Managing free museums

Upgrading the quality of exhibitions is high on the agenda of museums when 325 more have scrapped admission fees this year, increasing the total number of museums with free entry to 1,332 -- about 77 percent of the total nationwide.

It is absolutely right for such public cultural venues not to charge visitors as they are built and maintained with taxpayers' money. What visitors will learn from more contact with cultural relics exhibited in museums facilitated by free access is something that cannot be measured by money. With all the costs shouldered by allocations from the government, it should not be difficult for these museums to maintain their normal operations. But it will not be easy for them to maintain their appeal to visitors with quality exhibitions all the time.

It is quite natural for some museums to lose their appeal to regular visitors if they do not have exhibition of fresh cultural relics or do not have enough money to keep their cultural relics in good shape. Yet, the reality is that it does need a lot of money to pay the staff working there and even more money to keep the items of cultural heritage in good shape.