From the last week, we have concentrated on writing each essay and preparing its presentation.

Today I'm going to have the presentation and discussion about my essay, museums in Japan and UK, and I'm looking forward to getting comments about the content.

As I research the museums in Japan and UK, I discovered many interesting differences and similarities, and its background, which I didn't expected when I decided my topic.

For example, I focus on the entrance fee of national museums in each country, but I realized that the structure and main focus of exhibitions are quite different between two country. In the UK, most of the national museums have own massive collections for permanent exhibitions, and many visitors go to the museums for appreciating them, so the entrance fee is free, and get extra charge for special exhibitions, focusing on more narrowed visitors. However in Japan, many museums mainly focus on special exhibitions, and they attract many visitors by those short-term exhibitions. The entrance fee for those exhibitions is not cheap, but not too expensive like some special exhibitions in UK national museums, and visitors can enter the permanent exhibitions for free with the same tickets, like the free bonus. So the structure is quite different, and I think this has historical background in the difference of the national collection, especially of royal families' or aristocrats' collection in UK and Japan.

Like these facts, I found and learned many interesting thing from my research, and it was really great opportunity.

And as I search the home pages of museums, I found museums' digital databases are pretty great and useful. You can see the massive collections of national museums like the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, or the Tokyo National Museum, and also download and use the contents with following each terms of use.