Exhibitions and museums offer European citizens an insight into the common as well as the specific cultural and historical traditions of European nations, regions and communities. Sharing our rich European heritage is of great importance to the European idea and stimulates European intercultural dialogue. Therefore, we should enhance the right of European citizens to access common cultural heritage by improving the mobility of our collections and by increasing the borrowing and lending of cultural objects between member states.
The subject of increasing the mobility of collections has been on the common EU cultural agenda since the Greek presidency in 2003 and has been addressed in a number of conferences held in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland and Germany. In 2005, the expert report Lending to Europe was published. The report identified obstacles for exchange of cultural moveable heritage between the member states of the European Union. The report and the conferences resulted in The Action Plan for the EU Promotion of Museum Collections’ Mobility and Loan Standards (2006). In 2006, during the Finnish Presidency, working groups were set up to produce standard documents and proposals relating to specific areas of interest. In 2009, the European Commission set up an ns is an “Open Method of Coordination” Committee on Collections Mobility which produced its final report in June 2010. Thus, progress has already been made and collections mobility has gained already some momentum. However, the results still need to be worked on and information has to be disseminated in the heritage and museum community.
The purpose of the project "Collections Mobility 2.0-Lending for Europe 21st c." is to point the way forward and ensure that increased collections mobility is implemented and becomes part of the daily museum practice. This will be achieved through the development of an innovative training package which will cover all aspects of lending and borrowing amongst museums. To support this, a handbook and a web portal will be established focusing on best practice in areas such as contracts, transport, packing, security, indemnity, insurance, valuation etc.
Training programme
To make the European moveable cultural heritage more widely accessible to a larger audience, the project "Collections Mobility 2.0" aims to implement the progress made so far into the daily practice of heritage institutions and museums. In order to do so a training package will be developed covering best standards and practices on lending and borrowing. The training package will be made available to each member state by a ‘train the trainers’ principle: the project Collections Mobility provides three three-day expert courses that will cover subjects like: insurance, legislation, indemnity, long term loans, standards, safety and environmental conditions. The courses are open to delegates of every country. After the course each delegate will be able to implement the training programme in their own country, using the training package. The spreading of the courses will of course be carried out in close cooperation with national museums associations, supported by NEMO.
Digital platform
A digital portal on Collections Mobility will be operated in order to sustain the information in the training package, to provide up-to-date information to all professionals in the field and to provide a platform to all those professionals for the exchange information. The website will provide relevant documents and guidelines to be used in the training. The website will also serve as a digital library and will be updated regulary.
Handbook on collections mobility
Besides the training package and the digital platform, a less volatile theoretic frame work is needed to create more awareness, discuss the challenges of collections mobility and stress the benefits that improving collections mobility will bring. The aim of the publication is to discuss the paradigm change related to the mobility of museum collections and the evolution of collecting practises. What will be the future of collections? What should we know today in order to answer tomorrow’s challenges? How will the collection strategies look like, what will be the basis for them? The handbook will serve as a theoretical basis for the training.The articles feature the topic from many perspectives: museology, history, sociology, law and art history among others. Thus, it will be a vital tool for every museum that is conscious of the need to develop alternative collection strategies.
Funding
European Commission, Erfgoed Nederland (The Netherlands Institute For Heritage) (The Netherlands), Fine Arts Museum, Budapest (Hungary), Spanish Ministry Of Culture (Spain), Hellenic Ministry Of Culture & Tourism (Greece), Finnish National Gallery (Finland), Romanian Ministry Of Culture & Religious Affairs (Romania), Ministry Of Culture, Youth, Sports & Media Of The Flemish Community (Belgium), Department Of Culture, Media And Sport (United Kingdom), State Museums Of Berlin-Institute For Museum Research (Germany)
