Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at: 12:00-14:00
in a meeting room on the 6th 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. Presentation of part b) of the Museum Council's inspection of recognized museums: Inspection of the museum's building, museum facilities, preservation of artifacts and security issues. This is followed by a museum form and an on-site inspection of curators. 16 museums have been notified of the inspection and the deadline for responses is September 30 for 6 museums and November 30 for 10 museums. The inspection process and the work of the curators who are working on the project for the Museum Council and in collaboration with the National Museum of Iceland were reviewed.
1.3. Presentation of the Museum Council's new application system, which will open in the coming days on the web management system eydublod.safnarad.is, the council was shown the system's possibilities and functionality. It was shown how to apply for Project grants will look like and also Annual report of museums, whose return will open in the coming days.
2. Matters for decision
2.1. Three applications for museum recognition were received, two before the deadline of August 31st and one a week after the deadline. The museum requested that its application be considered in 2016 on the grounds that the museum did not receive the necessary application documents from the auditor until after the deadline.
The Museum Council approved the request.
2.2. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has approved the request of the Museum Council that a smaller allocation from the Museum Fund be made in the autumn to recognized museums, which would initially be intended for lifelong learning grants to strengthen the professional work of the museums. The total amount of the allocation and the total number of grants will depend on the circumstances at each time. In this second allocation, the application process would be shorter than the main allocation of the year, so that the allocation would be achieved before the end of the year. This time, each grant would be a maximum of 250,000 krónur. and the total allocation would be about two and a half million krónur.
The Museum Council agreed to advertise for applications for continuing education grants in the coming weeks.
2.3. The Museum Council agreed that the application deadline for the 2017 Museum Fund would be December 1st and that the timeline for making proposals would be moved accordingly. The rationale is that at the turn of the year, a new Museum Council will take over from the current Museum Council and the responsibility for making proposals for allocations from the Museum Fund will fall to the new Council. In light of the fact that according to Article 1 of the Museum Fund's procedural rules, the aim is that the processing time for grant applications from the application deadline will be a maximum of 3 months.
In light of this, the Museum Council agreed to move the application deadline to December 1st.
2.4. The text of the advertisement for applications to the museum fund in 2017 was presented. Advertisements will be published in the traditional manner as in previous years. The Museum Council approved the text of the advertisement.
3. Other issues
Hilmar Malmquist raised the issue of the need for central museums to provide comments on applications for recognition of museums that fall within their area of expertise. The Museum Council's terms of reference for the recognition of museums state in sections ii-iv of section d) of Article 4 that a museum shall operate in accordance with the Museum Council's terms of reference for professional activities (pursuant to Articles 3 and 14 of the Museums Act): i) Registration: A museum shall follow the central museum's guidelines for registration, iii) Preservation: A museum shall follow the central museum's guidelines for preservation and preventive care, and iv) A museum shall submit to the central museum a policy statement on its activities every four years. In light of these terms, arguments are made for the central museum to provide comments on these aspects of the activities of the museum applying for recognition.
The Museum Council agreed to send museum applications for recognition to the relevant head museum for review.
Meeting adjourned 14:00 / ÞBÓ