2006, Minutes NEMO Annual Meeting, Helsinki, Finland - Network of ...

Minutes
NEMO Annual meeting 2006
Helsinki, Finland
Date: 24-25 November 2006
Place:
Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma,
Seminar-Room
Chair:
Mechtild Kronenberg, Germany
Present:
Evelyn Kaindl-Ranzinger, Austria
Pavel Ciprian, Czech Republic
Frank Birkebaek, Denmark
Lene Floris, Denmark
(25.11. only)
Piert Ounapuu, Estonia
Anja-Tuulikki Huovinen, Finland
Leena Tokila, Finland
Jaana Rytkönen, Finland
Hervé Joubeaux, France
Monika Hagedorn-Saupe, Germany
Julia Pagel, Germany
Sofia Tsilidou, Greece
György Balázs, Hungary
Margherita Sani, Italy
Marco Biscione, Italy
Anita Jirgensone, Latvia
Martin Spiteri, Malta
Margriet de Jong, The Netherlands
Pim Witteveen, The Netherlands
Siebe Weide, The Netherlands
Tron Wigeland Nilsen, Norway
Ines Freitas, Portugal
Dragos Eduard Neamu, Romania (25.11. only)
Elena Petrova, Russia
Marjeta Mikuz, Slovenia
Metka Fujs, Slovenia
Elizabeta Petrusa Strukelj, Slovenia
Pilar Barranca de Ramos, Spain
Fernando Fontes, Spain
Bernard Schuele, Switzerland
Sally Cross, United Kingdom
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Invited guests: Hannu Takkula, Finland (24.11.)
Päivi Salonen, Finland (24.11.)
Susanna Pettersson, Finland (24.11.)
Birgid Pudney-Schmidt, Germany (25.11.)
Friday 24 November 2006
Time: 14.00-18.00
Anja-Tuulikki Huovinen and Mechtild Kronenberg welcomed all participants of the NEMO Annual
meeting 2006, the NEMO executive and the guest speakers, in the Museum of Contemporary Art
Kiasma. Anja-Tuulikki Huovinen chaired the afternoon.
“The outlines of the EU cultural policy”, Hannu Takkula, MEP
The EU Culture 2007 programme starts this year. It encourages transnational work between the
member countries. There are three main objectives within the Culture 2007 programme, which
measures over 400 million Euros for the upcoming seven years:
1) Transmobility for people working in the cultural sector
2) Transnational circulation of artistic and cultural works and products
3) Intercultural dialogue
Other programmes are interesting for the museum landscape as well. For example the Civil Society
programmes - within the scope of the topic `Cities and societies` there are 250 million Euros for the
next seven years to enforce the city remembrance, the role of creativity and the intercultural
understanding - or the year 2008, which will be the year of intercultural dialogue, in which the EU
supports actions on the intercultural dialogue with 10 million Euros.
“Action Plan for the EU Promotion of Museum Collections’ Mobility and Loan Standards”
Päivi Salonen, Ministry of Education, Department for Cultural, Sport and Youth Policy, Finland
The Action Plan for the EU Promotion of Museum Collections’ Mobility and Loan Standards has been
discussed since the Greek presidency in 2003. It was established to facilitate the access to Europe’s
cultural heritage, to improve cooperation and transnational lending between the institutions and to
find best-practice examples. It has been finalised during the Finnish presidency. Under the Dutch
presidency an expert group had produced the “Lending to Europe Report”, which identified key issues
and immediate actions and to set up within these areas. Working groups of experts shall now support
the implementation the action plan by proposing concrete solutions related to the action areas and by
stimulating focused discussion. The next step for the working groups - they are still open for all to
participate - is now to find channels for communication and to put forward the idea of collection
mobility.
What to achieve:
- apply the highest commonly agreed standards in loan administration
- develop trust and cooperation
- exchange best practises
- find solutions to lower costs
The next steps are:
- Create information channels
- Dialogue and division of labour between the different stakeholders
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- Promotion of collection mobility at national level
- Report to the Council of the EU and the European Parliament
The Action Plan will remain in effect and the working groups continue their work until the end of 2007.
The next steps will be to re-launch the website www.museumcollectionsonthemove.org and to send
out an inquiry to the Member States.
“Future of Collections: National and European Perspectives”, Susanna Pettersson, Finnish
National Gallery
Long-term loans are a way to use and share the collections - especially the unused parts. Unused
collections create a space problem on the one hand and on the other hand can help other collections
to build a new context for their collections.
There is a need to evaluate collections (into core collection, works by secondary status and borderline
cases - which are bond to go on loan - and the candidates for disposal) and establish a long-term loan
system. The task is to link small and big museums and make the collections accessible. Trust and
sharing are the keywords to take a step forward in this direction.
A first step is to motivate museums to start an analytic approach, setting up collection politics, and
analysing collection profiles.
Long-term loans can strengthen collection profiles, support specialisation, help to manage collection
resources as a whole, and they can help to focus on unused parts of the collection that can benefit the
others.
The working group on long-term loans is bound to create a definition and status of long-term loans,
create a recommendation for a fee of long-term loans, provide a toolkit for long term loans (including
standards, contracts and good practise, good practise examples) and promote the benefits of long
term loans.
A draft for the long-term loans will be sent out to the working groups and afterwards to a wider circle
(NEMO) to discuss. The results will be published in English on the website in the course of 2007.
For comments and questions contact: susanna.pettersson@fng.fi
“Mobility of Collections: Building up Trust and Networking. German EU Presidency in 2007
and the role of NEMO”, Mechtild Kronenberg, NEMO Chair
During the German EU Presidency in 2007 there will be a workshop on the topic “Building up trust and
networking” organised by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media and the
German Museums Association in Bremen in May 2007. NEMO will be involved in this workshop.
Within this scope the keywords “trust” and “networking” are to be given attention to. NEMO’s missions
in the different fields of “Trust” are:
- for networks: link networks on a European level and invite chairpersons to establish
continuous cooperation.
- between professionals: expand networking among NEMO members and organise joint
conferences to encourage contacts between European museum professionals
- for long-term partnerships: develop mobility of people programme
- common standards: develop NEMO Standard Loan Agreement, support the EU Working Groups
in developing further instruments, promote best practice examples
- training: collect and spread information on initiatives already existing, select information
relevant to the field of collection mobility, support the development of qualification concerning
collection mobility
- twinning museums: disseminate information on programmes existing and encourage cross
border twinnings.
More information at: www.eu2007.de
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“EU Digital Libraries Initiative”, Monika Hagedorn-Saupe, Institute for Museum Research,
Germany
On 13 November 2006 the Education, Youth and Culture council (EYC) of the European Commission
expressed in Brussels their commitment to work towards the digitisation of cultural material and
thereby contributing to the European Digital Library. Museums have to become more visible for the EU
to be included in their funding programmes, because until now they only have a marginal place in the
supporting. They must get involved in the competence centres of digitisation and must start to
formulate strategies for their participation in the development of such projects. Museums have to
learn from libraries and co-operate with them. This can be a NEMO task: multiply activities, make
them visible and coordinate them.
Saturday 25 November 2006
Time: 10.00-17.00
1. Opening
Mechtild Kronenberg opened the second day of the NEMO Annual meeting and welcomed Birgid
Pudney-Schmidt. Mechtild Kronenberg chaired the meeting.
“NEMO Standard Loan Agreement”, Birgid Pudney-Schmidt, Chair of the German Registrars'
Group, Düsseldorf
In summer 2005 NEMO carried out a survey covering all EU countries collecting approximately 360
questionnaires and around 260 loan contracts, which were examined and evaluated consecutively.
Birgid Pudney-Schmidt reported that the results of the research were presented at the Manchester
meeting of NEMO in November 2005. After six months work a first draft of the loan agreement was
offered at the Collection Mobility Conference in Helsinki in July 2006.
In November 2006 the second draft was presented at the Fifth European Registrars Conference in
Madrid. Many positive comments on the loan agreement were received and a few suggestions for
minor additions, they will be incorporated after this annual meeting in Helsinki.
A non-official translation of the final draft version could help to get more comments from countries,
which haven’t been remarking on the Loan Agreement until now. The NEMO members are asked to
send further national comments on the Loan Agreement.
“NEMO project on the mobility of people”, Margriet de Jong, The Netherland’s Museums
Association
Margriet de Jong presented an outline for a possible NEMO project (M3 “Museums meet Museums”) to
increase the mobility of museum professionals. The objective of the programme is to exchange work
experience, initiate cooperation, and to create understanding of European cultures and opportunities
for the next generation. The transmobility for people working in the cultural sector is one of the main
objectives within the Culture 2007 programme.
To obtain new ideas and different views and experiences from all member countries on the project the
NEMO members were divided into working groups to work on different issues concerning the directions
of the programme. The NEMO members decided to continue the project to apply for EU funding in
2008. For participating in the working group on the programme please contact Margriet de Jong,
Email: mdejong@museumvereniging.nl.
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National reports
Each participant country reported on the most important issues during 2006 in their country. The
reports brought up the following issues of common interest:
- Austria invited the NEMO members to the ICOM 2007 General Conference from 19 – 24
August 2007 in Vienna. Austria also invited to hold the NEMO Annual Meeting in 2009 in Linz,
which will be European Capital of Culture in that year.
- Latvia has invited NEMO to hold the Annual Meeting 2007 in Riga (23 – 25 November).
- Slovenia has invited NEMO to hold the Annual Meeting 2008 in Ljubljana.
- NEMO is also invited to the Museum Advisors conference in Graz, Switzerland, in 2008.
“NEMO: idea, aims and future”, Frank Birkebaek, Roskilde Museum
A short summary on NEMO’s development since its foundation in 1992 was given. In this context the
idea of NEMO getting more visible for the EU by becoming a formal legal body was debated. NEMO
could grow stronger taking more assignments, becoming more political and getting more involved in
the field of coordination of different stakeholders and dissemination of information. Both the informal
and formal structure have advantages and disadvantages. The NEMO members approved a mission
statement for NEMO to be established.
NEMO matters
EU Action plan
At least one NEMO member should be part of each of the working groups of the Action Plan for the EU
Promotion of Museum Collections’ Mobility and Loan Standards. The members of the working groups
can be found on the Finnish website on the topic (www.nba.fi/mobility/groups.htm).
For the working group value, non-insurance, indemnity and insurance a person is still to be found.
Cultural policy – European Commission
- NEMO received the funding for 2006 from the commission at last.
- NEMO has applied for funding from the EU for its operations for 2007.
NEMO-News and website
- The German Museums Association will produce the NEMO-News in Germany in 2006 (Editor:
Malgorzata Binczyk, Co-Editor: Julia Pagel) to reduce costs and safe money for the re-design
and the re-structure of the NEMO-website. It is essential that NEMO members play a part in
producing the NEMO-News – ideas and comments are welcomed. Due to the fact that the EU
funding arrived only in late October 2006 the NEMO-News 2006 will be a double winter issue.
For 2007 two issues are planned.
The NEMO-News should be sent to the EU national representatives from the member states
directly, because they respond better to national matters.
- The new structure of the website was presented during the meeting. As a new category the
website shall contain information, links or pdf-documents for each member country about the
following topics: European cultural politics, European Digital Library, exchange of museum
professionals/exchange programmes, registration, standards, digitisation, statistics, mobility
of collections, education, volunteers, protection of cultural heritage, EU cultural programmes.
The NEMO secretariat will ask the NEMO members to send relevant information and material
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on the topics, when the new website will be re-launched. The member countries are also
asked to send the country reports for 2006.
- The NEMO members also wished the PowerPoint-Presentations of the Annual Meeting’s
speakers to be available on the website for some time. The speakers are asked to send their
presentations to the NEMO secretariat.
NEMO projects and annual meeting 2007
- In order to receive more response from the different countries on the content of the Loan
Agreement NEMO is going to continue the work and coordinate the translations of the draft for
the Loan Agreement. The agreement is planned to be finished by the end of 2007.
- The NEMO Executive will meet in Brussels and the Annual Meeting will be organised from 23-
25 November 2007 in Riga, Latvia.
Meeting closed at 17.00
Minutes: Julia Pagel
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