A policy backflip by the Dutch government means that the Netherlands’ most important science history museum has to find €700,000 (US$1 million) by the end of the year – or close its doors.
The Museum Boerhaave in Leiden houses one of Europe’s finest collections of medical and scientific instruments, dating back to the 16th century. The museum, and its education programme, will be closed on 1 January 2013 unless it can comply with a quirk in a recent federal ruling that the museum’s director, Dirk van Delft, describes as arbitrary and unfair.
Fourteen other museums have registered with the Meldpunt Bezuinigingen (Cutbacks Hotline) of the Dutch Museum Association as being in trouble, Volkskrant reported last Thursday.
(Photo of Papier-mâché model of a Sea Bass by Museum Boerhaave, Leiden, some rights reserved)
