Chers collègues,



La liste de discussion a été conçue et nous nous en étions réjouis pour
diffuser informations et discussions entre les membres mais également entre
le secrétariat et les membres.

Aussi est-il étonnant que les discussions soient devenues si rares sur la
liste et  que certaines informations importantes pour tous les membres ne
soient pas diffusées à tous.

Nous pouvons en tant que membres actifs être informés par exemple qu’une
vidéo conférence doit se faire même si nous n’y participons pas directement
et que cela ne soit pas qu’une rumeur comme l’a souligné  Eva. Que le texte
diffusé à cette occasion soit confidentiel ( ?) je ne m’en explique pas du
tout les raisons.



D’autre part je soutiens la proposition de Christian-Emil Ore concernant la
nécessité de discuter du problème des principes de la documentation, des
inventaires des collections de musée, étroitement liés à la politique
d’acquisition des collections qui constitue un des principaux fondement  du
Code de déontologie.

Chedlia


2009/4/20 Christian-Emil Ore <[log in to unmask]>

> Dear all,
> I have read the email from Eva Mæhre Lauritzen and will add some comments
> to the issues she bring forward.  I post this email to the AC member list
> and to the ICOM-L as a comment to Eva Mæhre Lauritzen’s email and because
> these matters are of interest for the all members of ICOM.  At the end of my
> email I list three suggested items for the agendas of the June meetings.
> These suggestions are also sent separately to  [log in to unmask]
>
> In the beginning of April (2nd-3rd) the dates and the schedule for the
> General Assembly and the annual meeting of the Advisory Committee (AC) were
> announced on ICOM-L. The announced dates, 8th to 11th of June, are not in
> accordance with the recommendation given by AC in June 2008 and later
> decided formally by the Executive Council (EC) of ICOM where the dates were
> fixed to 8th to 10th of June 2009. On the ICOM web site there are no minutes
> from any later EC referring a decision to a change thees dates. Thus it is
> appropriate to ask on which formal basis the decision to move the meeting is
> taken. On the other hand: An adjustment of the dates of the meetings by one
> day will by many be considered to be just a trifle and nothing to complain
> about.
>
> However, for many members of the AC this is a decision with serious
> consequences with respect to the possibility to participate in the meetings.
> The National and International Committees are not wealthy.  As Eva Mæhre
> Lauritzen points out in her email to ICOM-L, many of the delegates to the
> meetings have to pay for the trip out of their own pocket and for others it
> is necessary to book travel and hotel well in advance to keep the costs at a
> lowest possible level. As she also points out, the participation in the
> various ICOM activities is for most of us done by the uncompensated use of
> our spare time. Thus this change of the dates is a heavy blow to the
> enthusiasm of those who have been “clever” and made their travel arrangement
> early and squeezed the original days into an already full diary.
>
> Eva Mæhre Lauritzen also expresses her concern about the cancellations of
> the meetings in the standing committees. I do agree with her that these
> cancellations can indicate that there may be a wish or plan to downscale the
> role of these committees. This will be a major change of the organization
> and should be discussed at the AC meeting and only be decided in a General
> Assembly.
>
> The cancellation of the committee meetings and the very late and
> unexplained change of dates for the AC meeting, may lead even a not
> over-suspicious person to get a weak feeling that the importance of the AC,
> National and International Committees, and the standing committees is not
> considered by the ICOM that high as one could have thought. If such a
> feeling should be common in the group of ICOM’s core members, it would not
> strengthen ICOM. Therefore, it is extremely important for the future of ICOM
> that ICOM do what can be done to keep all members’ enthusiasm at the highest
> possible level. An absolutely basic measure is that the organization is lead
> in a predictable way and announced dates are respected.
>
> Although it is true that not all members of the ICs are equally active, the
> active members of the 30 ICs constitute a group of many hundreds of highly
> skilled and enthusiastic experts in their respective fields. This group is
> indeed a very valuable asset for ICOM. ICOM should do what is possible with
> in the financial frames to facilitate the activities of the IC and
> especially encourages and facilitate collaboration between the IC. A basic
> effort in this respect would be a working membership database and a
> competence catalogue.
>
> As a general rule ICOM should first seek the necessary competence for tasks
> inside the ICOM organization instead of hiring external consultants. This
> may save costs and also give the members a more active role in ICOM.  For
> example: CIDOC has many highly competent system designers and system
> developers among its members and has, at least since April 2005, several
> times in writing offered to assist ICOM with the development of the
> membership database. Unfortunately, we got little positive response on our
> communication.
>
>
> ICOM is a typical non-hierarchical network organization. An immanent and
> well known problem with such organizations is that the nodes in the
> periphery tend  to behave as independent organizations and that the central
> node tends to forget the rest of the network. The result is a fragmentation
> and decay of the organization. I believe our new Director General are fully
> aware of this fact, that is, the central ICOM and the rest of the
> organization is mutually dependent, and hope he and the rest of ICOM's
> central node will address the connected problems so that ICOM can continue
> to be an organization for its members and for the museums as important
> custodians for our common natural and cultural heritage.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Christian-Emil Ore
> CIDOC Chair
>
> ***********************************************************************
> Items for the agendas of AC and the GA (sent separately to
> [log in to unmask]).
>
> GA item: Membership database
> The membership database has been under development since at least 2004. My
> suggestion is that the ICOM administration should give a detailed overview
> over the costs connected to the development of the membership database to
> date, give an estimate of the costs connected to the finalizing of the
> database and to the annual maintenance including a reasonable amount of
> adjustments.
>
> GA/AC item: The change of dates for the AC
> My formal suggestion to ICOM is to compensate those of the delegates who
> will have extra expenses as a consequence of the change in the dates. If
> this is need to be decided by the General Assembly, this email should be
> considered as a formal suggestion to the agenda of GA.
>
> AC item: CIDOC’s principle of Museum Documentation.
> CIDOC’s working group for documentation standards has developed a set of
> principles for what should be considered as proper documentation of a museum
> collection CIDOC Board has decided to ask ICOM to put a discussion of the
> principles on the AC agenda. The principles of documentation have close
> connections to the ICOM Code of Ethics. The principles are formulated to
> ensure that the items in the museum collections are properly documented both
> with respect to their provenience (to avoid that illegal object is included
> in the collection) and to ensure that objects can be tracked in case of
> theft.
>
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>



-- 
___________________________________________
Chedlia Annabi -
Présidente ICOM Arabe
Conservatrice Musée de Carthage
Tél: (+216) 98.64.67.43 -

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