Minutes of the 45th meeting of the Museum Council, January 12, 2006, 11:30-13:00,
National Gallery of Iceland, Laufásvegur 12, 101 Reykjavík
Present were: Ólafur Kvaran, Margrét Hallgrímsdóttir, Karl Rúnar Þórsson, Sveinn Kristinsson and Rakel Halldórsdóttir. Jón Gunnar Ottósson announced his absence.
1. The minutes of the 44th meeting were approved and signed.
Report of the Managing Director. The CEO reported on activities since the last meeting. Meeting schedule 2006: It will probably be necessary to move the allocation meeting at the end of January to the beginning of February. The conference in Oslo will probably be attended by the chairman and the managing director. No other comments were received on the 2006 meeting schedule. Improvements to the Museums Council website: Extensive changes are currently underway to the Museum Council's website, which include the website being moved to a ready-made web development environment designed by the company EC Software. The changes were approved. European Museum Forum: The Managing Director was appointed National Correspondent of the European Museum Forum in Iceland by the association's board in December 2005. The duties that come with the title are, in particular, to a) provide the organization with information on developments in museum affairs in Iceland, b) assist judges from the association who come to the country to judge nominated museums, c) disseminate information in Iceland about the activities of the EMF and the association's competition "European Museum of the Year".
2. Service Agreement 2006 and Operating Plan 2006. A service agreement for the rental of the Museums Council's office for facilities and services in the National Gallery of Iceland has been concluded for 2006. The agreement is comparable to the agreement from 2005, except that it involves a 10% increase in rental fees. The rental fees had remained unchanged for a period of 3 years. The operating budget for 2006 is 8.6 million, which is therefore 1 million. ISK lower than in 2005. Some publication is expected during the year and the chairman recommended that the council examine the publications of ABM-utvikling in Norway, as the institution has published various guiding information brochures on the various aspects of museum operations. The Managing Director familiarized himself with the institution's publications during his trip there in the autumn of 2005 and explored the possibility of having certain publications translated into Icelandic and published. The importance of the central libraries coming up with such a publication in collaboration with the Museum Council was discussed. It was agreed to examine this further and the Chair was tasked with making an assessment of ABM-utvikling publications. One symposium is planned for 2006 and the chairman proposed that the educational role of museums be continued but that the subject matter be narrowed and discussed, for example, the nature and development of collaboration and connections between schools and museums. It was agreed to examine this proposal further and the Chair was tasked with making a proposal for a symposium. The 2006 operating plan was approved.
3. Applications 2006 – criteria and method. 65 parties applied for grants to the Museum Fund in 2006. The 2006 budget includes 83.7 million granted to the fund or 17.7 million higher than in 2005. Considering 8.6 million kr. costs of the Museum Council/Museum Fund's activities, 75.1 million kr. are therefore available for grants. 76 project grants were applied for, totaling 76,680,000 kr. In addition, 52 museums applied for operating grants. In 2005, 42 million kr. (76.71% of the total allocation) was spent on operating grants and 12.74 million kr. (23.271% of the total allocation) was spent on project grants. It was decided to increase the proportion of operating grants to the total allocation slightly. Regarding operating grants, it was decided to classify museums into 3 categories according to their operational scope, as was done in the 2005 allocation. Those institutions where two or more recognized museums operate under the same institution will also receive 1.5 operating grants according to the scope category the institution falls into. The Director General was instructed to make a proposal for grants accordingly.
4. Next meeting and other matters. The next meeting according to the meeting schedule is January 19th. No other matters were discussed.
There was no further discussion and the meeting adjourned at 1:00 PM/RH.