As the Executive Council member with special responsibility from ICOM's
information services for almost nine years (including the web site and
other Internet services since these were established) I think I should add
briefly to Cary Carp's response - which I fully support - to some of the
"flames" of the past two days about the new web version of the AFRICOM
Documentation Standards.

The clear policy of the current Executive Council at least, and I feel
sure of any future Council, is to ensure that as many ICOM documents as
possible are made accessible to the membership and the wider museum
profession in as many ways as practicable, and as easily as possible.

This accessibility policy covers both aspects of "access".  There should
must be both physical access, which means ensuring that all key ICOM
documentation is posted and offered on the web service without delay.
Equally, however, there must be what may be termed "technological access",
i.e. ease of communication and access of the documents must ALWAYS take
priority over other factors, such as producing impressive graphics, Java
extensions or other "leading edge" web options.

This means recognising that very many - probably a substantial majority -
actual and potential users will not have access to high capacity and high
speed networks, to the latest versions of web browsers, nor indeed have
computers which could operate such browsers effectively - even if they
were offered free.  Despite several efforts we have found it impossible
to get anything above the 16 bit versions of Internet Explorer 3 or
Netscape 3 to run on my Research Assistant's office machine which is only
2 years old. This is a 486-DX66 with 8Mb of RAM. probably a higher
specification than the majority of museum and home PCs, while the 20Mb
hard disk space plus at least 8Mb operating space demanded would be a
further major strain on very many existing, still relatively new, museum
computers.

In this respect our web policy has always been that simplicity - with
small files sizes for t least the initial down-loading, minimal graphics,
and so far we have actively sought to avoid animations, more
elaborate or high resolution graphics and - above all - "frames"
(which in any case present page identity - and hence copyright -
problems), (though one or two national or international committees not
"hosted" on the ICOM server, but to which we do provide links, are more
"demanding" than I would like.)

If the web policy means that some documents on the ICOM site seem less
"leading edge" or adventurous in, e.g. graphic design terms, I should
stress that this is both deliberate and - we strongly believe - a price
worth paying in exchange for allowing much wider, and faster, access to
ALL ICOM members and other users, not those with access to ultra high
capacity communication networks and using the very latest, most powerful
(and of course most expensive) computers.

I know that faced with a very decorative, heavily framed and animated
web site, such as the new ICOM AFRICOM Documentation document, I have
found myself struggling even with my Pentium 200 with its 32Mb of RAM and
a direct connection to a 4 Gigabit network (i.e. 40 times the speed of the
fastest available dial-up modem connected to a digital phone system - or
perhaps 200 times that of a more typical set-up even in some "developed"
European Union countries, let alone a "developing" country).

In terms of what I have termed above physical access, I have been pressing
strongly for many months for a wide range of basic policy and information
documents to be added to the web service, and some progress has been made.
For example, we have over recent months prepared and added a total of over
50 files in the two languages arising out of the work towards the official
history of ICOM, and I am sure that more will be added after this is
published in October.

I had also been asking for key documents from the Programme activities,
such as AFRICOM, ICOM Arab etc., particularly the museum status reports
on the 30 or so different African and Arab countries already included in
various ICOM publications, and the AFRICOM Documentation and "Autonomy for
Museums" reports to be added to the web site.  During the period that the
Treasurer and I were helping the Secretariat staff to "cover" for the
Secretary-General vacancy earlier this year I offered to arrange for these
"Programme" materials to be converted to web format (as I did for the
historical material, such as the ICOM General Conference resolutions).

Earlier this year I was told that this could not be done because the
published texts had not been archived word-processed format. I am
delighted that at least in the case of the African Documentation report
this was untrue, and that necessary files have apparently turned up.

However, we clearly need to ensure that when it is decided to use a web
design consultancy (as was apparently the case with the AFRICOM
documentation report) in future ICOM's web policy is included in the
brief.  I also feel that as policy the initial home page to larger
documents must be both small and simple, and that a "no frames/low
graphics" alternative should always be included.  No doubt the new
Executive Council will want to consider these points when it reviews and
updates the web policy.

Could I use this opportunity to make one further plea?

In the same way that the systems of many users cannot cope with complex
"frames" and animations, many e-mail systems cannot access Microsoft (and
some other) "attachments" to e-mails, either because their firewalls will
not pass binary MS-Word files, or because they do not have an advanced
Windows mail package that will process such items.  Despite being one of
the most powerful and largest of its kind in UK academia following a 27
hour plus attack by hackers during one weekend in the last Christmas
vacation our University system's toughened firewall won't allow me access
to MS, Eudora etc. "attachments" any more, so getting at the contents of
these becomes a major undertaking.

As an example, twice today I had to forward a message with an unopenable
Word "attachment" to an independent Internet service provider outside the
University, access this from a different machine on a telephone modem, and
then down load it to the second machine before I could open it using the
Win95 Internet Mail program - wasting at least 5 minutes each time.  In
each case there was nothing at all complicated about the "attachment" when
I finally got into it, and it could perfectly well have been either
written in an e-mail format to begin with, or else the file could
have been "read" in ASCII format into the main body of the e-mail by the
sender in just a second or two.

I think that this is another example of a lack of understanding of the
needs and possible difficulties of potential recipients and users - just
like the use of over-complicated frames, animations etc. - ultimately a
matter of professional courtesy perhaps?


Patrick Boylan
(Vice-President of ICOM)