April 12, 2016 at: 12:00-14:00
in a meeting room on the 5th floor of the National Museum of Iceland
Present: Ólafur Kvaran, Chairman, Anna Sigríður Kristjánsdóttir, Guðbrandur Benediktsson, Haraldur Þór Egilsson, Sigríður Björk Jónsdóttir, Halldór Björn Runólfsson, Hilmar J. Malmquist, Margrét Hallgrímsdóttir and Þóra Björk Ólafsdóttir, Managing Director.
1. Presentation case
1.1. Summary of activities since the last meeting.
1.2. The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture's draft of new allocation rules for the Museum Fund. The main changes from the current allocation rules are explained and drafts of new procedures are presented. The procedures will be further developed and further drafts will be presented at the council meeting next May.
1.3. Next fall, the Museum Council will hold a symposium on museums and tourism, and the Museum Council decided to establish a working group for the symposium. The working group will include Sif Jóhannesdóttir, director of the Þingeyinga Cultural Center, Kristjana Rós Guðjohnsen, project manager in the field of tourism and creative industries at Íslandsstofa, and one person is unnamed. A draft of the working group's proposal for the symposium should be ready for the June meeting of the Museum Council.
1.4. A report on museums and tourism was sent to six stakeholders for comment, the Association of Icelandic Local Authorities, the Icelandic Tourist Board, the Icelandic Museum of History, the National Museum of Iceland, the National Gallery of Iceland and the Natural History Museum of Iceland. Four parties have submitted comments and a comment from one more party is expected and they were presented to the Museum Council. It was agreed to send the comments to the Centre for Research in Museum Studies, which prepared the report for the Museum Council, and responses will be requested to the criticisms expressed in the comments.
1.5. The Museum Council's working group's draft proposal for a mechanism for selecting responsible museums was sent to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science last year, and the ministry is reviewing the draft.
1.6. The Museum Council's proposal for the council's strategy, which was submitted to the Ministry of Education and Culture for comment last year, has been submitted.
2. Matters for decision
2.1. Request from Sagnheimar for a postponement of the use of the project grant approved, but request for a change in the use of the grant rejected.
2.2. The Museum Council agreed to terminate the contract with the current service provider on the Museum Council's website and move to cheaper solutions, in addition to moving all submissions to the Museum Council to a special form system. It was agreed to continue working on this transaction and to seek bids for systems that would be suitable.
2.3. The Museum Council agreed to cover the cost of publishing a handbook on the preservation of museum collections as an e-book to make it easier for collectors to use the material and search the book. The cost of the project is the purchase of a program for the work as well as the cost of conversion, and this cost will be taken from the funds estimated for the Museum Council's supervision. The Museum Council agrees to purchase the program and seek bids for conversion for the book.
3. Other issues
Other issues not discussed.
Meeting adjourned 14:10/ÞBÓ