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Curating Popularity

University museums have to support themselves and stand out from ordinary museums with collections of high academic value, experts say

By Xie Ying , Li Mingzi Updated Jan.1

Bill Gates and his Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, are perched among six antiquated desktop computers, Gates looking fresh-faced and Allen looking a lot more senior, even though he was, at 28, only two years older than his colleague.　

The 1981 publicity shot for the then relatively unknown software firm has gone down in history, especially when, 32 years after the original shot, Gates and Allen posed with most of the same types of PCs at the Seattle-based Living Computer Museum, founded by Allen with some of his Microsoft profits in 2006. 　

Although the Seattle museum’s exhibits include lots of vintage PCs, not all those in the original photo could be found. The museum’s archivist told Forbes after huge interest in the two photos that four of the same type as the original six could be found, but two were replaced with similar computers of the same era, all running Microsoft software. 　

But now vintage computer fans in China have a chance to see examples of all the original hardware from the 1981 picture, as well as the two replacements from the 2013 photo. The curator of a new exhibition at Tsinghua University Science Museum (TUSM) has tracked down all eight models of the PCs to put on display. 　

The computers are on loan from Zimuyuan Museum, a private museum in Hefei, Anhui Province.　

Wu Guosheng, director of the Tsinghua University Science Museum told NewsChina that when he visited Zimuyuan Museum, he was surprised at its high-quality collections, so he thought it would be a good idea to exhibit old computers.　

Due to pandemic controls, the exhibition is not open to the public yet, but students can visit. One computer fan told the reporter that he loves vintage computing equipment very much and hopes he can appreciate them in person in the near future. TUSM said the exhibition will go on until May 2021, with many netizens hoping the campus will open to the public before then. 　

“They [computers] are the most popular part of the exhibition,” Wu Guosheng, director of TUSM, told NewsChina.　

In fact, the science museum is not completely finished. Wu said the project started in 2018, and construction is scheduled to finish by 2024. But they have already put on two exhibitions.　

“The exhibitions aim to draw public attention and raise money,” Wu said.　

Difference Engine

In April, Deng Feng, founder of investment company Northern Light Venture Capital and an alumnus of Tsinghua University, donated millions of yuan to help his alma mater build the science museum and a medical research center. Although the donation was generous, it was not enough to complete the museum. 　

According to Wu, TUSM is planning to replicate the difference engine designed by Charles Babbage, a 19th century British scientist, who proposed the concept of a difference engine and analyzer which is considered an embryonic form of a computer. Babbage, who died in 1871, did not live to see his concepts realized, and the world’s first difference engine was made by the London Science Museum in 1991 based on Babbage’s blueprint. The huge machine weighed 2.5 tons and had more than 4,000 parts.　

TUSM has on display part of the difference engine it is replicating and Wu revealed the whole machine would cost about 4 million yuan (US$588,235). Yet, it is not the most costly exhibit on the museum’s agenda. A replica of the Astronomical Clock Tower of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), a significant scientific achievement in ancient China, will cost over 10 million yuan (US$1.5m).　

“Our museum aims to spread knowledge about science around China and the world. We hope it will appeal not just to young university students, but to people of all ages,” Wu said. “So we need exhibits in our collection of historical significance.”　

“A university museum’s main goal is to serve education and develop the subjects... For example, a biology department needs a biological specimen display and a geology department should allow students to touch geological specimens, but ordinary museums can’t usually meet these demands,” said Du Pengfei, deputy director of the Tsinghua University Art Museum (TSAM).　

Established in 2004 after Tsinghua University merged with the former Central Institute of Arts and Crafts, TSAM opened in 2016. “During the 17 years of preparation, our main task was finding the funding for the museum,” Du said, revealing that TSAM ultimately cost 300 million yuan (US$44.1m). 　

“Museums are not ordinary buildings which can just open right away after construction finishes. As many historical items disappeared during the [political] campaigns in the past, we’ve only managed to acquire seven or eight scientific instruments that actually date back before 1950,” Wu said.　

“We’ve been searching for [valuable] things among the obsolete instruments abandoned by each department of the university, and Liu Niankai, the person in charge of TSUM’s collection has collected several hundred items from our biggest ‘supplier,’ the physics department. Added to donations from our alumni, we now have over 1,000 items in the collection, but it’s still a drop in the ocean compared to what we’ve got planned,” he added.　

A replica of an ancient machine for computing and time lapse simulation at Tsinghua University Science Museum

Declining Reputation

China’s first university museum opened in 1905 when Zhang Jian, an educator in the late Qing Dynasty (1636-1912) established Nantong Museum at Nantong Normal University in Jiangsu Province at his own expense. After the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, more universities built their own museums, including Sichuan University Museum, with a focus on traditional culture and historical research, the Anthropology Museum of Xiamen University in Fujian Province which has been authenticated by UNESCO and the Natural History Museum of Northeast Normal University, in Changchun, Jilin Province, which was among the first to be listed as a national Class-A museum.　

Although Tsinghua University, which was founded in 1911, was not among the universities that took the lead in opening museums, it established a display room for archaeology in 1925, after a proposal from Liang Qichao, one of the leaders of the Hundred Days’ Reform in the late Qing Dynasty who worked with Tsinghua’s Chinese Culture Department at that time.　

More university museums have sprung up over the past three decades. Guan Qiang, deputy director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, said at a 2019 forum on university museums that Chinese universities had established more than 300 museums by the end of 2018, though only 95 were registered with the department. Media statistics gave an even higher figure, 450.　

But Du Pengfei does not think the figure signals a “big leap forward” as some media have commented. “The figure only indicates an increase in registration,” he told NewsChina. “As far as I know, there were just a few new university museums established between 2000 and 2018, and those included in the statistics are mostly old.”　

In reality, university museums are not very popular and have little influence. A 2010 survey on the influence of university museums conducted by Beijing Normal University showed that only 48 percent of the respondent students knew about and had visited the museums of their universities, and more than 10 percent of the respondents saidthey did not know their university even had a museum.　

Worse still, some university museums have attracted negative press. In 2015, popular art history blogger Liao Xiaoxin publicly slammed the collection at the Ceramic Art Museum of Zhejiang Normal University as “being outrageously fake.” The next year, a doctoral student at Beijing Normal University wrote an open letter to the university’s president which alleged that the 6,000 historical items alumnus Qiu Jiduan had donated to the university’s new museum were fake. 　

More recently, Chongqing University came under fire after another history blogger publicly claimed that all the items displayed at its new museum were fake. Media reports alleged that Chongqing University spent 6.7 million yuan (US$1m) building the museum and its collection came from Professor Wu Yingqi whose son, the reports said, was in charge of the museum.　

A commentary in news portal The Paper criticized many university museums for becoming a “private warehouse” for individuals with ties to the universities.　

“I don’t think having a museum is essential for all universities, and we shouldn’t establish a museum just because of donations. A university has to think about why and for whom they want to establish a museum and then how they will build and operate it,” Du told NewsChina.　

Vintage desktop computers on display at Tsinghua University Science Museum

Academic Demonstration

As Wu and Du point out, being short of money is a constant frustration for the development of university museums, so they always welcome donations. Wu Aiqin, director of the Cultural Heritage Museum of Henan University told local newspaper the Dahe Daily that after the scandal at Chongqing University museum, they could not afford to acquire many exhibits, especially as the market for antiques and collectibles had become overheated. The only way to add to their collection was by excavating cultural relics themselves after they established their own archaeology department in 2013 and were licensed to conduct digs. 　

A 2012 paper on the development of university museums published by Yang Haiyan from Shandong University in Jinan, Shandong Province, attributed university museums’ low popularity to not having high-quality collections and a lack of awareness of the need to appeal to the wider public as well as academics. Although university museums’ primary function is to serve higher education, the author called on them to attract a wider range of visitors by offering specialized collections of high educational value.　

Du agrees with this premise. “University museums should take advantage of academic research to build their own brand based on the university’s history and culture. It is not wise to just follow or copy ordinary museums,” he said.　

According to Duan Yong, deputy president of Shanghai University and former deputy director of the Palace Museum in Beijing, the best university museums have something distinct to offer. For example, the Letter Museum of the Renmin University of China in Beijing focuses on collecting letters from historical figures, and the Shanghai University Museum focuses on Shanghai traditional culture and arts, the first and only one in China.　

Duan singled out an exhibition on Tang Dynasty (618-907) culture the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened in 2004. He said the Met had researched academic studies on Tang culture for seven years and innovatively showcased and interpreted their academic achievements with historical collections. 　

In Duan’s view, the exhibition, which toured to Tokyo, Japan, Hong Kong and Hunan Province in the Chinese mainland, deserved the accolade of being “one of the most influential and important exhibitions over the past two decades.”　

But what caused Chinese university museums to reflect was that although 98 percent of the 400 exhibits in the Met exhibition came from Chinese cultural heritage organizations and museums, the exhibition’s theme, structure and captions were all based on the Met’s own research, meaning that the Met owns the exhibition’s copyright. 　

In contrast, some Chinese universities, as The Paper commentary pointed out, failed to identify and appraise the donations to their museums. 　

“Academic value should be a core standard to appraise a university museum and its exhibits,” Du said.　

According to Du, a high-quality exhibition would definitely attract visitors from off-campus. This May, TUAM launched an exhibition on ancient Afghan national treasures to show the Silk Road’s influence on cultural exchanges. The exhibition lasted two months and attracted some 50,000 visitors, and the pictorial catalog of the 233 exhibits sold out within a week. Now, the second-hand book sells for five times the original price online.　

Du emphasized that university museums should keep an eye on developments in the academic subjects related to their theme. The first popular university museums, for example, were mostly about natural sciences, such as animals, plants and minerals since they were focuses of universities at that time. When the arts and humanities rose following World War II, art museums began to take the lead. Today, when college majors are more diverse and specialized, university museums, Du said, should also provide more specialized and even individualized services.　

That is a major reason why Tsinghua was determined to establish a science museum in addition to its already renowned art museum.　

“Tsinghua is famous for science and engineering studies, so a science museum would become a must for visitors, even though they might not visit the art museum,” Du said. 　

“Visitors [to Tsinghua University] will surely spend more time looking at a scientific collection than an art collection... So precisely defining the function and orientation of the science museum and expanding its public service is what the science museum must concentrate on in the future,” he added.　

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