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total of 13 museums in Jakarta showcased their collections in an event titled '€œThe Museum Week 2013'€ at Senayan City mall recently. Among them were Bank Indonesia Museum, Maritime Museum, National Museum, Harry Darsono Museum, Basoeki Abdullah Museum, Asmat Museum in the Indonesian Miniature Park (TMII) and Textile Museum.

The event deserves appreciation. Bringing museums to modern society cannot be negotiable.

The difficulty of luring visitors to museums is evident in many places; it has even become a national issue and problem.

The Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry declared 2010 the Year of Visiting the Museum as part of the National Movement to Love Museums, which will last until 2014. The program aimed at boosting public awareness of the importance of museums as well as increasing the number of visitors to the museums.

Currently, the number of visitors to 283 museums throughout Indonesia stands at about 4.2 million each year. The visit-the-museum activities focused on seven provinces: Jakarta, Yogyakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Bali and North Sumatra.

The International Council of Museums defines a museum as a permanent institution, non-profit, which serves the needs of the public, with an open nature, collecting, conserving, researching, communicating and exhibiting real objects to the public for the purpose of study and pleasure. Given this definition, museums should be the first choice of travelers in Indonesia.

However, there are many internal constraints affecting museums in Indonesia. As Ardiwidjaja (2008) puts it, internal problems facing museums in the country stem from a gap between the complexity of the functions of a museum and human resource professionalism, lack of use of information technology, the fact that the museum collections are not laid out in a modern, comfortable and enjoyable way for the public, lack of creativity in museum activities, lack of adequate data and information relating to the museum collections and the absence of integration between museums and the national education system.

On the external side, the public perception of museums is not yet well established, the interest of the public in visiting museums here remains low compared to those in developed countries, synergy from tourism stakeholders to make museums leading tourist attractions is lacking and tour operators have not done enough to sell museums in tour packages.

The development of museums in Jakarta cannot be separated from the role of the late former first lady Tien Soeharto.

During Soeharto'€™s reign, Tien aggressively encouraged the establishment of museums, 15 of which are now located in the area of TMII in East Jakarta. They comprise the Asmat Museum, Museum of Indonesia, Indonesian Military Museum, Komodo Museum and Reptiles Park, Museum of Electricity and New Energy, Oil and Gas Museum, Sports Museum, Indonesia Stamp Museum, Heritage Museum, Butterfly Park and Insect Museum, Museum of Telecommunications, Transportation Museum, Lighting Department Museum, Istiqlal Museum and Museum of East Timor.

At the Komodo Museum, visitors with skin diseases such as scabies, acne, burns and ulcers can seek alternative treatment using cobra bile once every two weeks. The museum also provides interactive rides where visitors can hold a batik python with the help of the handler.

There is also an annual attraction of wrestling with venomous snakes, where players fight a snake, kiss king cobras, bathe with snakes and other spectacular events.

The collection of the Indonesian Fauna Museum features distinctive fauna, grouped by territory spreading from west to east and classified according to their habitat.

In this museum, visitors can see firsthand the intellectual work of Alfred Russell Wallace, a naturalist who delineated fauna distribution in Indonesia (the Wallace Line) based on his research in 1854-1861 in Indonesia.

At Fatahillah Museum, visitors can enjoy various art shows, such as kuda lumping, Javanese and Sundanese puppet shows, music, bazaars, bird contests and so on. The museum is a meeting ground for hobby communities such as BMX bikers, skateboarders, motorcycle lovers, photography lovers, English speakers and ancient bike collectors.

Parallel with Hermawan Kartajaya'€™s idea in his book The Spirit of Ubud Bali (2010), traveling to museums can sharpen the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) because museums are conducive to exploring and discovering new ideas that we have never imagined. Ideas may come from learning about the glory, golden age, even ordeals and deterioration of a nation.

A museum is an ideal place to improve Emotional Quotient (EQ) for us the citizens of a nation who live in modern times and to increase national pride in our relations with the global community. Indonesia'€™s rich history, flora and fauna, arts and religiosity should enable us to build our confidence and optimism in the face of future challenges.

Last but not least, museum helps us build inner Spiritual Quotient (SQ) not in the sense of religious spirituality, but awareness of our identity as human beings and one generation of a nation. If IQ is '€œmindware'€, EQ is '€œheartware'€ and SQ is '€œsoulware'€. All three form what is called '€œhumanware'€ and we can find them all in museums.

The writer is a lecturer in tourism at Ciputra University, Jakarta.