An Laishun, Vice Chairman of China Museum Association
Collection is the foundation of the museum. Protecting and managing collections, especially cultural relics, is one of the core missions of museums. Museums should give full play to the positive role of museums in the overall layout of national economic and social development with professional spirit, noble professional sentiment, scientific management methods, scientific business norms and sustainable resource utilization. The newly promulgated "Museum Regulations" (hereinafter referred to as "Regulations") clearly requires strengthening the management and protection of collections, especially cultural relics. Its content covers collection preservation, registration and description, scientific protection and other professional fields, and puts forward normative requirements from the following aspects.
First, it is forbidden to obtain unknown or illegal collections.
The "Regulations" stipulate that museums are prohibited from acquiring collections of unknown or illegal origin. For any museum, this is a basic principle that must be adhered to, which is not only prohibited by law, but also the most basic professional ethics bottom line of the museum, and it is also the recognized position of all countries in the world in the museum collection. This is fully reflected in UNESCO's proposal on the protection of movable cultural property and the International Museum Association's Code of Professional Ethics for Museums.
Two, do a good job in the establishment and management of collection accounts and files.
The "Regulations" stipulate that museums should establish collection ledgers and files, which is the embodiment of attaching importance to and strengthening the basic work of museums. Accounting and archives are the true records of a series of activities such as collection, identification, registration, management, protection, research and utilization of collections, and are the basis and basis of various business activities of museums. In addition, the museum should also incorporate the activities carried out for collection into the collection files, constantly make up and improve them, earnestly strengthen the basic work, and promote the scientific and standardized management of the museum; For cultural relics collections, it is also necessary to carry out the work of establishing accounts, filing and management in accordance with the technical standards such as the Archives Specification for Cultural Relics Collections and the Archives Record Specification for Series of Cultural Relics Restoration.
Third, strengthen the protection of collections, especially cultural relics.
The collections of museums in China are huge, varied and rich in value, which are important physical witnesses of social, economic and cultural development of various periods and ethnic groups, and also important resources and material basis for museums to carry out various business activities in a sustainable way. It can be said that without the protection of collections, it is impossible to give full play to the functions of museums and inherit culture, and all the work of museums must be based on the protection of collections. Among all kinds of collections, cultural relics are different from other collections because of their fragility, contingency and irreproducibility, and need special protection. Due to the influence of age and burial environment before excavation, the natural properties of many cultural relics may have changed to varying degrees before entering the collection, and some historical, artistic and scientific information will be attenuated, which will affect the realization of the functions of museum preservation, research and communication education. How to protect these cultural heritages is an important responsibility of relevant museums. To this end, the "Regulations" specifically stipulate that special libraries or special equipment should be set up to preserve precious and easily lost collections; The museum shall establish a separate file for the collected cultural relics and report it to the competent department of cultural relics for the record; Collections belonging to state-owned cultural relics, precious cultural relics among non-state-owned cultural relics and other cultural relics prohibited from leaving the country by the state shall not leave the country, and shall not be transferred, leased or pledged to foreigners. In addition, the "Regulations" are also linked with laws and administrative regulations on the protection of cultural relics.