The county council-wide Leicestershire Museums, Arts and Records
Services, England, (16 museums and monuments, largew county record office
etc._ and about 200 staff) did precisely than in 1979, and it has worked
very well ever since.   The current Head is Fiona Marshall, Leics. Museums,
Arts and Records Service, The Rowans, College Street, Leicester LE2
0JJ, England, appointed as the second Head in about 1984; though the
founder head, Dr Tony Fletcher is also still with the Service.  This was
written up by me (as the then Director) in the Museum Documentation
Association Cambridge International Conference in 1987 (edited by Andrew
Roberts, 1988).

The text of this - slightly updated - was posted last week as a link from my
Uppsala presentation.  The direct URL specifically for this paper is:

   http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/mda.html


Patrick Boylan

==========================================

On Thu, 30 Nov 1995, Anne Robinson wrote:

> I work for the Indianapolis Museum of Art and we are currently in a planning
> process discussing the use of various technologies in the museum. Part of this
> (very theoretical) discussion includes networking the museum. It's likely that
> a few new positions would have to be added, and we are struggling to create a
> model for how a network would be overseen. One proposal is to create an
> Information Technologies division independent of the curatorial, operations an
d
> marketing divisions.
>
> Are there any museums where this is being done, and if so, do you think it is
a
> successful arrangement? Some of us see the Information Technologies personnel
> as engineering types in an operations divion department (i.e. they are not
> their own division).
>
> Also, in the proposal already mentioned, a multimedia programmer would be a
> member of this Information Technologies division. This person would
> (theoretically--not a real job yet) engineer CD-ROMs, web pages, interactive
> kiosks and other multimedia projects brought to him/her by marketing, educatio
n
> or curatorial personnel. This particular issue is sticky, as at least one pero
n
> (me) fervently believes this is a design position that should be in marketing,
> education, or a shared position between the two. I would love to know if there
> are any museums out here who have structured their creative multimedia
> design/programming  separate and independent of marketing, education and
> curatorial, and if so, how well does it work? (I am opposed, but open to
> experiences and opinions of others). I would also like to hear reactions to th
e
> idea, even if you have no such position. Any feedback will be appreciated.
>
> Anne Robinson
>