Disappointing national museum

Disappointing national museum

From Media Indonesia

At the end of July, I visited the National Museum on Jl. Merdeka Barat, Jakarta, for the first time. While I thought the museum would be a major source of information on the nation's history, I noticed several things that made me very disappointed.

First, the ancient inscriptions were not positioned in proper and protected places, but they were just put in rows, even without labels specifying their details. Therefore, the collections were not able to enlighten a layman like me.

Second, lots of other collections, including statues, had no labels to identify them, some of which might have been lost while others were not yet properly attached.

Third, I got confused over which room I should start from to go around the museum. As a comparison, Bandung's Sri Baduga Museum has its collections placed chronologically from the entrance to adjacent rooms in proper order, making it easier to get a historical view of the exhibits.

I hope my findings and suggestions will be beneficial to the relevant authorities.

R. HENDRO RUMPOKO Yogyakarta