Re-envisioning ICOM: a Task Force for Organisational Change and
Renewal

(Bernice Murphy, Vice-President of ICOM)

We are at a new threshold.  The potential for enriching the idea
of the museum, and for its transformation through new narratives
and reinterpretation of social forms, is great.

We live in a world of social and political change, with new kinds
of societies in transition across the globe. These factors will
inescapably have a strong impact on the concept and mission of
museums.  The challenge for museums now is not simply to rely on
their past strengths, but to understand how their cumulative
knowledge and resources may be refocused to confront the present,
while retaining secure intellectual integrity and conservation
functions (conservation of collections, knowledge and ideas) as
well as imaginatively re-forging their connections with social
change and evolution (envisaging new futures).

At the recent Triennial General Conference of ICOM, Melbourne,
October 1998, there was a strong call for a comprehensive
strategic review of ICOM and a re-evaluation of its mission,
structure and workings.  On the final day this became the
official policy of ICOM, through its inclusion in the Triennial
Programme for 1998 - 2001.  The Executive Council has now
established the Task Force envisaged in the Triennial Programme
as part of the called-for comprehensive review of ICOM's
structure and organisation.

In June I was asked by the Executive Council to take up the
challenge of heading this Task Force, working with the support of
nine members nominated through the Advisory Committee and
Executive Council to assist. Their names and contact details are
listed at the end of this notice. There will of course be close
consultation with the Secretary-General of ICOM, Manus Brinkman,
throughout the process.

Organisational reform is challenging, especially for an entity as
extended and complex as ICOM, and which has grown from 800 full
members at the time of ICOM's last comprehensive reorganisation
in 1974 to 15,000 members today.  Consultation and participation
will need to be as wide as possible, and I propose to undertake
this in the following ways (with requests for active
participation and comment in each case):

(1) News of the 'reform' Task Force's composition and objectives
will be published in the next issue of ICOM News.

(2) Material about the Task Force and its work will be placed on
the main informational pages of the ICOM Website.

(3) Further material - issue-setting documents, reports and both
official and individual viewpoints of relevance to reform - will
be communicated through the ICOM-L e-mail discussion group, which
every ICOM member with e-mail access can join.  (ICOM-L is one of
ICOM's Internet facilities that has been sadly little used to
date, but it is ideal for advancing communication and exchanging
views in this way.)

(4) Papers and contributions will be sought from individuals to
advance consideration of issues raised. These - together with
reference material - can also be placed on ICOM's Website and
distributed through ICOM-L, alongside more provisional, ephemeral
- even intensely individual or provocative - exchanges of
opinion.

(5) Working documents received will be advanced and supported
through face-to-face discussions and interviews with a dozen or
so key contributors and experts on crucial matters raised.

(6) Selected material, and any provisional or firm proposals from
the Task Force arising through these processes, will be sent to
the Chairpersons of the National and International Committees,
well in advance of the next Advisory Committee meeting in Paris,
5 - 9 June 2000 (and of course made available more widely through
the ICOM Website).

(7) Under the ICOM Statues any significant proposals for
organisational or constitutional change must first be considered
by the Advisory Committee in June 2000. Final details, taking
into account the June Advisory Committee discussions, would then
be drawn up at the December 2000 meeting of the Executive
Council.  These would then be distributed in advance of:

(8) the final decisions on proposals during the next General
Conference in Barcelona, in 2001.

Finally, some quick, personal, comments on some burning questions which
the Task Force - and all the membership - needs to address.  

ICOM ISSUES FOR REVIEW

(a) ICOM's organisation and structure is still basically that
laid down in 1974, when ICOM was less than a tenth of its present
size.  Since then membership, museums and the profession have all
boomed and undergone profound changes.

The pressures for participation in, or access to, museums by new
audiences, social groups and long-overlooked minorities, have
brought a host of different voices to bear on the social charter
of museums - affecting their ethical awareness and professional
mission-setting in a myriad of ways.

(b) Given the enormous expansion of ICOM's membership in recent
years, the size and functioning of the Executive Council itself
merits review.  In contrast to the current 15,000 members, ICOM
had only 800 or so (with a limit of just 15 full members per
country) when the Executive Council membership was set at just 10
persons. There are now some quite huge national committees,
following the opening up of ICOM's membership to all museum
professionals in each country.  However there is concern in some
quarters that the present voting system can lead to some of
largest national committees, or whole regions of the world,
having no representation on the Executive Council.

(c) Should National Committees of ICOM continue to be organised
and run independently in countries that have strong national
associations of museum professionals?  (ICOM originally promised
not to seek to duplicate a national structure where one existed
already.)

(d) On membership, ICOM now has an efficient, computerised,
membership service within the Secretariat in Paris, which is
greatly aided by electronic communications.  Might it now be
possible - even desirable - to administer membership directly
from the central Secretariat rather than through the National
Committees? Furthermore, what about the relative costs of
membership to people in vastly different economic circumstances
worldwide? What could possibly be done to improve the situation,
without jeopardising the organisation as a whole?

(e) How can the Advisory Committee function more meaningfully and
efficiently, and how can the input of members generally be more
productive, given restrictions of language, location, funding and
travel difficulties?

(f) How can ICOM work more effectively at both the regional and
sub-regional level?  What lessons can be taken from the growth of
the Regional Organizations in recent years?

(g) How can ICOM re-tune its activities to the needs of younger
members of the profession - whilst retaining the wisdom and
accumulated experience of established members? (ICOM now seems to
be strongest among what might be termed middle-level museum
staff, in terms of both age and seniority, and under-represented
among both younger professionals and the most senior staff of the
world's largest museums.)

(h) One of the most incendiary issues of all within ICOM's
structural condition at present is the administrative and
financial problems of many of the International Committees.  The
largest of these are now the size of major international
organizations in their own right. (By contrast, up to the 1974
reforms they were small working groups, limited under the
Statutes to just 30 members each.)  However the largest of the
International Committees now have arguably not the funding,
staffing or legal status they need in relation to their current
size and activities.  It is time that this situation (and the
question of liability under French law) should be seriously
addressed.

There is much to raise and consider.  And much to achieve.  In
particular, a great deal of good will is needed to build a
substantial, workable consensus on what should be attended to,
and revised, for the reorganisation of ICOM into a more
reflexive, well-tuned and well functioning organisation for the
evolving conditions in which museums will be pursuing their
professional work in the next decade.

THE ICOM REFORM TASK FORCE:

The 10 members of the Task Force are drawn from the Executive
Council:

President, Jacques Perot, Compiègne, France, <[log in to unmask]>, 
Fax:[33-3]4438 4701); 

Alissandra Cummins, Chairperson of the Advisory Committee
St Michael, Barbados, <[log in to unmask]>, 
Fax:[1-246] 429 5946);

Lucía Astudillo, Ecuador <[log in to unmask]>, 
Fax: [593-7] 831 636);

there are two nominees of the International Committees: 

Frans Ellenbroek, MPR, Tilburg, The Netherlands, <[log in to unmask]>,
Fax:[31-13] 535 1090);

Nancy Hushion, Pres. INTERCOM Toronto, Canada,
<[log in to unmask]>; Fax:[1-416] 351 0217;

there are three nominees of the National Committees:

Marie Christine van der Sman (Den Haag, The Netherlands,
<[log in to unmask]>; Fax:[31-70] 363 0350); 

Knut Wik (Trondheim, Norway,<[log in to unmask]>, Fax:[47] 7389 0150);

Aidan Walsh (Belfast, Northern Ireland, <[log in to unmask]>,
Fax:[44-132] 550 216; 

and finally,a nominee from the Affiliated Organizations:

Michael Dauskardt, Hagen Selbecke, Germany,
Fax:[49-2331] 780 720.

My own details, as Chairperson of the Task Force, on behalf of the
Executive Council: Bernice Murphy, Sydney, Australia,
<[log in to unmask]>, Fax:[61-2] 9357 2159.

 --

Bernice Murphy
PO Box 1269, Potts Point [Sydney]
NSW, Australia 2011    
Fax: [61-(0)2] 9357 2159
e-mail:<[log in to unmask]> 


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