Museums Aotearoa

Last Friday around 70 ‘GLAMorous’ folk from around the country gathered in Wellington to discuss the future.  Actually, the standard of dress wasn’t the topic – it was the history and future of collaborations across and between Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. The scene was set by Eric Ketelaar, Emeritus Professor of Archivistics at the University of Amsterdam, who discussed perspectives on collecting and making meaning of collected objects. He sees both similarities and differences in the various GLAM perspectives, which mediate meaning for the user in their own ways. Other speakers included:

• Conal McCarthy, VUW – ‘practice theory’
• Chris Szekely, Alexander Turnbull Library – ATL’s role as archive, library and exhibitor of mātauranga Māori, and the possibilities of a ‘GLAMāorious’ future
• Rebecca Rice, Te Papa – historical fluidity and competitive collecting between national institutions
• Brenda Chawner, VUW and Katherine Howard, QUT – shifts in focus from librarianship to information management, the development of core curriculum, and convergence in education for GLAM professionals
• Shannon Wellington (VUW), Virginia Gow (MCH) and Mark Crookston (ATL) – discussion on building GLAMour through built, digital and organisational infrastructure

The day ended with a lively panel discussion in which National Librarian Bill Macnaught, Chief Archivist Greg Goulding, museum consultant Ken Gorbey and Eric Ketelaar agreed that each different strand of GLAM has something to contribute, while not going quite as far as merging. It seems that ‘convergence’ may not be as useful a concept as ‘synergy’ and ‘harmonisation’.

According to Scoop, New Zealand will host 121 cruises in the 2013-14 season. Cruise NZ forecasts the season will generate $311 million and account for 5361 jobs. Their website has information on what ships will be where – we hope that the cruisers will enjoy visiting our museums and galleries.

As a follow up to Andrew Matheson’s post about his tour of the ‘Western Front’, he has a request from Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917:

New Zealand friends in Belgium
In a recent guest blog I gave a brief introduction to four First World War museums on the ‘Western Front’, two in France and two in Belgium.  They’re all aware of the service and sacrifice of New Zealanders in their localities in that war, but none more so that the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917.  The museum is planning to take a travelling exhibition to Canada, Australia and New Zealand in 2015, 2016 and 2017 and is after help in two areas — provision of New Zealand content for the exhibition, and supporting/hosting the travelling exhibition in 2017.  If you’re interested, please contact the chairman of the Passchendaele 1917 society, Freddy Declerk.
Andrew Matheson, Director, First World War Centenary programme

The Emerging Professions group (EMPs) has been rapidly growing and various regions have been organising meet-ups. The Christchurch group is meeting 5.30pm, Wednesday 11 September at CBD Bar (http://www.cbdbar.co.nz/), 208 Madras Street and the Wellington group will be meeting Thursday 26 September – 6pm at The Library on Courtenay Place. Feel free to come along if you identify as an ’emerging museum professional’ or email Michelle Sim if you would like to know more about the group MICHELLE.SIM@nzdf.mil.nz.There are many useful and interesting events coming up before the end of this year. We hope to talk to many of you at MA’s regional meetings – your opportunity to meet colleagues as well as MA staff and Board members and have your say in our activities. There will also be the first conference for ICOM New Zealand members in Dunedin, a Talkfest at Objectspace, Tītiro Whakamua Kaitiaki hui in Hawke’s Bay, and Middle Earth Curators’ Hui in Palmerston North. See these and other happenings listed below.And the NDF 2013 conference is less than 3 months away, just before the pre-Christmas rush.  NDF is always inspirational as well as fun. This year MA offered to sponsor the mini-programme to help the conference budget.  However, that was already ‘sold’ so we have ended up sponsoring icecream – come along and enjoy!

Ngā mihi

Phillipa and Talei

PS – a reminder that we want your to hear ideas for MA14. Please send them to us by 23 September, just after the re-opening weekend of hosts MTG Hawke’s Bay – they’ll be looking for something new to work on!