CEBU, Philippines - Why are museums important? Because, like history, museums link people of the present to their past. But there have been a question of whether or not physical museums are still necessary - or even relevant. Well, certainly!
"Nothing replaces the authenticity of the object presented with passionate scholarship," says Metropolitan Museum of Art president, Thomas Campbell. "Bringing people face-to-face with our objects is a way of bringing them face-to-face with people across time, across space, whose lives may have been different from our own but who, like us, have hopes and dreams, frustrations and achievements in their lives."
In visiting the Jose R. Gullas Halad Museum, for example, one would come upon a display of the long dress once used by the late Doña Josefina Gullas, the matriarch of the Gullas family, of the University of the Visayas. Considering the significant role she played in the University, young people today would imagine her to be a woman of quite commanding physical figure. But such imagination would change with a view of her long dress at the JRG Halad Museum.
The dear lady's long dress depicts her as, in fact, quite petite. Museum visitors would immediately begin to see her as the living, breathing woman she had been. She would cease to be merely a legend they had heard or read about.
Museums bring history to life. Seeing something physically present is quite different than simply seeing or reading about it on the pages of a book or on a computer screen. Research shows that being confronted with the "real thing" in a museum makes for an experience that is likely to be long term. Actually witnessing something is a much more profound experience than merely learning about it.
"Museums hold the cultural wealth of the nation in trust for all generations. And by its function and unique position, have become the cultural conscience of the nations," said the President of the Commonwealth Association of Museums Emmanuel N. Arinze, in a 1979 lecture.
Museums promote better understanding of a people's collective heritage, among those who have the curiosity to discover. Museums lend them proof that they are a part of a continuing story. It inspires self-reflection. From there, they get to develop a sense of self-pride and purpose.
Museum-goers tend to be prompted to search some sense of greatness in themselves, once made aware of the achievements of their forebears. Being confronted with actual memento from a glorious past, they may develop some yearning to build on it. On the other hand, if the artifact hints of a grave blunder or mistake, museum visitors may reflect on ways to avoid it in their own time and in the future.
Indeed, museums are important. They are instruments for a dramatic connection with the past. And they are safe-keepers and treasure chests of a people's rich heritage which might otherwise be lost to private collectors or to time itself.
Museums conserve, protect and display artifacts not for the monetary value of these - but for their historical, emotional and even spiritual significance. Every museum item is beyond price. Thus, an experience at the museum is very precious. There, the past comes alive! (FREEMAN)