Cataloging the MH Thamrin Museum: Tracing the Legacy of Indonesia’s Political Party Forums in the Struggle for Independence

Southeast Asia Museum Services (SEAMS), in collaboration with the Jakarta Department of Culture through the #KoleksiKita program, held a cataloging workshop at the MH Thamrin Museum on Wednesday, October 8, 2025. More than 10 curators and museum staff participated in the training.

The MH Thamrin Museum houses approximately 277 collection items, including household objects, historical artifacts, musical instruments, paintings, and dioramas that depict scenes such as the raid of M.H. Thamrin’s house and political party forums during Indonesia’s independence movement.

With support from the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP), #KoleksiKita will work with the MH Thamrin Museum team to catalog and digitize 100 priority objects from the collection. These records will eventually be made accessible to the public through Jakarta Digital Collections.

As part of the Jakarta Digital Collections (JDC) initiative, the workshop focused on two key areas: Collection Management Systems for Museum Staff and Public Access Systems.

Through this workshop, the goal is to strengthen the museum staff’s capacity for object-based research and improve the quality of exhibition presentations.

This initiative is supported by the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP), which is committed to preserving historic buildings, archaeological sites, cultural objects, museum collections, and traditional expressions such as language and music in participating countries.