148th Museum Council Meeting

February 23, 2016 at: 12:00-14:00
in a meeting room on the 6th floor of the National Museum of Iceland

Present: Ólafur Kvaran, Chairman, Guðbrandur Benediktsson, Haraldur Þór Egilsson (via telephone), Sigríður Björk Jónsdóttir, Halldór Björn Runólfsson, Hilmar J. Malmquist, Margrét Hallgrímsdóttir and Þóra Björk Ólafsdóttir, Managing Director. Absent: Anna Sigríður Kristjánsdóttir.

Approval and signing of the minutes of the 147th meeting of the Museum Council.

Presentation case

  1. Summary of activities since the last meeting
  2. Response from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture regarding an inquiry from the Sarps Management Company regarding the use of information on annual manpower received from museums by the Museum Council. The Museum Council is authorized to provide the management company with the requested data.
  3. The status of the project on a working group on responsible collections was presented.

Matter for decision

  1. The Museum Council's supervisory role – the Museum Council has benefited from the assistance of the National Museum of Iceland in preparing for the inspection and the project's work process was presented to the meeting. Work on that aspect will continue, and the Executive Director will explore how the educational component of the inspection can be supported with additional information on the Council's website.
  2. Budget 2016 approved (subject to approval by MMRN)
  3. Work plan 2016 approved
  4. The Museum Council instructs the Executive Director to request collaboration with Statistics Iceland regarding data collection on museum issues with the aim of improving the usability of the data that Statistics Iceland collects for stakeholders.
  5. Discussion on a focus group for a report on museums and tourism, the focus group's terms of reference will be discussed at the next council meeting.

Other issues

Margrét Hallgrímsdóttir, National Museum Curator, presented to the meeting the status of the proposed merger of the National Museum of Iceland and the Icelandic Antiquities Authority into a single institution, the National Museum of Iceland.

Meeting adjourned 14:15/ÞBÓ