To: Martin R.Schärer Member of the ICOM Executive Council & Co-ordinator of International Committee Task Force Dear Martin, I am sorry that I am five days late in replying due to travel and other pressures during the past month: I hope that these comments on behalf of the ICOM International Committee on the Training of Personnel - ICOM-ICTOP - are not too late. I have highlighted IN CAPITALS below the relevant extracts from your questions, and then followed these with comments on each. Best wishes, Patrick J. Boylan ([log in to unmask]) Chairperson, ICOM-ICTOP 2 April 2002 ============================== WE BROKE DOWN THE COMPLEX ISSUE INTO FOUR MAIN DOMAINS: A. GENERAL ROLE AND TASKS OF INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEES B. PROCEDURES OF CREATION AND CRITERIA OF EVALUATION OF ICS C. ORGANISATION, MEMBERSHIP ADMINISTRATION AND COMMUNICATION WITH MEMBERS D. LEGAL AND FINANCIAL PROBLEMS. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE HAVE ONLY TREATED ITEMS A AND B UNTIL NOW. HENCE WE ASK YOU NOT TO DISCUSS ITEMS C AND D! WE WILL COME BACK LATER WITH PROPOSALS ON THOSE MATTERS. +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ Unfortunately, excluding consideration of "legal and financial problems" at this stage this seems to be approaching the issues completely the wrong way round. Many of those who have been concerned about the International Committees over a number of years would argue that almost all of the problems are either financial or legal (and probably both). ON FINANCE: how can we decided at this stage whether to introduce rules that would insist that International Committees - in the words of the discussion paper - must have "a healthy financial policy" ... be "running a web site", and - most expensive of all - be "publishing a newsletter for the members", if they are not provided with the financial resources needed to achieve these (obviously desirable) objectives? we all know that financial problems creates a massive "democratic deficit" within ICOM, since at the present time only those members able to subsidise their activities from either institutional or government funds, or from their personal income or wealth, are able to hold the highest offices in the International Committees. ON LEGAL ISSUES: Here the issues are even greater and much more far-reaching. At the present time the International Committees have no form of independent incorporation or other legal basis, except as an integral part of ICOM as a whole. This was probably fine in the days when the ICOM Statutes and Rules placed a maximum limit of just 30 members on each International Committee, with no more than two from any one country (and - incidentally - the cost of running the ICs and servicing such a small membership was no problem either). In contrast, nowadays taking into account annual conference fees, excursions and expenditure, the total annual turnover of all the current International Committees combined is always many tens of thousands of dollars a year, and in some years - when there are perhaps several big IC conferences - could well run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. All of this money is handled under what are essentially informal arrangements with in practice no formal supervision or control as the ICs have no separate legal existence. However, under current French law, in the absence of some form of separate legal incorporation for each IC, it is ICOM centrally - and in particular the President, Vice-Presidents, Executive Council Members and Secretary-General - who are both collectively and personally entirely responsible for all of these funds, and who are accountable for them under civil, taxation and even criminal law in the even of something going seriously wrong within an International Committee (for example if there was a large deficit at the end of an International Committee annual meeting or on an IC publication or other project, or indeed in the case of fraud). This simply cannot be right, and the problem MUST be addressed as soon as possible. In practical terms I can personally see no way in which the ICOM Executive Council and Secretariat could take over the running of the finances of nearly 30 International Committee administrations scattered all over the world, in the way that in fact the law expects. Consequently, some other solution needs to be found before anything significant can be decided about the future organisation. I can personally see no real alternative to at least the larger International Committees - and perhaps all of them - becoming registered legal entities in their own right and therefore responsible for their own legal and financial affairs, whether by becoming incorporated in France as "Associations under the Law of 1 July 1901" (like ICOM itself), or perhaps under another other legal formula in some other country. However, if this happens they would of course become ICOM Affiliated Organisations instead of International Committees - and that in turn would have major implications for the rest of your questions. ============================== 1. ICs AND (THEME-ORIENTED) AOs HAVE SIMILAR FUNCTIONS. THEY SHOULD BE LINKED MORE CLOSELY AND EVENTUALLY MERGED IN ONE NEW STRUCTURE. DO YOU AGREE? +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ Most definitely NOT! The structure and role of the Affiliated Organisations can be very different from that of International Committees. Several are essentially made up of institutional members rather than individual members - and indeed to my certain knowledge chose this structure because they did not consider that opening themselves to admit all ICOM individual members as of right would be the right solution for them. Also -and very importantly in relation to the comments on financial and legal questions above - the Affiliated Organisations are all able to charge a their own membership fees and therefore manage their own finances, while the majority of them, perhaps all, are independently incorporated as legal bodies in their own right. On a different point, which certainly applies to the ICOM Training Committee - ICTOP, and perhaps others, currently ICOM's membership is not at all representative of some more specialised areas of the museum profession. Despite the existence these days of many hundreds of specialised museum training programmes in universities and other institutions across the world, with by now some thousands of specialised teaching staff, only a tiny percentage of these professionals are members of ICOM. Partly this is historic: until quite recently many national committees refused to admit such professionals to ICOM membership despite their eligibility under the ICOM Statutes and frequent protests from ICTOP. Even today there are still occasional reports of membership applications being rejected, or more usually museum studies teaching staff being told they are ineligible when they first enquire, before they even apply formally. Also, even the small minority who do belong to ICOM often feel that in order to advance their university careers they should register with an "academic" ICOM committee rather than ICTOP. Following discussions on these issues at the ICTOP 1999 annual meeting there have been informal soundings among some major (and other) museum training centres around the world. From these it seems that there might be much greater support amongst the profession for a new ICOM -affiliated, though independently incorporated world, body for museum professional training and development, with its own constitution and subscription etc If in fact ICOM itself moves in that direction as part of a solution to the legal and financial issues discussed above, then ICTOP would of course be part of a general move to legal incorporation. However, if ICOM does not propose such a change generally by the time of the Seoul 2004 General Assembly, I think it is very possible that my successor - whoever he or she is - will have to consider seriously turning ICTOP into an Affiliated Organisation independently, in order to maintain credibility and leadership within the museum training profession. ====================================== 3. CONCERNING THE CREATION OF NEW ICS SHOULD WE FOSTER A "MARKET APPROACH", OR A PRAGMATIC ONE, ACCORDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE MUSEUMS COMMUNITY. WE DON'T FORESEE A PRE-ESTABLISHED SYSTEM OF ICs. DO YOU AGREE? +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ I think that from time to time the Advisory Committee and Executive Council should review the whole of the museum field and take the initiative in proposing and promoting new International Committees for important, perhaps newly emerging, subject areas that are not felt to be adequately covered currently. There are several successful precedents for this in the history of ICOM: several current International Committees, including CECA and ICTOP, are examples of such Executive Council initiatives. ========================== 4. THE CRITERIA FOR THE CREATION OF NEW ICS SHOULD INCLUDE MAINLY: CONFORMITY WITH THE CODE OF ETHICS AND THE ICOM STATUTES, GLOBAL IN EVERY RESPECT (THEME, MEMBERSHIP), CLEAR DEFINITION OF THE THEME THAT HAS TO BE A LONG-LASTING ONE TREATING WITH MUSEUM MATTERS, MINIMUM NUMBER OF MEMBERS (MAYBE AT LEAST 100), MEMBERS FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES (FOR INSTANCE AT LEAST 10) AND FROM DIFFERENT CONTINENTS (AT LEAST 3). DO YOU HAVE OTHER CRITERIA OR OTHER CONDITIONS FOR THE CREATION OF NEW ICS? +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ I think that 100 members is much too high a minimum, especially for those promoting new committee proposals - which means that they have to persuade the proposed founder members to leave their existing ICOM International Committees. Also I am not at all persuaded that very large ICs are necessarily the most effective and successful. Though I know we can't turn the clock back almost 28 years I sometime feel nostalgic about how much was achieved by those committees restricted to the old 30 member maximum! I do however strongly support the idea that committees must be universal in their range of interest and membership, rather than reflecting a particular national or regional specialisation. (That was basically why in the past areas such as Open Air Museums and Ecomuseums/New Museology were established as Affiliated Organisations rather than International Committees.) ============================ 5. WE SUGGEST THAT AN OBSERVATION PERIOD OF 3 YEARS SHOULD BE INTRODUCED DEFINITIVELY BEFORE A NEW IC IS ACCEPTED INTO THE ICOM FAMILY. DO YOU THINK THAT SUCH A PERIOD IS APPROPRIATE? +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ Agreed - as at present of course. ================================ 6. EVERY 12 YEARS ICs SHOULD BE EVALUATED. CRITERIA INCLUDE THE SAME AS UNDER 4. IN ADDITION TO THE FOLLOWING ONES: APPLICATION OF THE CODE OF ETHICS AND THE ICOM STATUTES, CONTRIBUTION BY ANY MEANS TO GENERAL ICOM ISSUES, HAVING A HEALTHY FINANCIAL POLICY, HAVING A FUNCTIONING ADMINISTRATION WITH REGULAR ELECTIONS, RUNNING A WEB SITE, PUBLISHING A NEWSLETTER FOR THE MEMBERS, ORGANISING ONE MEETING EVERY YEAR. DO YOU WANT TO INCLUDE OTHER ITEMS, E.G. JOINT MEETINGS WITH ANOTHER IC/AO OR THE NECESSITY OF PUBLISHING THE PAPERS PRESENTED AT MEETINGS? +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ It is important to remember that over the years just about every longer-established International Committee has gone through bad periods - perhaps years of complete inactivity. I agree that there should be regular reviews, and perhaps every 12 years is about the right frequency for these. However, the Executive Council should not wait perhaps 10 or 11 years till the next formal review before taking action over an International Committee in serious trouble - or perhaps slow but steady decline in activities and membership. The provisions for the EC to declare an collapsed or generally inactive National Committee as "under reorganisation" - and then seek new members directly and promote or supervise new Officer and Board elections - can be applied to International Committees also (and have been on at least a couple of occasions in the past). There should be great care over any specific obligations (such as requiring e.g. web site or printed newsletter) - see my comments on financial problems above. However, proper triennial elections and annual meetings should be clear obligations. ================================= 8. CREATION OF A NEW ICOM STANDING COMMISSION ON ICS. THIS BODY HAS TO WORK ON THE CREATION, THE EVALUATION AND THE DISSOLUTION OF ICS AND HAS TO GIVE ADVICE AND HELP TO ICS IN DIFFICULTY. IT REPORTS TO THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL (WHICH HAS THE ULTIMATE DECISION) THROUGH THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE. DO YOU THINK THAT THIS COULD BE A WORKABLE SYSTEM? +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ The short answer is "No"! I am against this: the proposal seems to duplicate at least in part the clear duties and obligations of the Advisory Committee and Executive Council. Within ICOM we need to simplify and strengthen lines of responsibility, not dissipate these further. I would prefer the periodic reviews of International Committees, and the consideration of new committee or merger etc. proposals to be dealt with by a simple "peer review" panel process for each case - with the panel (small - perhaps 5 members at the most) consisting of both specialists and non-specialists in the particular subject area. ================================ 9. REGIONALISATION OF ICS IS IMPORTANT, ESPECIALLY TO ALLOW MORE COLLEAGUES TO PARTICIPATE TO MEETINGS AND TO BENEFIT FROM OTHERS' EXPERIENCE. HENCE, THE CREATION OF REGIONAL SUB-ICs IS FOSTERED. AGREE? +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ Not as a universal rule. This may be suitable for very large International Committees, but the principle is very debatable, as it conflicts directly with the global nature and values of ICOM. ================================== 10. OUTSIDE THE FRAMEWORK OF ICs, WE RECOMMEND THE CREATION OF ICOM WORKING GROUPS AS NEW ENTITIES TO DEAL WITH SHORT-TERM, NEW AND VERY PRECISELY DEFINED TOPICS. THEY COULD BE A QUICK RESPONSE TO NEW NEEDS IN A LIMITED TIME FRAME. DO YOU AGREE WITH SUCH A NEW BODY? +++++++++ COMMENT +++++++++ I don't understand this question. It refers to "Working Groups" (plural) but then seems to discuss a single "new body". Both the Executive Council and Advisory Committee have always had the power to create time-limited or task-limited Working Groups to deal with particular issues, and this power has been used many times in recent years (e.g. To draft the original Code of Ethics, reform of the ICOM Statutes, the review of membership benefits, the cultural diversity policy, the moves towards the privatisation of museum services and the consequent rise of employment as consultants, and of course the Reform Task Force called for by the Melbourne General Assembly. What is new about this latest proposal? ================================= v vvvv - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the archives at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html