Mr. Pinna thank You for starting this discussion! I think the European
Museum of the Year Award has proofed through all these years that there is a
need for awarding exceptional museum work. Also in my country the ministery
of education, science and culture gives an Austrian Museum Award for 15
Years now. The awards have a lot of positive functions: honoring outstanding
museum work, motivating to go on further in raising standards, emblematic
function for the visitors.... This would also fit in the development to set
up criteria for museum quality and standards in accreditation systems and
quality proof marks for museums worldwide.  E.g. ICOM Austria in cooperation
with the Austrian Museum Association gives a Quality Proof Mark for museums
since 2002. The ICR (Committee for Regional Museums) worked on museum
quality and standards for 4 years and offers printed "guidelines" to museums
worldwide.
The problem with Awards is the handling of the evaluation of the candidates
(time, costs, personal view of the jury-members) and the big differences in
museum categories ( big/small, Art/Ethnografic/Natural/Open Air etc.). 
Therefore some suggestions:
ICOM should give the preselection to the National Committees, which collect
the applications from their country and nominate one or two museums maximum
per year. 
Give awards in different categories, so the the whole field of museum work
can be covered (the awards need not necessarily  be money prices!! - getting
an award from ICOM is a big and desireable goal of honor which can be used
for fund raising, pr and marketing etc.)
Out of the applications ICOM can start to set up a worldwide archive of
museum documentation by collecting the application infos. 
The award winning projects can be published as signs of best practice....

I would like to here that Your idea develops!

Hartmut Prasch
Austria
Vice-Chairman of ICOM/ICR

        -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
        Von:    Giovanni Pinna [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
        Gesendet am:    Samstag, 04. Oktober 2003 17:34
        An:     [log in to unmask]
        Betreff:        An ICOM prize for the best museum?

        As assigned by President Jacques Perot, I was representing ICOM on
the
        occasion of The Best in Heritage second edition,held in Dubrovnik
from
        18 to
        21 September 2003.
        The event aimed to present all those museum achievements - or other
        achievements linked to cultural heritage - which have been awarded a
        special
        prize or mention during the last few years.
        18 projects were there to represent 16 countries and they showed the
        current
        trend of museology: this is the main value and the remarkable
interest
        of
        the event.
        The event also showed that several national and international awards
are
        assigned to museums every year. Among these, the very best known is
the
        European Museum of the Year Award assigned by the European Museum
Forum
        -
        such an organization brings back to memory the activity and the
passion
        for
        museums which qualifies Kenneth Hudson's life - .
        However,all this has pushed me to wonder if ICOM, as representative
of
        the
        museums community in the world, should create a yearly award for the
        best
        museum achievements in the world, or for the best paper or book on
        Museology, or both:
        a sort of "Nobel Prize" for museology, not excluding
        extra-european museums, as it already happens for EMF.
        This kind of award would have moreover many functions: for exemple
it
        would
        provide ICOM with wide visibility all over the world thanks to an
        international event, it would create a forum for debates,it would
incite
        researches as for what relates to museum communication, it would
spur
        museum
        and their owners to renovate the production of museums achievements.
        I here suggest this idea to the Executive Council, to the Advisory
        Committee
        and to all ICOM members, urging to open a debate on this.

        Giovanni Pinna
        Member of the Executive Council


        -- Giovanni Pinna -----------------------
        e-mail:     [log in to unmask]
        web page:   http://giovanni.pinna.cx
        ------------------------------------------------

        - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

        Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the
        archives at:  http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the
archives at:  http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html