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Jinan, August 26 (China News Service) (Zhao Xiao and Zhang Li) As the summer vacation draws to a close, the Jiaoji Railway Museum, located just south of Jinan Railway Station, is still crowded with people. Fashionably dressed college students, young couples checking in for photos, and couples with their elderly and children, each with a "script", shuttle between cultural relics and exhibits, embarking on a mysterious treasure hunt.

"This is my first time to experience 'script killing' in a museum. It feels very novel. The questions are designed to be challenging, which aroused my interest in studying each exhibit." Mr. Tian from Tai'an is taking his nephew to "solve puzzles" in the museum. They plan to complete the game in 2 hours.

Visitors experience "script-killing" at the Jiaoji Railway Museum and exchange ideas about the puzzles in the script. Photo by Zhao Xiao

As a state-owned industry museum in Shandong, the Jiaoji Railway Museum is small in scale and its collections are not as rich as those of comprehensive museums. However, in recent years, it has gradually transformed from a "niche museum" into a "popular check-in spot" with its unique railway culture and vivid and interesting experience activities.

In Shandong, a province with many museums, there are many such "small but exquisite" state-owned industry museums, but they generally face problems such as unclear positioning, imperfect planning, and talent shortage in the process of development. In order to break the relevant "bottlenecks", the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and the industry management department explored and practiced the "joint certification, co-construction and co-management" mechanism in 2023, registered and filed 27 state-owned industry museums, and incorporated them into the provincial museum management system.

"After joining the ranks of formal museums, we have improved our management system and operated more standardizedly. This year, we also participated in the grading of the museum's cultural relics collections." Chen Yuzhou, director of the Jiaoji Railway Museum, told reporters that after classification, there are currently a total of 9 national second-level cultural relics and national third-level cultural relics in the museum.

Chen Yuzhou revealed that the Jiaoji Railway Museum has received more than 100,000 visitors this year, which has exceeded the total number of visitors received last year. "Next, we plan to launch two special exhibitions based on the existing immersive study dramas, mystery games and other activities, and create a "script-killing" game for teenagers, tailor-made puzzle games for young people, and enhance their understanding of the history and culture of the Jiaoji Railway in an entertaining way."

The Zibo Police Museum, located in Zhangdian District, Zibo City, is also a new member of the Shandong Museum "family". The museum opened in October 2013. With an exhibition area of ​​more than 1,000 square meters, it reproduces the development process of the Zibo public security front, as well as the work functions and spiritual outlook of various police types.

Students visit the Zibo Police Museum to learn about police equipment. (Photo courtesy of the Zibo Police Museum)

"2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Zibo Police Museum. We have obtained joint certification from the Zibo Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and the Zibo Municipal Public Security Bureau." Wang Jing, a staff member of the Zibo Police Museum, introduced that the Zibo Municipal Museum has provided guidance on the museum's filing work and provided technical support for the museum's own maintenance and use as well as the preservation of its collections.

Starting from the industry field, Zibo Police Museum has formed a good interaction with primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities. Wang Jing said that this year, the museum took advantage of the Chinese People's Police Day to carry out a series of police camp open day activities, inviting some citizens to visit the museum in the police camp in batches, so that they can understand the development of the police profession through the police equipment and literature on display.

From the Railway Museum to the Police Museum, from the Film Museum to the Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture Museum... Shandong's 27 registered state-owned industry museums each have their own strengths, cover rich and diverse fields, and are unique in their focus. By cultivating the new "museum +" business model, they gather popularity and effectively extend public cultural services.

The interactive installation of stills from the Qingdao Film Museum attracts students to watch. (Data map, provided by the Qingdao Film Museum)

The "joint certification, co-construction and co-management" mechanism solves the identity problem for state-owned industry museums, helps them better integrate into the local museum management system, and embarks on a standardized development track. The relevant person in charge of the Museum and Social Cultural Relics Division of the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism said that this measure is also conducive to integrating industry resources and allowing industry museums to form good interactions with other types of museums, such as jointly holding special temporary exhibitions.

The reporter learned from the interview that Shandong's local cultural relics department and industry regulatory departments have also carried out assistance work in batches for some state-owned industry museums, guiding them to accurately position themselves, highlight their characteristics, and standardize the filing and registration procedures. They have also formulated policies based on the museums to guide industry museums to improve quality and upgrade, enrich social education activities, and activate cultural resources.

It is understood that Shandong's 27 state-owned industry museums that have signed the "joint certification, co-construction and co-management" framework agreement are located in eight cities including Jinan, Qingdao, Weifang and Jining. They have a total of 14,900 collections, an exhibition area of ​​46,800 square meters, 788 educational activities held annually, and received 332,000 visitors. (End)