FURTHER MESSAGE TO ICOM-L (INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF MUSEUMS DISCUSSION LIST)

Dear colleagues,
Towards the end of this message I have some PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.
But first I would like to react to some ideas that have come up recently in
this ongoing conversation on ICOM-L.

I suggest we should avoid asking questions we do not need to ask.
It does not help us to substitute names of other entities for the term
'museum' to test whether our descriptions could apply elsewhere. That leads
us to create a hall of mirrors with a myriad possible connections and
reflections; everyone becomes lost in the reflections and cannot find a way
back to an 'Exit' sign or 'Meeting Point'.

Reacting to:
>.... I substituted University or Sports stadium and found much of the
>definition held true....

Remember that we are not seeking a statement to be issued by the
International Olympic Committee, or a press release about museums from an
international congress of university presidents/chancellors.

We aim to reach a statement about museums that will be published by ICOM,
lodged in the Statutes of ICOM, and carry with it some cumulative history
of an organization founded in 1946, in the same fortnight as UNESCO, and
co-located all these years in Paris with UNESCO.   That already provides
many distinctive frameworks by which to be known and not confused with
other bodies.

May I suggest again that we - museums professionals - tend to turn inwards
in these tasks of definition.  We quickly create many obstacles to common
purpose.  We become so anxious to protect detailed distinctions and
differences of emphasis among ourselves and our many institutions that we
forget the importance of achieving a useful public statement about what
UNITES us, more than DIVIDES us.

Despite all the distinctions and differences involved in museum work, we
must concentrate at this moment on the connections. If we do not believe
and advocate strongly that there ARE uniting values that link people who
work in and for museums (including 'museum-type' places and functions that
we have brought within the embrace of the ICOM definition in recent years);
if we are not able to come to a shared and well articulated SHORT statement
about what museums do; if we do not believe and advocate that there IS
something we call a 'museum profession' and that this profession stands up
for particular values, knowledge, relationships and things it cares
for:  then how can we expect the world to recognize or pay any respect to
this 'profession'?

In my experience, this kind of conversation often starts out from the wrong
place (like the allegedly Irish advice to a foreign traveller asking
directions to a destination: "Oh, if you are aiming to get to that town, I
would not start from here.")

Museums people, when any question of definition of purpose is raised, tend
to imagine that we will argue this question among ourselves, in our space
of expert detachment from others, and when we eventually come to a solution
about our philosophical, semantic, and professional differences, we will
take our definition OUT TO THE WORLD.

My suggestion is that we should BEGIN WITH THE WORLD.  The world is already
far ahead of us.  It has a huge amount of knowledge, expectations, ideas
(including prejudices) in circulation about museums.   Millions of people
have heard of the concept 'museum' in some use or translation of the
term.  If people know the terms 'government', 'palace', 'temple',
'parliament', 'town hall', 'university', they are pretty sure to know also
the term 'museum' in some form;  and to know that a 'museum'  is not a
university or a sport stadium (unless they make reference to ancient
Olympia or Alexandria, in which case they would have a very sophisticated
knowledge of the history of museums).

The task in our effort to achieve a good definition is not to instruct the
world about museums.  Our task is to try to shift perceptions about museums
and change some of the knowledge the world ALREADY HAS about museum
activities.  Our new definition should be responsive to the world's already
developed interest in museums.  It should seek to make clear how we see our
work and institutions today, and seek to take up the social, intellectual,
commemorative and cultural responsibilities of our mandate in richly
knowledgeable, historically insightful, imaginative ways.

So we do well, before building a summarising definition, to reflect first
upon the things we most care about. Things that can be expressed among
ordinary people in non-technical language.  Things like a habitable planet;
healthy creatures, resources and eco-systems; a socially sustainable world
of human groups that value diversity and can co-exist non-violently;
positive systems of social interaction, economic exchange, material
support, and inter-generational transmission of culture, life-knowledge,
history (all dependent upon good public education and infrastructure);
productive activities of memory, imagination, creativity and scientific
learning that nourish possibilities of continuing social development;
careful evaluation of the legacies we will transmit to the future
(sustainability); our responsibilities to care for the heritage that comes
to us from the past - that we help conserve, interpret, learn about from
those who know most (often outside museums), and actively bring closer to
more people for their  participation, enrichment, and 'treasuring'.

Considering a list such as this reminds us that we do not act alone, or in
silos of specialization.  Rather we act in interconnection with a huge
range of other groups, entities, networks and agencies whose concerns may
parallel or overlap ours.  That things we do and value will often echo what
others also do and value, in common cause.  (We should never aim for an
immaculate, self-isolating definition.)

It is only towards the end of the list of values I offered above that we
come to the rather specific tasks of museums - concerning heritage
protection, care and interpretation of what comes to us from the past, and
how our knowledge and activities may be enhanced to shape the future.  This
is a good marker.  It reminds us about the wider settings of museums, their
social responsibilities, and puts our activities in proportion.  Museums do
not save the past.  We cannot act in disconnection from society (from which
our mandate comes).  Therefore we should not think of our activities as
distinct from other social structures or mechanisms of heritage protection
beyond museums.  We do well do remind ourselves often that - apart from
huge internally ordering natural systems - the largest protector,
interpreter and communicator of natural and cultural heritage is in fact
society itself.  The task of our definition is to make clear what special
things museums know, hold, remember, and are outstandingly skilled to offer
in assistance to that larger cause.

HOW THE ICOM DEFINITION SITS, AND WILL FUNCTION, IN THE ICOM STATUTES
- The definition needs to be a short, summarising statement that goes to
the core of what museums do and what they stand for.  The definition should
be able to be lifted up on its own, and used as an autonomous statement in
many publications by ICOM, and related bodies world-wide - along with two
other key statements of recent origin (through ICOM's reform process,
1998-2001):
----ICOM's MISSION, and
----ICOM's VALUES STATEMENT
(these both apply to ICOM as an ORGANIZATION  - not precisely to museums or
museum personnel)

A third and connected issue for the Statutes to handle in the 'Definitions'
section, is defining who may or may not become a member of ICOM - but that
is not our prime concern here.

- After ICOM's DEFINITION of 'MUSEUM'[s] in the Statutes, will most likely
come a statement of APPLICATION OF THE DEFINITION, which (as now in the
Statutes) might involve a list something like as follows:
>[ICOM Statutes, Article 2(b), [Definitions]:
>
>(b) In addition to institutions designated as "museums" the following
>qualify as museums for the purposes of this definition:
>(i) natural, archaeological and ethnographic monuments and sites and
>historical monuments and sites of a museum nature that acquire, conserve
>and communicate material evidence of people and their environment;
>(ii) institutions holding collections of and displaying live specimens of
>plants and animals, such as botanical and zoological gardens, aquaria and
>vivaria;
>(iii) science centres and planetaria;
>(iv) non profit art exhibition galleries; conservation institutes and
>exhibition galleries permanently maintained by libraries and archives centres.
>(v) nature reserves;
>(vi) international or national or regional or local museum organizations,
>ministries or departments or public agencies responsible for museums as
>per the definition given under this article;
>(vii) non-profit institutions or organizations undertaking conservation,
>research, education, training, documentation and other activities relating
>to museums and museology;
>(viii) cultural centres and other entities that facilitate the
>preservation, continuation and management of tangible or intangible
>heritage resources (living heritage and digital creative activity)
>(ix) such other institutions as the Executive Council, after seeking the
>advice of the Advisory Committee, considers as having some or all of the
>characteristics of a museum, or as supporting museums and professional
>museum personnel through museological research, education or training. "

The underlined, bold parts of the list above reflect additions in recent
times, as more entities have been added to the constellation of bodies we
connect under the overarching term 'museum'.

Such a list, within the Statutes, is where many distinctions can be made;
where the great variety of bodies ICOM seeks to serve and promote in
society as 'museums' may be indicated.

However the introductory museum definition must be short, able to be
excerpted, and sit above or beyond all the details of its application.


PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS AS TO HOW TO ADVANCE THE TASK OF 'MUSEUM' REDEFINITION

We have Gary Edson representing the Executive Council of ICOM in
co-ordinating this discussion to move us towards a new definition of museums.

I propose we invite Gary now to exercise his role of editor/moderator
actively, in the following way:

1. Gary to send a message to each of the persons contributing to ICOM-L who
have proposed a definition of museums; ask them to re-consider their
definition, reflecting on the many reactions and opinions that have come
forward; invite all authors to revise or re-present their definitions one
more time.

2. Allow a two-week period for this to occur, and meanwhile invite any
others to be added.

3. Gary to put together a new list of definitions offered, starting with
(A) the existing ICOM definition at the beginning, and making clear that
this is ICOM's current definition, so we have it as the starting-point for
considering any improvement.

4.  Gary to publish the full list of definitions again, seeking reactions
to a question such as: Which are the THREE (at most FOUR) definitions that
seem half-way good as working texts - or even three-quarters successful
already?  Gary to decide how best and most simply to do this, and get
reactions in an easy way for him to manage.  (No persons to feel upset if
their suggestion falls away - I'm ready to surrender my own for better
options that might be available.)

5. Gary to seek reactions, considering what is present or missing from the
most favoured working texts, so that he may come back with suggestions for
further (hopefully near-final) consideration in the open forum of ICOM-L.

6.  Gary to reflect and eventually to report to the ICOM-L list what has
emerged as most likely options in the winding up of the open discussion he
has convened, summarising the opinions that he will take back to the full
Executive Council of ICOM to consider in Paris in December this
year.  After its December session,  the Council might further seek
reactions from the ICOM Advisory Committee (chairpersons of all National
Committees, International Committees, Affiliated Organizations, together
with Regional Organizations) early in 2004.  Council will eventually make a
decision about what goes into the final documents it will authorize to be
sent forward for formal decision at the ICOM General Assembly in Seoul,
October 2004.  It is only the ICOM General Assembly, finally, that can
change the ICOM Statutes that govern the constitutional basis of the whole
organization.

These are my suggestions as to how we might advance the work to be done.
Other suggestions of course are also possible and welcome.
Bernice Murphy




Bernice L Murphy
Vice-President, International Council of Museums [ICOM-Paris]
Contact details:
PO Box 1269, Potts Point [Sydney], Australia 2011
Fax:[+61-2] 9357 2159.  <[log in to unmask]>

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