Dear colleagues, Following on from all the recent exchanges about conference registrations, and how to sort out improper use of ICOM identity and facilities from those whom we seek to encourage: I strongly support the "generosity approach" to making sure ICOM International Committee gatherings annually all over the world are attentive to involvement of local museum colleagues wherever possible - and indeed move to less well-served parts of the world's museums community when feasible. I have been impressed over recent years by the energetically open approach of most IC Chairpersons I have known, seeking to involve professional colleagues, whether they are yet members of ICOM or not - and indeed this is the best way to demonstrate ICOM's relevance to wider collegial networks than its strict membership lists. So any use of membership lists should be in this spirit, and for these purposes, not to create closed circles of exclusion. I also take very seriously the need to make whatever efforts possible THROUGH the ICOM membership base to circulate professional information and mutual support among museum people who cannot, out of their own income, possibly pay for personal subscriptions to ICOM. This was certainly considered through the close 'ICOM Reform Task Force' discussions of 1999-2001. I suggest that ICOM needs to return to this issue on a regular basis - not just for occasional goodwill statements - and to take active steps to create "shared network partnerships" (with some conscious mapping exercises undertaken geographically and cross-culturally) to ensure that museum professionals and colleagues are taking active steps to ensure that information they have access to, easily and regularly, may be reproduced (copied) and circulated more widely among other colleagues, with less access to resources. And finally to remember: the very people who have most restricted tools and resources practically and economically have rich cultural and intellectual experience to offer back to others, as their part of the mutual exchange process. It should always be understood as a cycling, re-cycling and return pattern that is at the basis of what ICOM exists to facilitate. Bernice Murphy (Vice-President, ICOM) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the archives at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html