A few (disjointed) points:

1. The leading S.E. European museum studies training programme -
that at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, has been within and Information
Sciences department and grouping for well over 20 years

2. In 1991 the new legal Statutes of museum and related professions under
French law were merged to create a single senior civil service profession
of "Conservateur du Patromoine" (Curator of the National Heritage), with a
supporting "Grand Ecole" the Ecole National du Patrimoine to undertake
professional recruitment (largely post-master's degree and with a
target of 50% PhDs) and subsequent specialised training. Both the new
curator grade and the 18 months "grand ecole" training programme has taken
over completely five former legally defined and regulated
professions: museum curators, archivists, conservation architects, field
archaeologists and the staff of the National Inventory, plus parts of
the librarian profession (which has in effect been split between
"Information" and the new curatorial profession).

3.  In the UK joint agreements on policy in relation to possible overlaps
in collections and services of the sort you refer to were drawn up between
the Museums Association, the Society of Archivists and the Library
Association.  The texts used to be published annually in the Museums
Association's annual Museums Yearbook but have been dropped this year
(though you ought ot be able to find the text in earlier editions).

4.  At the international level the world bodies for museums (ICOM),
monuments (ICOMOS), archives (ICA/CIA) and libraries (IFLA) joined
together in June 1996 to establish joint cooperation in relation to common
interests in the field of disaster prevention and response under the title
"International Committee of the Blue Shield", and it is hoped that this
will be formally recognised within the updated Hague Convention on the
protection of cultural property during armed conflicts that is due to be
adopted an an intergovernmental meeting of States Parties to the original
(1954) Hague Convention in Paris next month.

Patrick Boylan

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

On Fri, 10 Oct 1997, Georgen Gilliam wrote:

> Subject: MUSEUM/LIBRARY/ARCHIVE RELATIONSHIPS
>
> I'm writing a paper on the delineations between museums, libraries, and
> archives. Library and archival education is mainly taught within library
> and information studies departments (although there are some archival
> studies departments, they usually share faculty with the library school).
> Within the field of LIS, there is a big pull toward seeing computer science
> as an allied discipline; but there doesn't seem to be any view that museum
> studies could fit under that umbrella as well. However, libraries have
> books, and often archives. Archives have books, and usually museum objects.
> Museums often have libraries and usually archives. All three involve
> collecting, cataloging, offering reference services, educationing, managing
> people. And they're also merged at the governmental level now with the
> formation of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
>
> I know that in the Renaissance, educated people built collections for
> study, and those collections included books and objects. Often these
> collections were later given to institutions and served as the basis for
> libraries and museums.
>
> As a first-year doctoral student in Library & Information Studies, these
> distinctions interest me and am confused as to why museums and libraries
> and archives aren't seen as more kindred institutions.
>
> If anyone has any opinions/references about this, I'd be glad to see them.
>
> Georgen