Taylor calls on EU to improve collections mobility
Geraldine Kendall, 08.06.2010
MA director addresses Brussels on behalf of European museum organisations
MA director Mark Taylor has told the Culture and Education Committee of the European Parliament that the EU must work harder to prevent objects being confined to one country by inconsistent regulations.
Taylor was speaking in Brussels on behalf of the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO), an independent network of museums associations representing over 30,000 museums across Europe.
Taylor told the committee that progress on collections mobility had been “slow but steady” in the three years since the establishment of the European standard loan agreement and the publication of the Bremen Declaration on collections mobility.
Taylor stressed that the EU must continue to build on these initiatives. He said: “The greatest step forward would be indemnity by national governments for all museum collections across Europe.”
Taylor went on to speak about digitisation, saying that although NEMO supported projects such as Europeana, a multi-lingual online database containing details of thousands of cultural collections, digitisation was “not a substitute for the real thing”.
He added that smaller museums would need more help digitising their collections and also called for a Europe-wide agreement to help copyright-holders and museums overcome intellectual property issues.
Taylor also raised a number of other NEMO objectives. He said that an EU priority to better enable museum professionals from different countries to work together had not so far been successful and warned that this meant other initiatives could soon become unsustainable.
As well as that, Taylor emphasised to the committee that museums should be included in across-the-board discussions on lifelong learning. NEMO is running a conference in Copenhagen this September on museums and adult educators.
After the presentation, Taylor said: “It was certainly a boost for NEMO and museums that we were able to address the parliament directly.
“Although Brussels often seems remote, there are considerable lines of funding that museums can utilise and, as the politicians crave more for a sense of common culture and history, museums could and should move centre stage.”
IMAGE: European Parliament/Audiovisual Unit
Click here to download Taylor's presentation (word)
www.ne-mo.org
Taylor was speaking in Brussels on behalf of the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO), an independent network of museums associations representing over 30,000 museums across Europe.
Taylor told the committee that progress on collections mobility had been “slow but steady” in the three years since the establishment of the European standard loan agreement and the publication of the Bremen Declaration on collections mobility.
Taylor stressed that the EU must continue to build on these initiatives. He said: “The greatest step forward would be indemnity by national governments for all museum collections across Europe.”
Taylor went on to speak about digitisation, saying that although NEMO supported projects such as Europeana, a multi-lingual online database containing details of thousands of cultural collections, digitisation was “not a substitute for the real thing”.
He added that smaller museums would need more help digitising their collections and also called for a Europe-wide agreement to help copyright-holders and museums overcome intellectual property issues.
Taylor also raised a number of other NEMO objectives. He said that an EU priority to better enable museum professionals from different countries to work together had not so far been successful and warned that this meant other initiatives could soon become unsustainable.
As well as that, Taylor emphasised to the committee that museums should be included in across-the-board discussions on lifelong learning. NEMO is running a conference in Copenhagen this September on museums and adult educators.
After the presentation, Taylor said: “It was certainly a boost for NEMO and museums that we were able to address the parliament directly.
“Although Brussels often seems remote, there are considerable lines of funding that museums can utilise and, as the politicians crave more for a sense of common culture and history, museums could and should move centre stage.”
IMAGE: European Parliament/Audiovisual Unit
Links
Click here to download Taylor's presentation (word)
www.ne-mo.org
