On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Per Rekdal wrote: ++++ CLIP] ++++ > Now: what if we had an international committee set up to last for say six > years, constituted for the sole purpose of discussing cultural diversity? > Or cultourism? What if we had an international committee set up for six > years discussing the educational methods in modern art museums? Or a > committee just for discussing the meaning in modern society of putting > indigenous cultures into natural history museums, while the culture of the > "whites" are found in the history museums? Or an international committee > debating repatriation issues? ======================== Per: I agree with you - and that's very much how ICOM operated originally before its structures became formalised (or should that be fossilised?). However, on your first example above, that is EXACTLY what happened. A broadly based Ad Hoc committee on cultural diversity issues was set up in Quebec in 1992, chaired by Amareswar Galla of Australia, and its final report and recommendations were adopted in 1998 at Melbourne (in both the General Assembly Resolutions and ICOM Forward Programme for 1999-2007). In between there was - apparently - very widespread consultation and calls for active participation; two (or was it three?) drafts were prepared and distributed, and the committee reported at (almost) every annual Advisory Committee and at the Stavanger and Melbourne General Conferences. However, it was only too clear that very little information on this important and very topical work got through to the ICOM membership as a whole. The fact that someone as active and conscientious as you seem unaware of all this is not a matter on which to criticise you in any way. Instead, it raises very serious questions about the channels of communication within ICOM. Without thinking for more than a few moments I can immediately recall several other equally important issues and projects of my nine year period on the Executive Council about which information and participation similarly never seemed to get beyond the (overworked) chairpersons of National and International Committees who make up the Advisory Committee. I am not saying that we should go back to the earlier practice of ICOM (and its pre-war predecessor the International Museums Office) and print the Minutes (and key reports) of Advisory and Executive meetings in full in ICOM News. However, that did at least mean that any ICOM member interested in a particular topic could find out what ICOM was thinking about it. Also, I know that a few National Committees do include fairly detailed reports in their national newsletters. However, we need to find some effective way of communicating such information directly with the more that 99% of ICOM members who are not on the Advisory and Executive. Patrick Boylan - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Change ICOM-L subscription options and search the archives at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html