History of the 2022 Museum Act Revision and Museum Facilities that Are Custodians of Natural History Specimens in Japan

Abstract

 The Museum Act is a Japanese law passed in 1951 with the goal of improving the functions of museums as institutions for social education by standardizing guidelines for the establishment and operation of museum facilities within the country. The act was most recently amended in 2022 based on the Basic Act on Culture and the Arts, which itself had been revised in 2017. The Basic Act on Culture and the Arts is based on cultural tourism measures that have been enacted as a national strategy of Japan since 2000. The history of amendments to the Museum Act is summarized to provide a better understanding of the impacts of the revisions based on the Basic Act on Culture and the Arts. This history is presented as a chronological table that is divided into issues related to museum laws, administrative reforms, cultural tourism policy, and academic societies. According to a survey of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), approximately 50 million natural history specimens are reposited in Japanese museums. Presented here is a list of those museum facilities that hold and/or exhibit 500 or more specimens to assess the geographic distribution and relative quantities of these materials. Among the 2022 revisions to the Museum Act was a mandate to create and publish digital archives of museum materials, which raised concerns among many museum officials given both the vast number of specimens and the budgetary and manpower constraints faced by nearly all museums. However, there is optimism that this mandate will encourage collaborations among institutions and catalyze the construction of a comprehensive public database of natural history specimens in the custody of Japanese museums.