Re: Theme for International Museum Day 2001

Prompted by Per's: "Other suggestions?" and his "…anything illustrating how
museums cooperate across borders, across continents…" I would like to
consider the following:

If there is one single thing that every ICOM member and their International
Committees are daily confronted with, whoever they are, in whichever museum
they work, all over the globe it is at least this one thing: The keeping and
preservation of the cultural heritage that we are presenting to our
visitors. This is both a local but also a global (read: international)
undertaking.

In our museum we have noted a clear interest among the public in
understanding "how", "why", and "what" we do to keep the objects. Several
other museums have the same experience, and the mixture between how objects
were made (something you often have to find out before treating it) with
information about their preservation for future generations (an issue even
more interesting now that we have left a century behind and have started a
new one) attract the curious visitors.

Thus, when it was said thet: "Most museums cannot afford to printinformation
material valid for just one day, and most of the visitors are coming on
Sundays" I am convinced that the following suggestion will be financially
sound:

Make the Museum day of the first year of the Millennium be:

Understanding & Preserving the Past for the Future.

This is a topic that may even appeal also to sponsors as well as to the
public.

Printed material about this issue could be valuable for the whole year.

In 2004 we can then return to Per's suggestion, as at that time ICOM may
have undergone the changes that we can now only suggest at the conference in
2001, and implement thereafter.

Jørgen Wadum
Board member of ICOM-CC

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