EXPLORING: Visitors gather around a telescope at the Beijing Planetarium(CE.CN)

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) downgraded the Beijing Planetarium and three other museums to second-class status, according to a May 18 statement.

The Memorial of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea in Dandong City of northeast Liaoning Province, the Chinese Naval Museum in Qingdao of east Shandong Province and the Xiamen Overseas Chinese Museum in southeast Fujian Province also lost first-class status.

The main problems causing the downgrade of the four museums stem from their single object collections, weaknesses in basic displays, as well as fewer scientific research results, said Duan Yong, Director of Museums and Social Cultural Relics Department under the SACH. Duan pointed out that the personnel shortage in scientific research is a common problem of domestic museums.

The planetarium, which obtained a total score of 781.4 out of 1,000 in April, lost its first-class status only by 19 points, according to a National Museum Evaluation Committee statement. It will have to wait until 2015 for a chance to regain the coveted designation.

China had 3,589 registered museums by 2011, of which the SACH evaluates and rates 20 percent. However, the current downgrade is not connected with state financial allocation. To all museums, ranks mean honor, Duan said.

Beijing Planetarium Curator Zhu Jin said standards that typically apply to relic collection put planetariums at a disadvantage. Its only physical relic collection is a meteorite exhibit.

"As a base of scientific knowledge popularization, the Beijing Planetarium does not mainly engage in relic collection or exhibitions, but instead, disseminates scientific knowledge to visitors in market-oriented manner to nurture scientific spirit," said Zhu.

Song Xiangguang, an expert who took part in the evaluation for the operation of first-class museums in 2010, dismissed concerns about the fairness of the quantitative evaluation system.

Huang Chunyu, Professor of Museum Studies at Nankai University in Tianjin, said that China teems with various types of museums with different characteristics and they can not be fully considered under the current evaluation system.

"I myself do not agree to decide in a hurry the fate of certain museums before perfecting the evaluation system, as it can easily result in a negative influence in their future development," said Huang, who also served as a evaluation expert for two consecutive years.

"The evaluation has imposed great pressure to many museums which are actively improving their management methods," he added.

(Source: www.ce.cn)