Beijing's museums are introducing new operating methods to earn more money to carry on, but their key aim - conveying knowledge to the public - will remain their core.

The State-run museums, though still supported largely by the government, have been trying various means to make money to finance their own operation.

According to He Fengxiang, director of the Beijing Natural History Museum, the museum is now faring much better than it used to, with over one-third of its capital acquired from the museum's own operations.

The progress, he said, can be attributed largely to its active communication and co-operation with other museums at home and abroad.

According to He, the Beijing Natural History Museum has had its exhibits displayed in museums in such countries and regions as the United States, Japan, South Korea and Western Europe.

It recently wound up an exhibition in Australia's Newcastle Regional Museum, where a lot of Chinese dinosaur bones and birds were put on display for the benefit of the local populace.

"We earn money from such exhibitions," said He. "However, it is the advanced operating measures and concepts of foreign museums that we are interested in most."

But the museum also takes advantage of commercial potentials. It has set up a professional design group to undertake exhibitions and projects for other Chinese museums.

Last year the group designed an exhibition for South China's Guangdong Province's Shenzhen Museum of Paleontology, and it gave technical support to several exhibitions in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as well as to East China's Fujian Province's Wuyishan Nature Reserve, He said.

The use of some technical innovations is calculated to attract viewers, and the subsequent higher box office returns will help the museum acquire new equipment and offer new services. A positive cycle has been initiated, he concluded.

"After all, our original and final purpose is to popularize scientific knowledge. We look forward to seeing more people coming here, and their minds will certainly be enriched."

Similar opinions were aired by an anonymous official from the China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, who said yesterday that museums should work to raise public consciousness of science.

According to the official, the museum co-operated with an education company to put on a series of free exhibitions from July 28 to August 28. The project was designed to make people more aware of daily life around them.

At present, China Science and Technology Museum receives 3,000 to 4,000 visitors per day. Citizens are interested in the exhibits largely because of their close relationship with current life and affairs.

Private museums, which have been largely neglected by the public, also seem to be finding ways to draw in more visitors.

The China Ethnic Culture Park, a Beijing-based, unique outdoor museum with an annual income of over 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million), has been making great efforts to provide visitors a panoramic overview of China's 56 ethnic groups.

All 56 exhibitions in the museum are expected to be completed before 2005, with 40 of them already open to the public, said Ni Ya'nan, director of the culture park.

(China Daily Sep 3, 2003)