New guidelines to regulate museums not enough: Expert(2)

The general survey will last until the end of 2016, according to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The new rules also suggest that museums give free entry tickets to visitors, and all museums are required to open to the public within six months of getting their licenses.

"Rational business operations", like developing cultural innovation products, are also encouraged.

"Many Chinese museums are public institutions fully supported by fiscal expenditure. It used to be unclear whether they can make a profit, which can be an obstacle to nurture creativity," says Zhang Peng, a member of a national committee for cultural innovation products under the Chinese Museums Association, the industry supervision body.

However, the new rules encourage a museum to explore multiple ways to get financed "so long as basic discipline and its role as an educator" isn't changed.

"Collections are treasures of museums. Making money isn't the priority, but it will help establish a link between cultural institutions and the creative industry through areas like souvenir design," says Song Xiangguang, a museology professor from Peking University.

"It will enhance people's consumption of culture."

China's State-owned museums are public institutions, which generally lack enterprising business models, and many existing management problems are attributed to the institutions' overwhelming dependence on government administration and aid, Song says.

"The private museum boom nationwide in the last decade brought unprecedented challenges and made us realize that people's demand for museums is diverse, and therefore the urgency to promulgate such a regulation," he says.

"It will upgrade management levels and will simultaneously provide the industry with professional guidance that was considered insufficient in China so far."

Though Song feels the new rules are good first steps, he says they have limitations.

For example, popular science institutions and military museums are not included in the regulation.

"The regulation focuses on museums exhibiting cultural relics, and does not pay equal attention to those of folklore, nature science and the fine arts, but a complete museum system should include a wider range," he adds.

In addition, it might be difficult to coordinate efforts of different government departments to implement the regulation because the cultural relics administration is not the only department responsible for museum management.

"Perhaps, a national museum law is still needed to solve such problems," Song says.