Commenting on the long-standing issue of ICOM suport for Committee
Web sites --

A decision has already been made to make space available on the
central ICOM server for use by the Committees in the maintenance of
their Web sites. The delay in the posting of the announcement of
this is something for which I am largely responsible. My concern is
that the intended scope of the hosting services would likely be
subject to misunderstanding and thereby fail to bring the matter to
a satisfactory conclusion. The recent comments on ICOM-L suggest
that there is justification for this feeling.

There is capacity enough on ICOM's central server (located in
Stockholm) for a reasonable amount of space to be allocated to any
Committee wishing to use it.  Expanding the storage capacity, if it
should prove necessary, would be a trivial matter. There are
significant security issues involved in increasing the number of
people with privileged access to the server but these can be dealt
with reasonably well by the use of inexpensive high-security
software for the transferral of files.

What ICOM cannot do is provide central assistance in the preparation
or maintenance of Committee resources that are hosted in this
manner. However desirable this may be, there are no available
resources that can be allocated for the purpose. It is for this
reason that I so greatly fear misunderstanding.

Stating it as clearly as possible:  The provision of a central
storage repository will in no way either enhance or diminish the
ability of individual Committees to profile themselves on the Web as
they see fit (within the limitations imposed by the software that is
available on the server).  The provision of a central storage
repository will in no way reduce the individual Committee burden in
authoring, formatting and maintaining the material housed on its
server. The availability of a central platform will not address the
issue of providing the maintainers of Committee sites with access to
the Internet.

This having been said, any Committee that is able to designate
someone with the requisite skills and the willingness to do the
work, can be provided with a host platform on the central ICOM
server. There is a further technical component to the delay that
is rapidly nearing its resolution. As preparations for the launch
of .museum are going into their final stages, a significantly
expanded server facility is being established in Stockholm. The ICOM
Web host is being upgraded in the process and, although anyone who
wishes to do so is welcome to establish an "account" on the existing
server, the holders of such accounts will be subjected to some
inconvenience when their material is transferred to the new machine.

I will gladly explain the advantages and disadvantages of sharing a
centralized server but will wait until there been some response to
what has been said above before proceeding. I will also be in
Barcelona and will be pleased to participate in further discussion
of this, there.

Cary Karp
Delinquent Processor of Draft Texts

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