European ministers have backed a call for measures to make lending easier between museums across the European Union (EU). A report released in May, by a group of ten independent experts for the European Council of Ministers, set a range of recommendations 'to encourage collections mobility'.
Lending to Europe recommended that all member states follow the example of Britain, and a few other countries, in creating the position of museum registrar to manage the practical side of moving objects. The British Standard Facilities Report formula was cited as an example of best practice for assessing loan requests.
It also recommended that EU governments let their public museums insure their collections for far less than their market value, to prevent rising insurance premiums crippling exhibition budgets.
Museums loaning and borrowing items could agree to waive certain risks, and governments could indemnify museums for damage sustained during international exhibitions and long-term loans.
It called for loaned objects across the EU to be protected from seizure. Other parts of the report deal with long-term loans, waiving copyright, and digitisation of collections.
Britain will play a role in the drive for Europe-wide standards on lending when it takes over the EU presidency for the second half of 2005.
Nigel Pittman, the head of the Museums and Cultural Property Division at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said government representatives and museum professionals from all EU countries would be invited to a conference in Manchester in November to 'prepare an action plan'. This will then be put before all member states during the second half of 2006.
'Bilateral relations between EU museums tend to be only between big museums and focus on art exhibitions. The report highlights that it is desirable to extend those,' he said.
The experts recommended that the Network of European Museum Organisations (Nemo) draw up a set of EU-wide guidelines. Anja-Tuulikki Huovinen, the chairwoman of Nemo, told Museums Journal that questionnaires would be sent to all Nemo members to collect examples of the best existing international loan agreements and findings would be presented at a meeting in Manchester in November.
Nemo will then draw up guidelines by next January, which it will send to the group of experts appointed by the European Council of Ministers to report on collections mobility, and to the European Commission, which will be responsible for adopting the standards.
'We are not aiming [to produce] a very complicated paper - only minimum standards which are acceptable in all our member countries,' she said.
www.museumcollectionsonthemove.org/indexen.html
Roland Lloyd Parry
Lending to Europe recommended that all member states follow the example of Britain, and a few other countries, in creating the position of museum registrar to manage the practical side of moving objects. The British Standard Facilities Report formula was cited as an example of best practice for assessing loan requests.
It also recommended that EU governments let their public museums insure their collections for far less than their market value, to prevent rising insurance premiums crippling exhibition budgets.
Museums loaning and borrowing items could agree to waive certain risks, and governments could indemnify museums for damage sustained during international exhibitions and long-term loans.
It called for loaned objects across the EU to be protected from seizure. Other parts of the report deal with long-term loans, waiving copyright, and digitisation of collections.
Britain will play a role in the drive for Europe-wide standards on lending when it takes over the EU presidency for the second half of 2005.
Nigel Pittman, the head of the Museums and Cultural Property Division at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said government representatives and museum professionals from all EU countries would be invited to a conference in Manchester in November to 'prepare an action plan'. This will then be put before all member states during the second half of 2006.
'Bilateral relations between EU museums tend to be only between big museums and focus on art exhibitions. The report highlights that it is desirable to extend those,' he said.
The experts recommended that the Network of European Museum Organisations (Nemo) draw up a set of EU-wide guidelines. Anja-Tuulikki Huovinen, the chairwoman of Nemo, told Museums Journal that questionnaires would be sent to all Nemo members to collect examples of the best existing international loan agreements and findings would be presented at a meeting in Manchester in November.
Nemo will then draw up guidelines by next January, which it will send to the group of experts appointed by the European Council of Ministers to report on collections mobility, and to the European Commission, which will be responsible for adopting the standards.
'We are not aiming [to produce] a very complicated paper - only minimum standards which are acceptable in all our member countries,' she said.
www.museumcollectionsonthemove.org/indexen.html
Roland Lloyd Parry
