It's my impression that people join ICOM for two different reasons:
1. To get a card that will give free and fast admission to museums
2. To participate in professional activities in areas that interest
them.
(Clearly this is a simplification).
People in the first category are not particularly interested in
"International Committees", and indeed may have a false impression of
what these bodies are. The word "committee" generally invokes an image
of about 12 people sitting round a table discussing "business" every
month or so. That may indeed have been how International Committees
started, but I think it would convey better what they are if they were
called "special interest groups" or "subject sections" of ICOM.
People in the second category are often encouraged to join a specialist
(i.e. International) committee through colleagues in their own
speciality, and the fact that they have to join ICOM in the process is
just another hoop they have to jump through. If the ICs became
independent bodies these members would not join ICOM. This would be
regrettable, because although they are not interested when they join,
ICOM should be able to encourage them to widen their horizons after they
become members.
I would suggest that we remove the distinction between "voting" and
"non-voting" membership, which confuses those who don't understand it
and frustrates those who do - someone with a functional specialism in a
subject specialist museum is torn between the two (should a conservator
in an art museum choose to be a voting member of a committee concerned
with conservation or one concerned with art, for example). It is even
more anomalous that the museum as a whole, if an institutional member,
should have to make this choice, when it may deal with two or more
subjects.
I suggest that ICOM should do the same as other professional bodies I
belong to, and allow individuals to join two specialist groups as part
of the basic subscription, with the option to join any number of
additional groups for a small additional fee for each. Institutions
might be allowed to join four groups for their basic subscription.
Leonard Will
--
Dr Leonard D Will, Membership Secretary, ICOM UK
27 Calshot Way, Enfield, Middlesex, EN2 7BQ, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8372 0092
[log in to unmask] Fax: +44 (0) 870 051 7276
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