl of Malaysia'. The festival was attended by His Royal Highness the Sultan of Kedah. To achieve experiential learning, the museum creatively enacted rice cultivation, the traditional livelihood of the people, at the paddy field section of the museum. This was done by creating the actual paddy fields and visitors (including tourists) were invited to get hands-on experience by par ticipating in the paddy cultivation activities such as handling water buffalo to plough the field, catching freshwater fish, harvesting and traditional pounding to remove the

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rice husks. The Museum believes learning in 'live' environment makes museums so much more exciting and interesting. Over the years, museums have also actively organised many public lectures and also obliged public's requests to access its collections for scholarly research. This exchange is encouraging because by supporting the academic endeavours of researchers, information on museums' collections is often enriched and leads to better publications, exhibitions and programmes. To encourage visitors to museums, the facilities of museums are also opened and available for public use for all purposes, from tuition programmes for students to other private functions. By opening the doors of museums to public, we hope to encourage the use of museum spaces to carry out daily activities and hope that museums will eventually become part of our lives. Visitors attending these functions were lured and encouraged to visit the exhibitions. Examples of such programmes included the annual dinners of corporate companies where guests enjoyed an evening guided tour by museum curators before actual dinner was served within the museum courtyard. Such programmes have been successful.

Museum Challenges

Museums in Malaysia have undergone many changes. They have successfully fulfilled their mandate and justified their existence and have done well to respond to the demands of present day visitors. Museums will continue to be important and have prominent roles in the society. These changes will not be possible without the support of the government. Also, not forgetting the hard work and commitment of museums professionals, we hope and expect to see more innovations and improvements made in the near future.
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The challenge is also to further develop relevant skills and human resource and museum professionals to support the growing needs of the museums and to continue to ensure that the exhibitions would entice visitors to the museums. In this regard, the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage has enacted a law which was recently passed by the Parliament to establish a learning institution pertaining to arts and heritage, and museum studies is part of the curriculum of the institution. To reflect the commitment, the Honourable Minister had emphasised that museum studies should also be taught by local and experienced foreign professors. It should also be noted here that local universities also offer subjects on museum management and various state museums also organised refresher courses for their staff to stay abreast with the latest developments in museology. Unlike the National Archives, the National Art Gallery and the National Library which are also under the portfolio of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, there is no Act of Parliament that governs the establishment of museums at federal level. Realising this situation, the Minister feels that there should be an Act to regulate museum activities and to ensure museums at all levels are given due recognition and adequate funding to effectively play its role in the society. The Museum Bill which is at its final stage of drafting, performs a regulatory function to ensure museums fulfil their functions based on set standards, including the museum code of ethics. Once approved by Parliament, museums in Malaysia must meet the standards set in the Act, to be accredited and to be eligible for government support and funding. Through this accreditation scheme and other benefits that go with it, it is envisaged that museums in Malaysia will strive to improve professionally to become world class museums and become more active in collecting, preserving, interpreting, exhibiting and promoting the history and culture of the glorious heritage and
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development of Malaysia, thus making museums matter to the people of Malaysia.

Conclusion

The interest showed by the Honourable Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage will enhance the role of museums in Malaysian society. The challenges posed to the Department of Museums Malaysia to be more innovative and to comply with the international standards of museum exhibition, research, publication and its outreach programme had been seriously considered. It is not the quantity of museums that matters rather the quality of a museum with regards to its exhibition, collection, research and publication, outreach programme and its relevance to the public that really matters. Despite limited funding, training programmes for museum staff have been given priority. So are the display techniques in all museums in Malaysia. Regular forum and seminars towards enhancing all areas of museum activities will be on the agenda and will be attended by both local and foreign museum professionals.

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