‘Similarly, for almost twelve months, I pursued a report on unemployment in the lighterage industry, particularly in the Singapore River, without receiving any indication that the report was available at the NAS or anywhere else. Just days prior to my departure from Singapore, I mentioned this to a member of the NAS staff who had been away and was told that, yes it was available, and half an hour later, I was sitting in the reading room with the report in front of me’ – Stephen Dobbs, ‘Traversing the Boundaries of Historical Research: From the Singapore River to the Kra Canal’.
‘Is the museum a maker of Singapore history? Hardly. Its History Gallery lacks dynamism and a real museum experience. While its narratives offer alternative visions of the past, there is a certain static quality about the whole Gallery. It is designed to be permanent and not to be moved around. The electronics have been rigged up such that it would be a prohibitively expensive exercise to tear everything up just to showcase some other new artefacts. A computer game can offer more interpretive takes on our past’ – Kevin Y. L. Tan, ‘The National Museum as Maker and Keeper of Singapore History’.
