Collections Management at Korean Natural History Museums

Abstract

A number of Korean natural history museums have shown sharp increase since 2000. The rapid increase of Korean natural history museums was drawn by the following three factors: The increased value of natural history museums as tour resources, the Korean educational policy changes of science education, and the increased value of specimens in natural heritage. Those three reasons have led such a dramatic quantitative difference of Korean natural history museums. Notwithstanding the fact that various exhibitions and educational theories have evolved, curators and scientific staffs still face challenges in terms of doing collections management. In order to resolve the challenges, this paper first surveyed five well-known Korean public natural history museums where we examined the total number of collections, the gross area of storage rooms, and the availability of people who can be charge of collection room management. The way in which Korean natural history museums manage their specimens is currently rated as satisfactory; thus, based on its establishment, curators and scientific staffs in the field of Museum Studies should be able to move toward preventive conservation in collections management rather than the preservation of specimens merely for exhibition and education. In order to do so, informal programs for training collections care specialists and the active networks among natural history museums for better specimen management are needed.

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