This is a response to Patrick Boylans message. I >cite> and comment
alternatively:

Patrick wrote:

>You cover two completely different things in your excellent contribution.

Agreed. In fact three completely different things.

>On ICOM-L and ICOM's apparently complicated structures:
>
>it has never been the case that members can only communicate through the
>complex maze that you describe.

I know this, but there seem to be some kind of self sencorship, nurtured by
the (necessary) formalities of ICOM. Even now I feel I have done something
not quite decent, something out of line. And the lack of response to the
List may have something to do with such attitudes, especially among the
members of the Advisory & Executive.

>More important, as the Executive Council
>member with special responsibility for ICOM's Internet policy and
>developments from 1994 to 1998 I can assure you that one of the key
>aims in setting up ICOM-L was to both speed up and democratise
>communication amongst ALL members, not just those holding official
>positions in the national and international committees or the Executive
>Council.
>
>The lack of use of ICOM-L for the agreed purposes and according to the
>policies for this - by either the central bodies of ICOM or the general
>membership has been a matter of continuing concern, frustration and deep
>disappointment to all of us who worked so hard to ensure that ICOM stayed
>at the forefront of the Information and Communication Technology
>revolution - in the way it was when we launched the extensive and very
>advanced internet facilities in 1995.

The frustration and disappointment is highly understandable. And I have
noted that you have been almost the only person on earth using the ICOM-L.
I intend to send out some pointed questions and opinions regarding matters
that the Task Force is dealing with, and see if the machinery will start
moving. After a while perhaps others will join too.

>The fact that it took three months
>to get onto ICOM-L the English version of Bernice Murphy's urgent appeal
>for members to submit evidence and views to her ICOM Reform Task Force
>(and five months for the French version) says it all.

The above I don't understand. Why did it take three months?

>On the University Museums issue:
>
>nobody can defend the current structure of international committees
>- particularly the "curatorial subject" committees (as opposed to the
>interdisciplinary committees.  However, during my more than 25 years
>in ICOM I know that every suggestion that there should be some
>rationalisation - e.g. by merging the five or six applied arts
>international committees, or even Fine Art and Modern Art, has been so
>ferociously attacked from existing interests that the idea has been
>dropped immediately.

Habit is hard to breake, but at least it is positive that people are
defending their committees. A relatively central person in ICOM once said
to me informally that we should perhaps have many more committees, perhaps
short-lived committees, etc. I think he wanted me to think alternatively,
loosening up my concepts about international committees.

>However, your analysis of the situation in relation to a university
>museums committee misses one absolutely key point: anyone joining such a
>committee as a full member would first have to give up their existing
>international committee membership (and any office within this).  Several
>of the present international committees are currently very dependent on
>university museum staff members, and have genuine concerns about their
>survival if a large and strong university museums committee emerges.
>
Patrick, you are perhaps the person at the meetings in Paris I have most
confidence in, both because of your knowledge and your very good common
sense. But I can't believe that you are serious about the argument above.
The accumulated number of members of the boards of the different committees
plus the national presidents and the Executive should total less than 500
persons. And we are about 14.000 ICOM members and increasing. A new
committee may make inactive members active and/or attract new members. Your
argument is only valid if the international committees are run by the same
old gang, just switching positions, with practically no newcomers. This I
know for a fact is not entirely the case.

And if a large and strong university committee emerges, it shows that it
serves a need. I am much more sceptical to weak new committees.

>In contrast with this, an affiliated organisation has its own membership
>which does not prohibit membership or even holding office in an
>international committee at the same time.  It is also able to have its own
>legal personality and funds (neither of which is possible for
>international committees - which are absolutely integral parts of ICOM as
>a Paris-registered ="Association" under the French law of 1 July 1901).
>However, affiliated associations still have a majority of ICOM personal
>and institutional members, who can e.g. run for office in ICOM etc.
>
>Indeed, the trend is likely to be in the opposite direction to what you
>propose.  Already, two or three of the largest international committees
>have been discussing for some time the possibility that they may in
>effect be forced to re-constitute themselves as affiliated organisations in
>order to be able to cope with both their long-standing funding problems
>and the legal/constitutional problems that are emerging.

I am not proposing anything, I am trying to raise a debate. I am expressing
a fear that the international committees will be replaced by affiliated
organisations, because I think such a trend may lead to the organisational
fragmentation of the museum world.

I guess most of us are paying for our memberships in museum organisations
from our private means. And many of us are members of a national museum
organisation, say this costs FF 300 a year. In some countries there are in
addition specialised museum organisations, say you are member of one of
those, another FF 300. Then comes the membership in ICOM, say about FF 400.
Then - if the international committees are turned into affiliated
organisations - each one will demand a membership fee. You may want to be
member of two international organisations, say FF 400 a year.

We already have the problem with members in several countries finding it
hard to pay for the yearly ICOM fee alone.

If the most important of the international committees become separate
organisations, many  museum professionals will probably choose to be a
member in one of them, rather than in ICOM. In short: we risk reducing the
importance of the general, global museum organisation, we risk reducing the
attendance to the one global meeting for museum professionals of all kinds,
we risk scattering the museum professionals into a number of separate
organisations. And such a fragmentation will hit hardest the poorest of us,
who cannot afford multiple memberships.

I think we need a strong ICOM to be a global meeting place for all kinds of
museums and museum professionals.

Perhaps we should use our abilities to find an organisational structure
that to a larger extent than now combines the properties of the ICOM of
today with it's international committees and the properties of an umbrella
organisation composed of a number of separate organisations?

Kind regards

Per B. Rekdal
President ICME


Per B. Rekdal
Museumsleder/Museum Director
Universitetets etnografiske museum
Frederiksgate 2, N-0164 Oslo, Norway

Tel. -47 - 22 85 99 64
Fax -47 - 22 85 99 60
E-mail: [log in to unmask]


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