Museums In Indonesia: Mapping Their Potentials And Challenges

Although museums have varying collections to be managed, but they do not differ in achieving the educational objectives. The existence of a museum is highly dependent on the strength of its collections since a museum is an institution that collects, studies, displays, and interprets objects. This research constructs museums as institutions that need to present holistic learning. The occurring questions are: (1) what the potentials of the museums in Indonesia are, and (2) how the museums will be able to assess and map the implementation of educational aspects in their entire organizational management without neglecting the enjoyment and recreational objectives for their visitors. The objectives of the paper are (1) mapping the potentials of Indonesian museums, (2) presenting a conceptual working frame in assessing programs implemented by the museum through the description of the concept of education, which is called by the researcher as museum domain curriculum, (3) reporting the results of educational aspects’ description, which implicitly should be internalized by museum managers in each museum’s managerial implementation policy. To obtain information as natural as possible, where undetectable superficial phenomena may occur without any intervention of the interests of museum-related parties, the researcher uses qualitative approach by unstructured closed observation method i.e. an observation method that is carried out unknown by the subjects under observation. The study is carried out in two stages focusing on different observation areas. Stage I was carried out in 2014-2015 focusing on the observation area consisting of 248 museums in the island of Java and Stage II was carried out in 2015-2016 focusing on the observation area consisting of 186 museums spread across the islands of Sumatera, Bali, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua, West Nusa Tenggara, North Maluku, West Papua, and Maluku. Research instrument is made using the museum management standard as the guidelines, which later is compared to the working frame which is described based on learning domain theory to create Museum Domain Curriculum Table. Indonesia has a great variety of both tangible and intangible heritage of 633 large ethnic groups. Most museums were established to document ethnography and social history collections. Only a small number of museums concentrate on the collections of arts, design, science, technology, nature history, medical, health, sport, and past people. Unfortunately, most museums have not been able to carry out the existing information management and dissemination optimally. The museums have not been able to communicate the richness of their collection creatively. Museums in Indonesia need to overcome various challenges to make themselves into a creative industry that is capable of cooperating with various parties, forming positive brand as well as overcoming funding issues.