Dear Calleagues,

MDA, the focus for standards and best practice in Collections Management, 
has successfully concluded negotiations with Government culture bodies in the 
Netherlands and Belgium to export SPECTRUM, the UK industry standard for 
information management.  

Already in use in over 3,000 culture-sector organisations worldwide, 
SPECTRUM is an open standard, maintained and developed as part of MDA's 
ongoing mission to promote best practice in the heritage sector. The adoption 
of SPECTRUM will help Dutch and Belgian museums manage their knowledge 
and information more effectively, as well as supporting greater mobility of 
collections between the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK.  

MDA Director Nick Poole commented, 'This is a significant step forward for 
standards within Europe, and this development represents the culmination of 
almost 2 years work by the staff at MDA. Common standards not only promote 
best practice, they also provide us with a shared language which supports 
greater partnership. Museums in the Netherlands and Belgium already have 
significant expertise in the areas of knowledge and information management, 
and we all stand to benefit as a whole by working together to common 
standards.'  

Wilbert Helmus of the State Department for Cultural Heritage 
commented, 'Dutch and Belgian museums have long been committed to the 
principles of SPECTRUM. Our museums contain some of the world's most 
diverse and exciting collections, and this agreement provides us with a solid 
foundation on which to build. We are very pleased to be working with MDA and 
we look forward to an exciting partnership in future!'  

Licenses were signed between MDA, the Netherlands Museum Advisors 
Foundation and Culturele Biografie Vlaanderen vzw. Under the terms of this 
new agreement, representative organisations in the UK, Netherlands and 
Belgium will form part of a European Documentation Standards Development 
Community. Each national version of SPECTRUM will be linked to the UK 
standard on an ongoing basis and future updates will be cascaded to each 
participating country. MDA will be working with CIDOC, the documentation 
Special Interest Group of the International Council for Museums, to identify 
further partner states within Europe.  

Gordon McKenna.


*******************************************************
 Gordon McKenna  e-mail: [log in to unmask]   
 MDA       
 The Spectrum Building, 
 The Michael Young Centre, 
 Purbeck Road          
 Cambridge CB2 2PD, UK

 Tel:    +44 1223 415760
 Fax:    +44 1223 415960  

Setting the standard for managing collections information
*************** http://www.mda.org.uk/ ****************

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