ICTOP Annual Conference–Toronto, Canada
October 24-27, 2011
The
Museum Professional Network: Careers, Connections and Community
Keynotes:
Lynda Kelly, Manager Web and
Audience Research. Museums and Social
Media: Professional Challenges.
Emlyn
Koster,President Emeritus, Liberty Science Center, New Jersey. The Museum Field's Ultimate Accountability
Collette Dufresne Tassé,
Université de Montréal.Revisiting
Visitor Studies to Orient and Train Exhibition Designers More Adequately George Jacob.Khalsa Heritage Complex,
Amritsar, India. Cultural Resource
Professionals: On the Cusp of a Generational Shift in Developing Nations
And a workshop by Phyllis Hecht and Deb Howes of Johns Hopkins
University, Online MA : The Community Building Approach to Supporting Online
Learning.
Among our speakers are:
Joy Davis
Paula de Santos
Lynne Teather
Darko Babic
Angelina
Russo and Jen Ross
Phaedra
Livingstone
Andreja
Richter
Eileen
Johnson & Nicky Ladkin
Gary
Edson
As just a few
For details see below.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Conference Begins
Welcome Reception
Oct. 23 Sunday
Location: Bata Shoe Museum
327 Bloor Street West
Welcome and
Introductions
7:00-9:00am
__________________________
Day 1 Monday Oct. 24
Location: Hart House
7 Hart House Circle, University of Toronto
8:00am Registration
9:00-9:30am
Welcome
Chair of ICTOP Lynne Teather
Seamus Ross, Dean, I-school (Museum Studies)
Lee Maracle, Instructor in the Aboriginal Studies
Department at the University of Toronto, Traditional Teacher for First Nations
House, author and storyteller
9:30-10:15am Keynote:
The Museum and Social Media: Implications for
Professional Futures
Lynda Kelly, Manager Web and Audience
Research.
http://australianmuseum.net.au/staff/lynda-kelly
With
a long history of work in museum evaluation (including the Audience
Research in museums blog and the Web 2.U blog), Lynda
Kelly is committed to visitor experiences and learning and how these can be
measured. In recent years though she has become engaged with all things Web 2.0
and the strategic uses of audience research and new technologies in
organisational change as demonstrated in her role as Director of Museum3, a not-for-profit social network site
for museum professionals, with an active, global membership of over 3,000. Her
latest book, co-edited with Dr. Fiona Cameron is Museums. With major research projects and the remarkable direction of
the Australia
museum’s web and new media presence, she is an expert on where the world of new
media is taking the museum and the profession.
In
fact it was a discussion on ICTOP’s Facebook page about the implications of all of the new technologies on the curriculum of
museum studies/museology that was the genesis of this invitation.
10:15-10:45am Break
10:45- 12:00 Exploring Boundaries: Museum
Studies/Museology
Panel:
Duncan Grewcock- Changing Practices? Museum Studies as a Craft
Senior Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Museum & Gallery
Studies, Kingston University, London http://fada.kingston.ac.uk/staff/duncan_grewcock/dg_pub.php
Darko Babic- From Objects and Information to Heritage Management and Literacy- Dancing
Museo/heritology over the last 25 Years.
Research and lecture assistant at
Department of Information Science-Chair of Museology and Heritage Management
(Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb)
Example of other work: http://www.slideshare.net/heritageorganisations.eu/heritage-literacy-darko-babic-zeljka-miklosevic
Grounded in museology this paper/presentation points
out to the essential need to include into our research of the museums /
heritage phenomenon methods and results of many other disciplines. Today still
dominant Eurocentric attitude to heritage can be seen as specific authorized
heritage discourse. But heritage (museums included) is a social discourse, and
heritage management by far more complex concept that it has been considered and
having bigger and multiple consequences.
Paula de Santos- Museology as Heritage (by Skype)
Lecturer
in heritage theory and sociomuseology, ReinwardtAcademy,
and active member of MINOM http://www.ahk.nl/reinwardt/master/staff/lecturer-profiles/
In 2008, the Reinwardt Academy
implemented a new curriculum for the bachelor´s degree progamme, changing the
focus from museology to cultural heritage. This shift aimed at responding to
concrete demands from the work field: new forms of heritage organizations,
networked modes of work, and other transformations that require integrating
different “heritage knowledges” in the curriculum structure. This presentation
aims to explore the ways we have been trying to expand our horizons and build a
theoretical basis that emphasizes the dynamism and complexity of working with
heritage in the 21st century. An important aspect refers to students
developing a critical and propositive attitude towards the field and the
future. For this reason, we try to create spaces in the programme where students
can also be part of this construction.
Lynne Teather- The
Indiscipline of Museology: Like Nailing Jello to the Wall
This presentation attempts to discuss the field
of museum studies/museology from a broad international perspective to discuss some of the bridges and barriers in
the field, that underpin how we frame epistemological and pedagogical
approaches and where efforts such as those of ICTOP and our community might be
placed.
_______________________________________________________
12:00-1:00pmLunch at the University Art Centre, 5
minutes from Hart House
Lunch
catered by Afghan Women’s Catering Group (www.awcg.org)
___________________________________________________________
1:00-2:30pm Professions
and Publics: New Thoughts on Notions of the Museum and Heritage Professional
Community
Moderator
– Phyllis Hecht, Johns Hopkins University, Online MA
Museum Studies
Angelina Russo and Jen Ross
Partnerships
and Collaborations: Future Networks of Exchange for Museums
Angelina Russo, Associate Professor, PhD.
RMIT University,
Melbourne, Australia
Jen Ross, Associate Lecturer, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/education/about-us/people/academic-staff?person_id=303&cw_xml=publications.php
Around the world
museums have invested substantial resources in digitising elements of their
collections, while social media has, in recent years, created new opportunities
for users to contribute their own objects and interpretations to museum
collections. These contributions enabled through social media and mediated by
museum professionals are increasingly recognised as an artefact of exchange between
audiences and museums. This paper suggests that online exchanges between
audiences and museums can be considered part of a growing global reach of
cultural practice and professional education. Such exchanges offer new
opportunities for the creation of ‘non-traditional’ partnerships which can
engage creatively with social media to create high-quality user-generated content
within the context of traditional scholarship and curatorial practice. We
propose that "communities of practice" is too constraining a concept
to account for this phenomena, and suggest networks and flows as a more
generative theory of community building in this space. The paper draws on the
authors' experiences with a recent Scottish project ( http://digitalfutures.rcahms.gov.uk/ ) which combined real-world
events with online networking to explore the digital futures of cultural
heritage education, and argues that this project is an example of the networks
and flows that are opening professional networks to new influences and ways of
working
Gaby Shuster– The
Reinwardt Academic Alumni, an online Community of Practice
In this paper an initiative, by three Museology
Masters students from the Reinwardt Academy in The
Netherlands, to develop a Community of Practice (CoP) is discussed. To provide
a platform for international students to exchange learning experiences and
continue their network after graduation, they have started an online CoP. On
their interactive website, alumni can share theoretical and academic knowledge
and practical experience. With this online alumni CoP the students try to
expand the learning environment of the masters program to a global range and a
continuing interactive learning network. The analysis reveals successful
methods of e-learning, which might inspire other museological programs in their
efforts to enlarge the learning experience of their own students.
Joy Davis, Maltwood
Art Gallery
and University of Victoria, Cultural
Resources Management Program- Teaching
for Transfer
An under-researched measure
of the success of continuing professional education programs is the degree to
which participants are able to put new knowledge to work in museums. The
presenter will share her doctoral research on the impacts of professional
development among graduates of the University of Victoria program.
Marie-Agnès Gainon-Court, Swiss Museums Association
Networking: What Strategy to Adopt?
Responsabilité des cours ICOM en Suisse romande
The network characterizes the preferred form of collective organization
of our century. It appears as a tool of the knowledge society in which we do
live.
The concept of networking is not new if we consider by
example the roles and activities of associations of museums. However, it is
clear that the development of new technologies has led to the emergence of
networks outside of usual framework and outside the organized links between
professionals, far beyond the notion of collaboration or partnership. Based on
informal as well as on less segmented exchanges of information, the new
networks via the Internet present many advantages as they can be seen in number
of examples related to the professional museum field. However, their use must
be leaned on a personal strategy to face the challenge proposed by exponential
opportunities and requests.
Walk to Royal Ontario Museum
for Panel and Reception
3:30-5:00pm-
Special Panel at Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Museums
and Social Media
Lynda Kelly, Australia Museum
Kelly McKinley,
Director of Education and Public Programming Art
Gallery of Ontario.
Kevin von Appen,Ontario Science Centre
_________________________________________________
5:30-8:00pmReception at the Royal Ontario Museum
Welcome and Comments- Janet Carding, Director, Royal Ontario Museum
Kelly McKinley, Head of Programming, Art
Gallery of Ontario (and grad of Museum Studies)
______________________________________________
Day 2 Tuesday Oct. 25
Travel to Travel to MarkhamMuseum,
hosted by Director, Cathy Malloy
Pick up at Holiday- Inn Midtown Yorkville, Bloor St. – 8:30am
Session will be held at the Ontario Science Centre
___________________________________
9:30-11:00amModerator: John Ryerson, Director,
Culture Division, Markham
9:30- 10:15am- Keynote: The Museum Field's Ultimate Accountability
Emlyn Koster, President Emeritus, Liberty Science Center
Surely
one of the largest of all questions confronting humanity is whether we are
destined to continue ignoring the escalating agenda of inconvenient truths
about the uncertain long-term situations facing societies and environments
worldwide. As ubiquitous and evidently trusted institutions where audiences
would learn more if we tackled bolder content, how can the museum sector play
its maximum part to elucidate this dilemma? In Museums in a Troubled
World in 2009, Robert Janes of Alberta
questioned whether our institutions are on a path to renewal, irrelevance or
collapse. This session introduces the profound implications for the museum
profession today as it embarks, as arguably it must, on a wholehearted embrace
of being relevant for the future. These are core matters that impact both
the accountability and sustainability of museums.
10:15am-Papers:
Viv Golding, School
of Museum Studies, Leicester-“Designing Professional Development Curriculum for Emerging Trends:
Diversity and Inclusion in the 21st Century” (via Skype)
In thispaper Viv will
present a critical reflection on her collaborative research with teachers in
the UK.
Drawing on her collaborative work with schoolteachers over a 10year period at
the Horniman Museum
in London she will outline examples of best
practice in the UK
today. Her paper will highlight the strengths of developing a new emancipatory
pedagogy at the anthropology museum, while acknowledging specific difficulties
inherent in attempts to progress intercultural and intergenerational
understanding through creative engagement with the diverse cultural heritage –
both tangible and intangible – relating to world art housed in the west.
Sylvie
van Zettl, South African Museums Association- “Missionary Work for Museums: Vocational
Training for a New Generation of Museum Workers, South Africa” Bayworld, Oceanarium in Port Elizabeth
This
paper seeks to address a variety of
themes that are currently debated, including, gap analysis, relevance, overlaps
within museum and heritage interests and issues of diversity and inclusion for
newcomers to the profession, in the South African context.
Jameson Brant, Aboriginal Training
Program, Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Engaging
Aboriginal People in the Preservation of Traditional Knowledge
Coordinator, Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices,
CMC
Within the past thirty years, a
number of museums and cultural institutions have grappled with an issue which
rose to public attention in 1988 over the lack of involvement of Aboriginal
peoples in the interpretation of their culture and history. In Canada,
many institutions responded by establishing a variety of museum training
programs for Aboriginal peoples. How many still exist? What’s happened since
then? The presenter discusses the results of an inventory begun in 2010 and
about her results: the growth, trends, needs, gaps, limitations, and desires
concerning the state of the field, which will ultimately lead to more informed
recommendations about what can be done to improve our efforts.
Break: 11-11:30am
11:30-12:30
Alexandra
Hatcher- Bridging the Gap: Addressing Leadership
within the Museum Sector
In 2006, the Alberta Museums Association (AMA) established the Leadership
Working Group (LWG) to examine the leadership gap facing the museum sector. The
LWG showed that the sector has been struggling with a gap in knowledge and
skills to successfully lead cultural organizations into the twenty-first
century. Looking back over the past five years, this paper will examine the
work that has been accomplished to address the leadership gap, such as NextGen:
Canada, Competencies for Museum Leadership. Looking forward, the paper will
explore what work still needs to be achieved within the sector to ensure that
museum professionals are well equipped to manage the challenges that they will
face.
Christine Platt–Making Museum Managers: Case Study of Global-Minded Training Program
In this
paper we present the case study of a museum management training program: the
Reinwardt Academie Masters of Museology. This training program seeks to fill in
gaps in the field by presenting a complete system to learn museum management
skills, including the theoretical, the ethical and the practical. The programmers particularly present
themselves as educators of the most forward-thinking developments in the
museological field, and they emphasize global networking as a means to upgrade
museum practices. For two years we worked as student representatives with
directors and teachers to make improvements to this program. This gave us a thorough knowledge of the
program and the philosophy behind it. Using a SWOT analysis we will share our
learning process and the insights we gained in our efforts to improve this
museology program. Our conclusions provide successful examples and new ideas for other
museum management training programs to adopt.
Lunch 12-1pm
1:00-4pm Visit to OSC- Discussions of some of the
Work of the Ontario Science Center
and Implications for Diversity Work and Professional Education-
5:00pm Return to Holiday Inn
Dinner on own
Day 3 Wednesday Oct. 26
Location: Hart House
Debates Room and Music Room
Morning
9:00-10:15am
Keynote: Collette Dufresne Tassé,
Université de Montréal: Revisiting
Visitor Studies to Orient and Train Exhibition Designers More Adequately
Museum
education research, which is the name given in Quebec
for visitors studies, is abundant in Canada
and Quebec
alike. Since more than one decade, a
small learned society (GISEM) welcomes every year between 15 to 25
communications and, in Quebec,
ACFAS holds annual conferences where 20 to 30 researchers present some results.
In this session, the speaker will discuss one type of this research - summative
evaluation - and recent results that change the significance of this type of
evaluation, oopening new possibilities for museum professional education.
10:15- 10:45am Break
10:45 -12:00
Option
1
Matthew Brower, University of Toronto.What is it we do when we teach
exhibitions?
This paper reflects on the issues involved in
teaching exhibition projects at the University of Toronto. The museum
studies program has recently moved away from having all the graduating students
working towards realizing a single exhibition to a more distributed model in
which groups of students work on separate projects in the context of a shared
studio environment. This has led to the production by students of a number of
successful exhibitions in partnership with a variety of museological
institutions. Through an examination of the results and difficulties of this
model, the paper argues for the importance of practical exhibition work to
museological education.
Eileen Johnson & Nicky Ladkin, Texas Tech University. Building on Our Strengths: An Immersive
Program for Educating Museum Professionals
In
today’s academic market, the education and training of museum professionals
takes many forms. The traditional
educational format is that of on-campus classroom learning within an academic
department. The Museum Science graduate
program at Texas Tech University
builds on the traditional format to create a model immersive program that
produces academically and professional prepared graduates who successfully
compete in the museum job market. Key
elements in this model are: housing of the program within and integrated into
an AAM-accredited museum rather than an academic department; and the
experiential learning environment it provides for students in the critical
interface of theory and practice.
Andreja
Richter-MUTUALITY: University - Museum
The very practices of cooperation between
institutions in the field of culture and education were the reason for the
preparation and the realisation of the seminar Partnership and new competences
needed for history education in a multicultural society, in Ljubljana.
Poster and Discussion
Option
2
Workshop
Phyllis Hecht, Director of M.A. program in
Museum Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Panelists: Deborah
Howes, Assistant Director; Judith Landau, Internship Coordinator; andSarah Chicone, Program Coordinator.
The Community Building
Approach to Supporting Online Learning.
Online technologies are very effective tools for building community
throughout the professional training lifecycle. At the Johns Hopkins M.A.
program in Museum Studies, online “open houses” prospective students mingle
with faculty and current students to exchange ideas via live chat and audio.
These sessions give an immediate, immersive sense of what learning online can
be like—friendly, personal and multifaceted. Courses use both synchronous and
asynchronous web-based tools to support group work and collaborative learning,
as well as casual conversations and professional resource sharing. After only
three years, we already see a strong group identity emerging among our graduates;
many have never met in person, but consider themselves part of an effective
museum professional network.
______________________________________________________
12:00-1:00
Lunch at the University Art Centre
1:00-3:00pmPresentations
Option
1. Comparative
Experiences in Professional Development Study and Assessment
George Jacob.Cultural Resource Professionals: On the Cusp of a Generational Shift
in Developing Nations
With countless museums, heritage
sites and immeasurably immense resources, some on the brink of being lost,
there is a tremendous opportunity to raise the bar, train and educate a new
generation of cultural resource professionals to lead the change in
transforming the way we appreciate, preserve and present heritage in the second
most populous nation on earth. India’s soft-power, in
effect, is woven into this fabric and is in need of a radical shift in the way
cultural resources are governed.
Gary Edson and Wan-Chen Liu. The Museum Professional Development and Training in Taiwan
There were 40 museums in Taiwan
at the end of the 1970s, now there are more than 400 serving a population of
approximately 23 million people (2009 census). (Roughly one museum per 57,500
inhabitants.) Within this rapidly changing museological environment, there is an
urgent need for professional museum development. Consequently, various training
programs have developed in the past 20 years, with the support of the Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA), the
National Culture and Arts Foundation, the higher education system, and the
museum association.The first graduate institution of museum studies was established in
1996, and currently there are three graduate institutions devoted in
pre-service and in-service training for museums. This paper introduces museum professional development in Taiwan with emphasis on government
culture policy. The authors will also present the survey results of museum
directors in 2008 and museum staff in 2009 regarding their need and attitudes
toward professional training.
Yan Zhou. Challenges
and Prospects for Chinese Museum Professional Education
and Training
Behind the great changes represented by numbers of museums and museum
attendance, Chinese museums have encountered painstaking challenges to satisfy the demands of serving society in contemporary
context. Museumprofessional
education and trainingis the most urgent one
that calls for innovative development. The presenter will share some of her
recent research based on interviews with major providers.
Lynne Teather and Phaedra Livingstone. Research Report on the Study of Museum
Professional Development: A Global Perspective
_________________________________________________
Option
2. Evaluation and Exploration
1:00-3:00pm
Veronica Bullock.Collections Management as a Vehicle for Understanding.
In 2010 a small research project entitled ‘Integrated Collection
Management’ was the focus of an ICCROM Fellowship by the author. Through the
lens of two assessment processes typically undertaken by the respective groups,
i.e. significance assessment (curators) and risk assessment (conservators), an
indication of professional openness was sought, as was evidence of the
challenges currently faced in delivering effective collection management
training. The research recommends refining curricula to reflect current and
probable future needs, with the aim of delivering less thoroughly
differentiated museum professionals to employers.
Cara Krmpotich and Robyn Watt, University of Toronto- Teaching
Collections 101
Teaching collections provide hands-on access to
objects representative of a people, place, or time. Generally comprised of
cast-offs from permanent collections, little is written about their
construction, growth, or efficacy. In
this paper, we trace the development of a teaching collection for Masters of
Museum Studies students intentionally created to foster students’ collections
management knowledge, practice and problem-solving. We reflect on the kinds of
material culture chosen, but also how cataloguing software, policies,
procedures and classroom assignments are integral components of the collection.
In so doing, we seek to 1) delineate the characteristics and potential for a
museum studies teaching collection, and 2) expand our theoretical and practical
understanding of the role of teaching collections within museology, not just
museums.
Anna Maria Visser, FerraraUniversity. Museology versus Museography or Museology
and Museography? Innovative training at the University of Ferrara, Italy.
This poster presents a
case of innovative training: the integrated course of Museography and Museology
held in 2011 at the Faculty of Architecture of Ferrara University.
The course was organized
like a laboratory for the students of the last year in collaboration with the
National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara and the Italian branch of Meyvaert Museum, renowned international
manufacturer of museum display cases and museum exhibitions. Its goal was to
transmit the culture of the museum in terms of museology, museum design and
technology through museum trials, stimulating reflections and proposals for the
solution of practical problems of design and construction of museum display
cases, also experimenting the latest communication technologies.
_____________________________________________________________
3:00-3:30pm Break
_____________________________________________________________
3:30-4:30pm-ICTOP Annual Business Meeting
4:30pm-5:00- Wrap Up
6:30pm
ICTOP Dinner (this will be organized as a separate event)
________________________________________________
Thursday
Oct. 27
Post-conference
Tour
The Niagara Cultural Heritage Tourism Excursion Day
Registration
required. Email [log in to unmask]
the-Lake, museums, sites and dinner (+ wine tasting).
We will visit the Falls and take the “Maid of the Mist” boat
ride or the “Journey behind the Falls”, then visit the Riverbrink Art Gallery for a cater lunch
and tour. Next, we will move to historic Fort
George and the Niagara-On-the-Lake
Historical Society
Museum (the oldest purpose-built
museum in Ontario),
before we have dinner at “Benchmark” restaurant, run by The Canadian Food &
Wine Institute of Niagara College. During dinner, a presentation will be made by
faculty of the Niagara College Cultural Heritage Tourism program. All the while
we will have some expert tour guides for the bus and field trip.
(If we have too few registrations, this will be cancelled).
Supporters:
Ontario Museums Association
Ontario Association of Art Galleries
Museum Studies, i-school, University of Toronto
Bata Shoe Museum
Art Gallery of Ontario
Royal Ontario Museum
Markham Museum
ICTOPICOM-Canada
Lynne Teather,D. Phil.,
Assoc. Prof.,
Masters of Museum Studies,
I-School (Faculty of Information),
University of Toronto,
140 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G6
Phone 905-770-6910 or 416-978-6274
[log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
Chair (2010-2013)
International Committee for the Training of Personnel (ICTOP)-International Council of Museums (ICOM)
www.ictop.org
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