The architectural grandeur of museums and its collections, no longer represent the idiosyncrasies of the rich who owned them. As public expectation of museums changes; museums now take on additional roles in the community. While they continue to collect, catalogue, preserve and study their collections, museums have become an influential agency; a producer and conveyer of knowledge. They must enrich community life by making their collections accessible, useful and provide a space for interaction, discourse and exchange.

Behind these developments and changes are the bigger challenges that museums have to face today. One major challenge is their ability to attract, arouse curiosity, engage and entertain visitors. With this, the need to create innovative programmes that are relevant, interesting and fun so that visitors' experience is enhanced. To ensure sustainability, public support and constant flow of financial resources to fund these activities is important. Many museums have responded effectively and successfully to overcome these challenges. Museums have developed and adopted creative methods of management for example, collaborations; sharing collections in travelling exhibitions; integrating museums' public programmes with schools' curriculum; conducting outreach activities and even branding initiatives to reach out to a wider audience base. Museums also engage in revenue-generating initiatives through commerce and rental of spaces. Museum management has become more challenging. Many museums have done well to meet these challenges and to ensure sustainability. The proliferation of museums around the world and the number of visitors to museums are good testimonies of their success.

This Symposium on "Making Museums Matter" was held in conjunction with the 40th Anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It was a celebration of the achievements of ASEAN Museums. It was a forum that brought together Directors of leading ASEAN Museums, both publicly and privately funded to share their invaluable experience in the development and management of museuMS; the birth of new ideas; creation of partnerships and collaborations; strengthening of relationships; and possibly the creation of an ASEAN collaborative museum network.