Do you work with university museums and collections anywhere in the world? Then help us complete the first ever Global Systematic Survey of professionals.
It’s anonymous and it should take no more than 10 min to answer.
The results will be published in a book in 2022.
The survey is part of the project P-MUS, involving ICOM-UMAC, ICOM-ICTOP, Universeum (Europe) and the AAMG (USA).
Our friends at the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries have released their Call for Proposals for the AAMG 2020 Annual Conference to take place next June at the University of Kansas. This year’s theme is Risk & Bravery: Action and Response in the Academic Museum. They invite you to submit through their online portal.
Submission Deadline: January 6, 2020
Who works in university museums and collections worldwide? What are the expectations of professionals? How do they divide their time? What is their background training? Do they like their work or would they prefer to work elsewhere?
ICOM-UMAC wants to know the answers to these questions.
If you work — formally or informally, active or retired — in a higher education museum or collection anywhere in the world, we would be grateful if you could spare 10 minutes of your time to answer our Global Systematic Survey. The results will be published in a book in 2022.
The survey is part of the project P-MUS, involving ICOM-UMAC, ICOM-ICTOP, Universeum (Europe) and the AAMG (USA).
UMAC is delighted to announce that the I Meeting of University Museums from Western China took place in Chengdu, last July 19.
The I Meeting was hosted by the Electronic Science and Technology Museum of the University of Electronic Science and Technology (UESTC). University museum directors of all disciplines in the arts, sciences and humanities attended, presented their museums and committed to continue to work together in the future.
Congratulations to this very new regional network of university museums!
Last week, on International Museum Day — 18 May 2019 — the Cuban community of university museums and collections came together and created a national network.
The Network of Cuban University Museums will be led by the Heritage Unit of the University of Havana, under the chairmanship of Professor Claudia Filipe.
UMAC is delighted and entirely supports this initiative. There should be even more local and national networks of university museums and collections. See here the ones we know about.
Congratulations to our Cuban colleagues!
Last week, university museum professionals from all over China gathered at the Qian Xuesen Library and Museum, Shanghai Jiao Tong University for another edition of the UMTWS.
This year, the course counted with the presence of Marta Lourenço (UMAC Chair), Jill Hartz (President Emeritus of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries USA), Sébastien Soubiran (President of Universeum, the European Academic Heritage Network) and Andrew Simpson (UMAC Board). Moreover, from China, and apart from Laishun AN (Vice-President of ICOM), high officials from the cultural sector attended, namely Qiang GUAN and Xiaobo CHU, respectively responsible for the cultural heritage of China and Shanghai.
Kai Zhang and Hu Hao were our kind hosts at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
UMAC and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have agreed to continue their partnership, diversifying the training offer to suit different types of professionals and creating new initiatives to promote university museums in China.
Today, UMAC and the Qian Xuesen Library and Museum of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, have publicly agreed to take their partnership to a more substantial level.
Here are some of the changes:
The agreement was made after the opening session of the UMTWS 2019, and counted with the presence of An Laishun, Vice-President of ICOM; Guan Qiang, Vice-President of the National Cultural Heritage of China; and Hu Hao, Member of the SJTU University Council, among others.
ICOM is promoting a debate about the museum definition. The current museum definition dates from the 1970s (with changes introduced at the 2007 General Assembly in Seoul). Fifty years have meanwhile passed and ICOM is compiling contributions from museum professionals all over the world.
The importance of the ICOM’s museum definition should not be underestimated. Governments, accreditation agencies, among others, in many countries, derive national legislation, regulation and standards for the museum sector from the definition.
When the debate opened, we made an announcement here and we strongly encourage UMAC members to participate. More than 150 proposals from all continents can be read here.
UMAC wants to contribute:
Is there anything we can — and should — contribute as a collective? Does the current museum definition reflect the needs and aspirations of university museums and collections? What should we add? What is our agenda, if any?
Please send your views to Marta Lourenço, or leave your comment below before the end of April.
The current ICOM Museum Definition is:
The museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.
Today, c. 20 managers of university museums in Indonesia are meeting at the Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, in Jakarta, for the First National Colloquium of University Museums.
UMAC strongly encourages this Colloqium and wishes fruitful discussions — perhaps even a national network? — to Indonesian university museums.
Transfer is not a particularly new concept. In the past, it referred to the implementation of economically relevant or application-oriented research findings. Nowadays the term has taken on a broader meaning. In a position paper published by the Wissenschaftsrat (German Council of Science and Humanities) in 2016, “transfer” is defined as the conveyance of scientific and technological knowledge into society, culture and politics in the context of various activities.
Accordingly, the Wissenschaftsrat classifies science communication as a transfer activity and explicitly designates exhibitions as a potential transfer medium. This is by no means surprising as museums have been important institutions for the public re-presentation of scientific study and discoveries since the 19th century. However, the Wissenschaftsrat holds a critical view of the traditional concepts of popularisation and knowledge transfer because, by its nature, transfer is not one-directional, but rather a mutual relationship based on exchange and can only succeed if the content and methods correspond to the needs and expectations of the public.
The question of how to form such asymmetrical relationships has been the subject of intensive discussion at least since the literary scholar Mary Lou Pratt coined the term “contact zones” in 1991. New variants of the concept, such as “trading zones” (Galison, 1997) and “transaction spaces” (Nowotny/Scott/Gibbons, 2004), indicate that the academic community has come to a new understanding of science and its transfer relationships. Under this expanded definition of transfer, the focus has also shifted to less frequently considered aspects of university collections and the services they provide, e.g. consultation and advice, translation services and collaborative research activities.
University collections are especially conducive for testing experimental forms of object-oriented transfer. Because of their unique character, university collections can pursue very different paths than, for example, traditional museums. Collaborating with other “transfer specialists” at universities can produce promising results, be it in relation to subject-specific didactics, transfer centres or science communication departments within the faculties. With this in mind, the conference aims to highlight the performance potential of university collections for scientific transfer both within and outside the university.
At the 11th Collection Conference, hosted by the University of Münster and the University Collections Association (GfU) from 11th to 13th of July 2019, participants will discuss how and to what extent scientific collections can contribute to university transfer activities. What forms of transfer activities are conceivable? What might a successful bi- or multi-directional transfer look like? What processes of change could be set in motion by focusing on transfer in and for the collection – as well as within the university?
For the upcoming conference, we are interested in theoretical-reflective papers and praxis-based contributions. The following formats are planned:
The conference will focus on:
regarding the transfer zone COLLECTIONS | PUBLIC SPHERE
• locations and media of transfer
• mobile transfer formats
• re-presentation of pathways to knowledge
• models for bi- and multi-directional transfer
• collections and application-oriented research
regarding the transfer zone COLLECTIONS | UNIVERSITY
• collaboration with particular disciplines, science research, science communication and subject-specific didactics
• positioning collections within university transfer strategies
The length of the presentations should not exceed 20 minutes.
The workshops should offer participants and especially the curators of university collections the opportunity to share praxis-oriented expertise and experience. Possible themes include:
• transfer formats, analogue and digital,
• new developments in provenience research and its funding
• technical and conservational issues
Further suggestions for workshops on the conference theme “transfer zones” are welcome.
Participants may also submit individual wishes for the workshop section.
The workshops can have a duration of one or two double periods.
A poster session will offer the possibility to present and discuss current projects and the latest research findings.
The University Collections Association (GfU) will award six grants of a max. 200 euros each to offset the cost of travel and accommodation expenses for doctoral candidates who provide a substantial contribution to the conference (presentation, workshop, poster). Please submit an informal application to the treasurer of the GfU, Prof Dr Cornelia Weber.
Conference languages are German and English.
Please send your presentation, workshop proposal (max. 1,500 characters) or poster proposal (max 750 characters) together with a short CV by email no later than March 15th, 2019 to the following address:
Dr Eckhard Kluth, Central Curator
Central Curatorial Department of the University of Münster
Email sammlungstagung@uni-muenster.de
Conference website here.
