Present: Ian Carradice, Chairman (St Andrews), Ewen Smith (Glasgow), Evelyn Silber (Glasgow), Alastair Ramage (Glasgow Caledonian), Matthew Jarron (Dundee), Neil Curtis (Aberdeen), Angela Edgar (Heriot-Watt), Laura Adam (Dundee), Valerie Fairweather (Stirling)
Apologies:
Napier University had indicated that they wished to withdraw from membership.
1. Minutes of the AGM on 8th November 2002 were noted
2. Museum Registration Standard - draft for consultation
The Museum Registration Standard - draft for consultation produced by Re:source was discussed. The following summarises the opinion of the committee and will form the basis for a response by UMIS to Re:source, the Museums Association and the Scottish Museums Council. It may also assist those making individual responses.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Registration Standard: draft for consultation. Museum registration has helped to raise standards throughout the museum sector and has been particularly helpful in highlighting the importance of university collections and museums. UMIS is supportive of the aims of registration and is particularly pleased to see the increased emphasis on access to collections, the value of forward planning and on the desire to reduce paperwork associated with Registration. A number of issues do, however raise concerns.The welcome aim of raising standards must be matched by increasing resources. There is a particular risk that many important university collections may be unable to satisfy the suggested increased levels of collections care, most notably retrospective documentation (5.2.3). It is a major concern that the diversion of limited resources to deal with retrospective documentation would be at the expense of research and public access, though for many collections even such a diversion of resources would not enable backlogs to be elimated. Without additional funding, this demand could lead to collections being removed from the Register, resulting in a reduction in the levels of care and of access. The practical benefits of Registration need to be clarified and emphasised, particularly the allocation of funding to enable poorly funded museums to have adequate resources to deal with the application process and the resulting additional work.
Many university collections and museums operate in an environment where the staff responsible may have little control of the buildings they occupy and the funding to which they have access. Collections may be dispersed around a number of locations, while there may be no dedicated staff employed to care for the collection, these duties falling to a single member of staff with a wide range of other duties. This can have significant impacts on the quality of public signage (4.1.2), control of opening hours (3.1.2), input to emergency planning for parts of the collection housed outwith the museum (2.1.7) and access to budgetary information (2.2.3). The financing of universities does not permit multiple-year budgeting, making 2.2.3.7 a laudable aim, but an impractical standard. The implication in 6.2.3.3 implies the employment of at least two members of staff; sadly not the reality for many university collections.
In its desire to highlight the importance of access to museum collections, the draft standard recognises the different audiences that museums may have. For many university museums, this can be very narrowly defined, while for others a much wider public is at the heart of their concerns. There is a risk that as a result of the higher expectations placed on ensuring public access, some university museums may reduce the scope of their user community to ensure that they can comply with the demands of user consultation (3.2.5) and making available and interpreting their collections (3.2.8). Increasing access should be seen as an opportunity to widen the range of people using university collections, not as a way of increasing bureaucratic pressures on under-resourced collections. There is also a risk that the increased emphasis may lead to research collections of great public importance, such as herbaria, being deemed ineligible for Registration, resulting in their ineligibility for public funding to enable them to enhance public access.
Throughout the document there are references to external standards and guidance. This is helpful in that it ties the Registration process firmly into existing standards, though there are risks that referring to incomplete standards (e.g. Spectrum 3) makes it difficult to assess the impact of some sections of the Registration draft. It is also important to recognise that some standards do not apply to all museums. The moves towards common documentation of library and museums collections in some university museums may, for example, limit the applicability of Spectrum as the sole documentation standard. Similarly, those university collections that have as their curatorial adviser a curator from another museum employed by the same institution may find unhelpful the suggestion that curatorial advisers may not carry out work themselves. It is essential that the provisions of Registration are piloted on a selection of University museums to ensure that its provisions are appropriate.
While UMIS supports the aim of removing barriers to access, it is concerning that the proposed standard states that identifying and addressing barriers must follow the use of Resource publications (3.2.3). The provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act etc. (3.2.4) are clear statutory obligations which are resulting in substantial work by museums. Building on these minimum standards should be encouraged, such as by the use of the self-assessment toolkit, but the obligatory use of these publications is unnecessary and potentially wasteful of limited resources.
It is important that the model Acquisitions and Disposals Policy does not become obligatory as, for example, higher standards of collaboration between museums or ethical standards of collection may be desired by particular institutions. It is therefore concerning that the sections on 'human remains' and 'archives' are indicated to be obligatory. There are also a number of areas where the model policy could be improved. For example, the section on 'human remains' would be more correctly titled 'repatriation', while the section on archaeological material is composed of two distinct paragraphs that do not have a clear relationship. The implication that all archaeological finds must be reported to the landowner or occupier of the land is inappropriate in Scotland.
We hope that the consultation on the draft Registration Standard will be fruitful and will result in a scheme that matches the needs of the wide variety of museums throughout the UK at the same time as encouraging and supporting higher standards in public museums. We also hope that the desire to reduce paperwork associated with the scheme will not be limited to a conversion to electronic media, but will become a commitment to reduce the bureaucracy associated with the scheme that has resulted in the allocation of limited resources away from the core functions of collections care and public access.
3. UMG Advocacy Document
Evelyn Silber reported on the forthcoming launch of the advocacy document. This would be very useful when demonstrating the value of university museums and collections nationally and within our own institutions. Prior to its launch at the Museums Association conference in October, there will be a launch by the AHRB in London in September. A separate Scottish launch was agreed to be very valuable and Evelyn will discuss this with the SMC and SHEFC with the suggestion that it be held in the Hunterian in September.
Copies would be available free for distribution locally. Numbers should be requested by the end of May from Nicola Johnson n.johnson@uea.ac.uk, with suggestions for national distribution sent to Evelyn as soon as possible e.silber@museum.gla.ac.uk.
4. Contact list
There had been some problems maintaining an up-to-date contact list. It was agreed that each institution would have a contact person who would receive information by email and who would then distribute it locally. Ewen Smith and Neil Curtis would co-ordinate.
5. UMG Committee
Evelyn reported recent discussions at the UMG committee. As well as the Advocacy document and the proposed Registration standard, discussion had focused on a request form Charles Clarke (Secretary of State for Education) to the Museums Association for a briefing about university museums. The Museums Association are recommending a review which might raise UK and generic issues of relevance in Scotland.
5. UMIS AGM It was proposed to hold the UMIS AGM in Dundee ion 14th November 2003.
6. Conference
The next UMIS conference is due to be held in 2004. It was suggested that this might be in Edinburgh during the autumn.
6. 'The future of the past: ten priorities for a new parliament' A briefing document produced by SMC was discussed, noting that there were very few references to university museums. It was also noticeable that the tenor of the document ignored the contribution of museums to science as well as history. A letter will be sent to SMC.
7. Membership
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh had expressed an interest in joining. It was agreed that they be accepted, and that the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow be witten to remind them that they were entitled to join.
Next meeting:
To be held in conjunction with the launch of the Advocacy Document in September in Glasgow.
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