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Call for Papers |
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New Roles and Missions of Museums
The International Committee on Management of ICOM (INTERCOM), Taiwan Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA www.culture.tw) and the Chinese Association of Museums in Taipei (CAM, R.O.C. www.cam.org.tw) are co-organizing INTERCOM 2006 annual meeting and conference in Taipei under the heading The New Roles and Missions of Museums.
We are interested in contributions corresponding to the themes as follows:
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1.A New Social Relevance V Human vs. Economic Values |
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Nowadays museums are under great pressure to be more relevant to wider audiences. Museums are not only for elite any more, and it's their new task to develop relationships with local communities. While museums are often considered as valuable touring destinations, phenomenon like this has enormous impact on the management of museums, such as funding, programming and staff training, and may not sit easily alongside the social value of museums. Related issues include:
- relationships between museums and their stakeholders, i.e., the sponsor, communities, the public, etc.
- cultural tourism
- creative industry
- audience development, etc.
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2. Local, regional and national identity
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Museums are now playing some important roles in the development of identity. These roles may be quite distinct and not compatible. They could be rescuers and also transmitters. Therefore they are under more strict scrutiny of politicians as well as the public at large. Related issues include:
- museum leadership
- organizational identity
- professional identity
- regional museum, etc.
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3.Different Types of Roles for Museums
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Every museum is unique. They may have similarities in their functions, and differences in other ways. For example, a small local museum does not fulfill the same function as a large national museum. An art museum can't equal to a science museum. As some museums locate in city centres, others might be quite remote and rural. Some rely more on collections than others. Some have more autonomy than others. All these differences mean that the museum profession should include wit, flexibility, and intelligence of dealing all possibilities in each kind of situation. Related issues include:
- resources and management
- strategy and marketing
- decision making, etc.
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4.International Activity |
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As the world is shrinking to a small one, it's a new task for museums to present different cultures. And there is a great need for international exchanging of ideas and experiences between museums. Related issues include:
- globalization
- localization
- cooperation
- competition, etc.
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Addressing These New Challenges: What Role for Central/Local Governments? |
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There has been great change of museum management. And the staff needs to adapt to it, so is the management policy which should take care of the complex process to achieve the success of tuning. Related issues include:
- culture policy
- nature and mission of the museum
- financial pressure
- diversity of the public, etc.
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Many thanks to Dr. David Fleming for having created the provocative statements above, which may inspire INTERCOM members and museum professionals for the annual meeting 2006 in Taipei .
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