USC Museum hosts mini-confab

The University of San Carlos Museum hosted last May 21 a mini-conference between Kyoto University Museum (KUM) and the Visayas Association of Museums and Galleries Inc. (Vamgi).

The meeting, held at the USC Board of Trustees conference room, was organized by Dr. Lawrence Liao of Hiroshima University and USC Museum curator Marlene Socorro Samson and graced by Dr. Terufumi Ohno, KUM director, together with his colleagues Dr. Masaharu Motokawa and Shunsuke Yamashita.

Over 25 curators and representatives of 14 museums and one municipal tourism officer attended the meeting. Also present was Cebu Provincial Board member Miguel Magpale.

During the three-hour meeting, Dr. Ohno presented the current trends in museum work and the need for sustainability and networking of museums, while Dr. Motokawa discussed the concept of linking up all the natural history collections in museums all over the world.

Yamashita explained to the audience the Kyoto University Research Resource Archive (Kurra) project, which seeks to collect, preserve and make use of research materials produced in Kyoto University since its founding in 1897, which include old field notes, films, photographs and research documents.

Fr. Dionisio Miranda, SVD, USC president, expressed his desire for more work to be carried out in heritage conservation especially regarding coral stone churches and the few remaining ceiling paintings that are under threat and have not been studied yet.

For his part, Magpale assured the participants that the programs and projects for culture and heritage carried out by suspended Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia will be continued by the next administration.

In the open forum, participants expressed hope that there would be more trainings to help museums carry out their accessioning and digitization work. Vamgi responded to their request and scheduled a training towards the end of June for their curatorial needs.