Museums are places that preserve material and spiritual values ​​belonging to the past of a field, a community culture, and humanity more broadly. Therefore, museum staff play an important role in preserving and promoting cultural heritage so that museum activities can develop strongly and sustainably, attracting domestic and foreign tourists.

Staff at the Da Nang Museum adding QR codes to artifacts. Photo: D.H.L

The work requires high expertise

Summer is an ideal time for parents to take their children who are on summer break to visit museums in the city, such as the Da Nang Museum, the Fine Arts Museum, and the Museum of Cham Sculpture. Activities at the museums are, therefore, bustling with many fascinating events and exhibitions.

This makes museum staff become even busier. To preserve documents and artifacts intact in a clean and beautiful space, behind that is the effort of dedicated and highly specialised museum workers.

Currently, the Museum of Cham Sculpture is preserving six national treasures. Preserving and restoring artifacts in museums is not a simple task, requiring the application of many complex techniques and strict implementation of absolute safety protection plans.

Sharing about this work, Mr. Nguyen Bay, an archivist of the Collection - Preservation and Display Department of the Museum of Cham Sculpture, said that the preservation of national treasures at the museum is identified as a key activity, in which preventive preservation is the top priority. In addition, the movement and the change of display location, and preservation within the museum for national treasures must be monitored and supervised by security forces and a specific plan must be established.

Located in the campus of the Dien Hai Citadel National Special Monument, the Da Nang Museum has long been an indispensable destination for domestic and foreign tourists when coming to Da Nang. With a space of more than 3,000m² displaying more than 2,500 documents, images, and artifacts, the museum staff here must perform a huge amount of work to preserve and maintain these valuable documents and artifacts.

Mr. Huynh Dinh Quoc Thien, Director of the Da Nang Museum, said that to do a good job of museum work, the museum's mission must first be determined. This is an agency for scientific research, collection, display, inventory, preservation, education, and communication. Each field and each activity of the museum considers human resources to be multidisciplinary. For a long time, museums have only recruited personnel from the fields of history, literature, and foreign languages, which is not quite right because there are many other specialised jobs.

For instance, activities to preserve artifacts require technical majors such as holders of Bachelor's degrees in chemistry and biochemical engineers to research and develop preservation protocols for materials such as wood, metal, fabric, ceramics, porcelain, etc.

As for exhibition activities, aside from the historical and cultural research department, people with expertise in industrial fine arts are needed to carry out design and graphics. Meanwhile, inventory work requires employees who have expertise in museology with in-depth training in the museum field such as inventory, preservation and orientations on museum activities.

Preferential policy for museum workers in need

Museum work requires a multidisciplinary and multi-professional workforce, but recruiting and retaining workers is difficult because current training does not meet the actual needs of museums and the salary system is not appropriate.

Regarding this issue, Mr. Ha Thanh Van, Director of the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum, said that the museum currently has about 20 employees. Compared to the Museum of Cham Sculpture and the Da Nang Museum, the Fine Arts Museum was born later, with the staffing target of only 12 people when it was first established. At present, one person has to do many jobs.

“Since its establishment, the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum has been facing a shortage of employees. The municipal Department of Home Affairs has already worked with the museum on human resources, but the museum's requirements have not been met, especially the needs for modern museology and information technology. In order to make an impression and garner public attention, in recent years, the staff of the museum have had to work very hard. Meanwhile, the low salary regime, unattractive benefits, and lack of human resources have made the museum even more difficult" emphasised Mr. Ha Thanh Van.

Despite its large volume of professional work, the Da Nang Museum currently has more than 40 staff, workers, and employees.

Mr. Huynh Dinh Quoc Thien said that the salary coefficient for public service units doing museum work is currently quite low, so there needs to be a preferential policy and mechanism to retain employees.

"Most museums have a higher proportion of female workers than male ones because they accept low but stable salaries. To attract human resources to work in the museum industry, the city needs to promote the influence of museums on the public and the role of museums in contributing to the local socio-economic development. Museum people are scientific researchers, playing a pivotal role in preserving the soul of cultural heritage" Mr. Huynh Dinh Quoc Thien affirmed.

Reporting by DOAN HAO LUONG - Translating by M.DUNG