The Comparative Study Of The Contemporary Museum And Archives Of Our Country

Since museum and archives germinated respectively, each has appeared as a cultural treasury of nation and society. They and library are recognized the three mainstays of social culture installation now. The author made a contrast between the contemporary museum and archives of our country, knew the archives from the position of the museum, and explored the difference and contact between the museum and the archives. There are six parts in this paper. In part one: the author introduced the purpose to write the paper. Museum and archives, which are of the same source, have been two independent social organizations with different development course. They have the same attribute ——they both are science and culture organizations; the regular exhibition hall of archives accords with the definition of museum; in practice, the cooperation and exchange between them has been carried out; archives can be think as a public of museum. For the better development of museum, we need to know the archives from the position of museum. My purpose to write the paper is :one is to find the difference and similarity between them ,let them understand their responsibilities ;the other is to analyze the general situation of the cooperation and exchange between the museum and the archives, find the shortage of it , advance some feasible measures of it . In part two: the author summarized the research that had been made by some scholars. These studies are relevant to the relationship between the museum and the archives. Some scholars have realized that the relationship between the museum and the archives is an important question for study, but they only studied the relationship between historical object and archives and didn't expand to the compare and contrast between the two organizations the finished researches are quite scattered, not system and deep-going. In part three: the author introduced the definition,function and attribute of the contemporary museum and archives of our country respectively. "A museum is a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment. ". Collect, study and educate are the main functions of the contemporary museum. Museums provide service for research of interrelated subject and enjoyment for people, and can stimulate the economical development of a nation. An archives is a science and culture organization, a permanent base to take care of archives, center for science research, and people can use archives at there. It is equal to public archives overseas. Collect, study, serve and educate are the main functions of the temporary archives. In part four: the author compared the museum with the archives, found the differences and contacts of functions,concrete works and attributes between the museum and the archives, and the reason that these differences and contacts can exist.The museum and the archives have the same function——collect, so both of them need to carry out every use about collection naturally, such as study, educate and serve; because of the different objects for collect, though they have the similar functions, they have different concrete contents of the functions; but the objects for collect of the museum coincide with those of the archives, the cooperates and exchanges between the museum and archives are popular. This is why these differences and contacts can exist. The contemporary museum and the contemporary archives both are independent culture entity. Until the society developed to a specified stage, they were produced. As a part of the society culture system, so the contemporary museum and the contemporary archives of our country have the same essential attribute ——culture. But their general attributes,functions and the process which their functions are performed in are some different. So they can't replace each other. They play their own roles with the common goal. In part five: the author discussed the general situation of the cooperation and exchange between the museum and the archives, found the shortage of it, and advanced some feasible measures of it. In the practice of the contemporary museum and archives of our country, their cooperation and exchange limits collection, providing service and conducting exhibition commonly, the range and depth are not enough. The museum isn't easy taking advantage of the service, which is provided by the archives, because in China, the archives always had been thought as an appendage of an administrative body and a top-secret organization. When the scholars discuss the attributes...