In the United Kingdom in 1939 younger professionals attending the then
part-time Museums Association Diploma courses for younger professionals
set up a "Junior Museum Officials Group" within the Association's
membership for very much the same reasons as are now being discussed.
(This later changed its name - first to the Museum Assistants Group, and
then the Museum Professionals Group - which still exists more than 60
years later, with membership open to all professional staff below the
level of Director or equivalent.

There is a direct link to ICOM here: the Council of the Museums
Association included a representative of the Junior Museum Officials
Group, Lorraine Conran, the the British delegation to the meeting called
by Chauncey Hamblin and Georges Salles in the Louvre in November 1946, at
which it was decided to create an International Council of Museums (ICOM).

It is also interesting to note that in 1971 ICOM was careful to include
representatives of younger members of the profession in the working group
that prepared the fundamental changes in the nature and structure of ICOM
adopted at the Copenhagen General Conference in 1974.  (By a remarkable
coincidence one of these younger members was Elizabeth Conran, wife of
Lorraine Conran who had taken a similar role at the 1946 inaugural meeting
of ICOM.



Patrick Boylan

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the
archives at:  http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html