---------- This year, the Alberta Museums Association introduced a grants program to initiate museum consortia across our province. The strategy attempts to bridge the gap between the large, professionally staffed museums and the small, volunteer-run museums. It is clear that regional facilities can play a leadership role with repect to providing not only a model for smaller facilities but also by providing information and services to smaller museums. The aims of the Regional Museum Grants Program are as follows: -to help museums become regional centres of excellence in heritage preservation and interpretation -to promote museum networking to ensure the most efficient use of human and fiscal resources -to support museums in their role as regional clearinghouses of museum information and services -to facilitate the development of regional perspectives on the preservation and interpretation of the natural and cultural heritage of Albertans; and -to help museums implement at the regional level standards of museum practice as defined by the AMA The Rationale for the Grants Program to encourage the growth of a network of strong regional museums including the following reasons: 1. because of the great distances that divide Alberta communities one from the other, regional cooperation makes strong economic sense from the perspective of spreading funding around the entire province; 2. because of regional difference in geography and demographics, cultural identity frequently has a regional character; 3. regionalization is one way of implementing a policy of decentralization, the result of which is a sharing ofresources, fiscal and humna, threoughout the province; 4. it is more difficult to implement a service delivery model whien the services are located in one or two major urban areas; and 5. at a time of scaracity, the distribution of small amounts of money to many museums will allow non of them to meet their mandates; whereas, the distribution of substantial funds to key players will enable them to provide the necessary leadership to others and deliver a range of services to others in the region. In this pilot project, five museums have received grants for various projects (e.g. hiring a conservator to share among the museums, collections management database project). In addition, Alberta has two successful consortia working for over three years. You might write to the following people for first-hand advice: Anna Robertson Drumheller Valley Museums Consortium Box 203 Drumheller, Alberta (dinosaur country!) Canada T0J 0Y0 and Victoria Barsalou Museums of the Peace Consortia Peace River Centennial Museum & Archives 10302 - 99 Street Peace River, Alberta (north of the 56th parallel!) Canada T8S 1K1 Good Luck in your endeavors! shari saunders standards coordinator alberta museums association [log in to unmask]