Following the request of Cary Karp, who moderates the ICOM-L in a great way,
I would like to give the ICOM-L audience some input on what CIDOC is doing
and how it deals with some issues that are a general ICOM and UNESCO concern.

CIDOC is ICOM's International Committee for Documentation. It has some 850
members. Should you want to know more about CIDOC and particularly about its
active working groups, please have a look at the CIDOC web pages
(www.cidoc.icom.org). This website also contains some full CIDOC
publications, available to all of you.

A short personal introduction: I am the chairperson of CIDOC since the
Stavanger conference of 1995. I have been working in the field of museum
documentation for almost 17 years by now, with several agencies that played
a role in Dutch and Belgian museums on standard setting, consultancy and
software development. The last agency has been privatized in the late 80ies.
I have been active CIDOC member since 1986 and find the CIDOC activities and
contacts always very interesting, challenging and...friendly. As within
CIDOC we are used to sharing a lot of professional information, I want to
give the following input to the ICOM-L.

During the 1st session of the ICOM Advisory Committee meetings of November
18th 1996 in Paris, a UNESCO representative pointed out some aspects of
UNESCO Policy that are relevant to the field of CIDOC. As Chair Person of
the International Committee of Documentation I want to indicate how CIDOC
reflects on these aspects (and to encourage readers to pass this kind of
information on to collegues, directors, policy makers, etc.).

- From UNESCO perspective it will be stimulated that ICOM is seen as a part
of the cultural heritage field, together with other organisations involved
with the cultural heritage. This includes also those organisations that are
dealing with cultural heritage that is of a non-material nature.
Appearantly, this will be UNESCO policy from 1997 onwards, when ICOM-UNESCO
relations will be under a new statute.

- Information is regarded to be of crucial importance, not just for
professional contacts, but also because museums are creators of information.
This kind of information should be shared with those that have access to the
newest technology and those that do not have this access.

- Publications are important, like the AFRICOM Handbook of Standards (to
which CIDOC heavily contributed - JH) and so are training aspects.

- Also important is the fight against illicit traffic, where the
publications like ICOM's 'One Hundred Missing Objects' play such a big role.

- Museums can be, have to be signals of peace (the example that was given
was: a Museum in Jericho should show objects of islamic as well as jewish
origin).

These summarized points were part of the UNESCO Representative's
presentation that reflected on ICOM. Commenting on this, I would like to
point out that some of these points will be and indeed have been, very well
established in CIDOC's activities.

CIDOC has been providing preparations on standardizing museum object
information, thereby improving information exchange possibilities among
museum professionals. Also on a more general level, the role of museums as
users AND providers of information is indeed an aspect of attention within
CIDOC. Reflections on this can be found in the forthcoming issue of the ICOM
Study Series, that was compiled by CIDOC. Included are ideas on the role of
museums as assistants to those that try to get access to information, as we
are well aware of the dangers of a World Wide (Information) Gap. I would
also like to
point out the importantce of quality of information, particularly when
thinking of a museum as information provider. CIDOC's meeting of this year,
in Nuremberg (7-11 September) will have the theme 'Quality & Documentation' !

We have started to discuss the role of museum documentation and
documenting non-material culture in Nairobi at our 1996 meeting. We plan to
continue doing so in Nuremberg and the CIDOC board has decided in its
meeting of November 1996 in Versailles, to make this issue the main theme of
the CIDOC Melbourne conference. After all, the Melbourne ICOM triennial
meeting has as overall theme "Museums and Cultural Diversity".

Documentation as a tool in the fight against illicit traffic of
cultural heritage objects is indeed regarded as very important. At the 1996
annual conference a special session was devoted to this subject (and in the
CIDOC newsletter some articles can be found, see also CIDOC webpages that
will contain the 1996 newsletter in the near future).

I hope CIDOC will continue to have some very useful discussions on these
subjects in the (near) future during our conferences and in our
publications. And I would also like to invite other
International Committee representatives to join in the discussion.


Jeanne Hogenboom
CIDOC Chair