Guangming Daily reporter Li Yun Guangming Daily correspondent Hu Chenran

During the Qingming holiday, the "Taihua Story Community Museum" located in the new urban area of Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province suddenly became "hot". The collection of old kerosene lamps, "28" bicycles, food stamps and cloth stamps and other old objects in the museum are all donated by surrounding residents, and they attract people's attention as material evidence of the times.

Taihua Road is famous for being the location of the modern national enterprise Dahua Yarn Factory, the 11th National Cotton Factory, and is an important industrial community in Xi'an. Through the combination of people, objects, pictures and history, the Taihua Story Community Museum truly reproduces the industrial history of Taihua Road Street and the harmonious and warm neighborhood life.

Old things are reborn and history is fresh

There are many small local museums like the "Taihua Story Community Museum" in Shaanxi. According to data released by the Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics, there are 66 similar museums.

As society grows, there is a growing need for people to identify with their cultural roots, and more and more communities are opening museums. These museums construct a cultural space of community memory by collecting and displaying physical objects, videos, and oral materials related to the history, culture, and life of the community. Community museums are different from large-scale comprehensive museums, and their core lies in being close to residents' lives, excavating local characteristics, and becoming an emotional link between history and the present. They not only display the unique history, culture and folk customs of the community, enhance the popularity and reputation of the community, but also provide a platform for residents to interact and communicate, promote the harmonious development of neighborhood relations, and become the cultural business card of the community.

Compared with the traditional national, provincial and municipal museum system, the "closeness" of community museums is its biggest advantage. Compared with large-scale comprehensive museums, community museums can dig deeper into and display the characteristic culture of the community, and provide residents with a richer and more diverse cultural experience. At the same time, because they are mostly located within the community, residents can visit the exhibitions and participate in the museum's activities at any time without spending a lot of time and energy.

In addition, community museums can encourage residents to participate in the construction, management, and operation of the museum through interaction with residents. Residents can contribute to the development of the museum by donating exhibits, participating in volunteer activities, providing oral histories, etc., while also enhancing residents' sense of identity and belonging to the museum. In a sense, the community museum is the common sustenance of the "nostalgia" of the community residents.

Adapting measures to local conditions shows each of its own strengths

Community museums have been in a phase of rapid growth in recent years. A number of community museums, such as the Shijia Hutong Museum in Chaoyangmen Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, the Habitat Museum in Xinjing Town, Changning District, Shanghai, and the Oilman Community Museum in Shengli Road Street, Yongchuan District, Chongqing, have also frequently "gone out of the circle" recently, causing social concern.

The vigorous development of community museums is inseparable from innovative practices adapted to local conditions. Through the leadership of party building, the co-creation of residents, and the integration of resources, all localities have explored a replicable road for the construction of community museums.

At the beginning of the preparation for the construction of the Oilman Community Museum in Shengli Road Street, Yongchuan District, Chongqing, the community took the party branch as a link and used the idle vacant land and corner land in the old community to mobilize old party members and old workers to write oral histories and mobilize residents to donate objects that carry collective memory. From the National May Day Labor Medal to the factory resume, junior work certificate...... The old objects have not only witnessed the eventful years, but also become a bond that unites the community spirit today.

"At present, 6 community museums have been built in Shengli Road Street, Yongchuan District, and another one is planned to be built by the end of this year." Xiao Chen, a cadre of the Shengli Road Sub-district Office in Yongchuan District, told reporters, "These community museums based on the people have allowed residents to regain the enthusiasm of the past, and the neighborhood relationship is unprecedentedly united." ”

Located in Peiren Historical and Cultural Street, Tangshan City, Hebei Province, the Peiren Modern Education Memory Museum was once the site of Peiren Girls' Middle School, and has now been transformed into a community museum after professional cultural relics and ancient repairs. The museum focuses on the long history of Tangshan Peiren Girls' High School, so it is known as the "living fossil" of education in eastern Hebei. The exhibition hall on the first floor vividly reproduces the school-running scene of women's education in the Republic of China by combining scene restoration and physical exhibition; The space on the second floor has created a modern cultural space such as a parent-child education workshop through innovative transformation.

Beijing Shijia Hutong Museum is one of the earliest community museums in Beijing, which was renovated from the former residence of modern writer Ling Shuhua and jointly built by the Chaoyangmen Sub-district Office and the Beijing Institute of Urban Planning and Design.

In addition, the "Zizhi Dongyuan" Community Museum in Futian District, Shenzhen, has set up paid services such as knowledge consultation on the basis of providing free visits; The community participatory museum in Shanghai Hongqiao Airport New Village encourages the public to participate in the daily operation of the museum by inviting community residents to serve as volunteers or curators. Each museum has its own characteristics, and all of them have produced good social benefits.

There is a way to break the game, and the road ahead is promising

Although the development momentum of community museums is good, some areas still face a variety of practical difficulties in the construction of community museums.

In the interview, the reporter learned that at present, most of the community museums in China do not charge admission fees, but the water, electricity and other expenses generated in the operation have become a big burden on the community. One of the main problems is that the management system of community museums has not been straightened out yet, and many community museums are only an exhibition area set up by relying on community office space, rather than independent legal entities. It is for this reason that when it comes to income or expenditure, there are inevitably institutional obstacles.

The shortage of skilled personnel is also prominent. Most community museums rely on volunteer teams to maintain their daily operations, but the high mobility and professional quality of volunteers are uneven, which makes it difficult to improve their curatorial capabilities and service levels. Due to the lack of guidance from professional curators, the permanent exhibitions of many community museums have loosely displayed the exhibits, and visitors have reported that "although the content is down-to-earth, it lacks in-depth interpretation".

"In the absence of financial support from the government and enterprises for the time being, it is understandable that community museums charge supplementary fees for admission fees to maintain basic operations." Fu Caiwu, a professor at the National Institute of Cultural Development at Wuhan University, told reporters, "But in the long run, community museums should raise funds through various channels, especially local governments can give subsidies to some well-run community museums, so that they can operate normally and develop better." ”

In response to the lack of professionals in community museums, Zhou Jingjing, a professor at the Department of Cultural Relics and Museology at Fudan University, said in an interview: "The sustainable development of small local museums such as community museums can sink the cultural and museum education resources of colleges and universities into the community by exploring models such as school-local cooperation, targeted training, and in-service personnel training." At the same time, a long-term training mechanism for volunteers has been established to improve their professional quality through regular rotation training and expert teaching. ”

A community museum, half of the community's livelihood history. The development of community museums not only needs to solve the practical dilemma, but also needs to activate people's wisdom and people's power. Only by letting the roots of culture take root in every inch of land can we pave the "last mile" connecting history and the present.

　　《光明日報》（2025年04月14日 09版）

Source: Guangming Network - "Guangming Daily"