results. It offers a sort of picture of the project’s life, from the birth up to
today. And the fourth chapter is a thorough examination of one of these
applications, EMYA. This one is, in fact, the application developed with
the cooperation of EMF.
The fifth chapter explains shortly the EMF experience in the BRICKS
project, giving a description of the Forum’s goals, of its activities in the
project and of the expected benefits thanks to the online application.
Finally, the sixth chapter is dedicated to a collection of critical notes
about the project, inspired by who is writing experience in BRICKS and
enriched by Dr Massimo Negri, Dr Francesco Nucci and Dr Maria Cristina
Vannini’s suggestions. The method utilised for the critical notes’
presentation is the S.W.O.T. analysis.
Before starting, I would like to express my thanks to everybody who
helped me providing materials and answering my various questions. First of
all, I have to thank my tutor, Dr Massimo Negri, for having given me the
opportunity of entering the project and for the trust granted to me. Many
thanks also to Dr Maria Cristina Vannini, for the patience and for the
constant support. Many thanks to Engineering Spa, for the help to clear
technological aspects which would be very difficult for me to understand
and in particular to Dr Luigi Briguglio and Dr Francesco Nucci. Thanks
also to Metaware for the information about BRICKS members. Finally, I
would like to remember two important persons, Miss Ann Nichols, EMF
Administrator and Dr Wim van der Weiden, EMF Chairman, for having
been so kind with me and having helped me understanding EMF
management and structure.
15
1. The European Museum Forum
EMF has been operating in the museum field for 30 years. Before
describing the Forum it could be very useful to outline the European
museums panorama of today, in order to understand the situation the
Forum has to confront itself. At this aim we will report some interesting
figures
1
to draw a sort of picture of the European museums diversity,
diversity with which EMF has to face every day.
The first interesting series of data, reported below, is related to the total
number of museums of a country and the typology of these museums. We
selected some countries to illustrated individual European situations.
COUNTRY TOT N°
OF
MUSEUMS
ART AND
ARCHAEOLOGICAL
MUSEUMS
TECHNOLOGY
AND
ETHNOGRAPHY
MUSEUMS
OTHERS
ITALY 3.790 1.915 787 1.088
FRANCE 1.300 350 300 650
NORWAY 274 200 14 60
1
Data taken from EGMUS, European Group for Museum Statistics, A guide to European Museum
Statistics, Berlin, 2003
16
Graphically, the different countries situations are the following:
0
500
1000
1500
2000
ITALY FRANCE NORWAY
Museums typologies
ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY
OTHERS
Figure 1: Museums typologies in Italy, France, Norway and Germany
As easily understandable from the image reported above there, the
general situation is the following: the number of Art and Archaeology
museums is generally more elevated than the other categories. The France
situation is interesting because the number of art museums is quite the same
of technological and ethnographical ones. In Norway, the quite totality of
the museums are Art and Archaeological.
Another meaningful series of data is that regarding the staff composition.
This information in very important to understand the management typology
of the European museums. Also in this case we selected some countries to
show different situations. In the following table we will show the total
number of paid employees, how many of them are specialised and the
number of volunteers.
17
COUNTRY PAID STAFF P.S.
SPECIALISED
VOLUNTEERS
GERMANY 19.490 16.144 N.A.
SPAIN 10.951 2.417 1.438
UK 16.777 N.A. 28.085
Graphically, the different countries situations are the following:
0
5.000
10.000
15.000
20.000
25.000
30.000
Germay Spain UK
Staff Composition
Tot paid Spec Vol
Figure 2: Staff composition
As shown by the graphic, in Germany the great part of the paid staff is
specialised. These data indicates that in Germany the staff preparation is
elevated. In Spain the situation is exactly the opposite: on the total number
of paid staff only a little number are specialised, number which is quite
similar to the total number of volunteers. Finally, the UK situation is still
different. To an elevated number of paid employees it corresponds a more
elevated number of volunteers, but no data about specialised staff are
available. Only describing three different situations of the Europe scene,
we can easily show that the European museums panorama is very different,
18
and the Forum has to understand every day the peculiarities and the
difficulties of largely different situations.
The last data series is about the admission fees
2
of European museums.
Three categories of price were indicated in the Guide of museums statistics:
less than 2.5 €, from 2.5 € to 5 €, more than 5 €.
COUNTRY < 2.5 € 2.5 € – 5 € > 5 €
GERMANY 1877 773 98
ITALY 690 117 3
SPAIN 353 68 11
SWEDEN 51 81 46
NETHERLANDS 157 442 274
UK 156 191 326
Graphically, the fees prospectus is the following:
0
500
1.000
1.500
2.000
Germany Italy Spain Sweden Netherlands UK
Fees propsectus
Less than 2,5 From 2,5 to 5 More than 5
Figure 3: Fees propsectus
2
We have to consider that this series of data are different from the ones quoted before. The total
number of museum of a country changes because of the museums which have no admission fees.
19
The graphic shows the general tendency of the fees progress. Germany,
Italy and Spain have the more elevated number of fees admission prices in
the category “less than 2,5€”. The progressive number of museums with
admission prices higher than 2,5€ reduces itself drastically: Italy and Spain
count only 3 and 11 museum with an admission price higher than 5€.
Different is the situation of Sweden and Netherlands, in which the central
fees category, from 2,5€ to 5€, is the more elevated. And in UK the
situation is still different, because there are more museums in the third
category (fees more than 5€).
It is evident that the European museums panorama is variegated and
subject to great movements. Of the approximately 38.000 museums in
Europe, more than two-thirds were established after 1950 and their number
is increasing by about 3% a year. The museums’ traditional role of
collecting, preserving and interpreting is necessary, but is not longer
sufficient in today’s world. Museums have been exploring different roles
for themselves, including taking more active roles in helping communities
and providing forums for critical thinking. Major changes in the museum
scene are taking place in this way regarding the character, aims and
management of museums. This massive growth has been accompanied by
an equally impressive increase in the range of types of museum available
and by the creation of a new public. According to Kenneth Hudson
3
:
“…This means inevitably that phrases like ‘serving the community’ and
‘satisfying’ brings problems of their own. (…) The use of the word
‘customer’ in connection with museums would have been unthinkable 50
years ago, but it causes little or no surprise today. Museums are competing
3
The most prominent personality on the European museum scene died on
December 28th 1999, at the age of 83. He was not a museum professional, but
he approached the museum world as a public educator and devoted a long life
as a spokesman for the museum visitor, the visitor as the real raison
d'être of the museum.
20
in a leisure market and every market has its customers (…) The true skill
of any form of market or customer research –and that practised by
museums is no exception- lies, first, in asking the right questions and,
second, in using the results to produce something which is closer to what
the customer really wants…”
4
. It’s important to listen to the customer and
to try to satisfy him. Museums which try to implement this “customer
orientation” have to be considered “innovative”, because they have the
courage to change, to be different and to propose new lines of activity. The
European Museum Forum awards these museums. But what is EMF?
The European Museum Forum is an independent organisation founded in
1977 by Kenneth Hudson and registered as a charity trust in the UK in
1978. The Forum is guided by an international Committee composed of 15
experts from 12 countries and 34 National Correspondents. The members
of the Committee are men and women who occupy either museum posts or
who are experienced and influential in cultural fields
5
. Maintaining a
satisfactory balance between these three areas is an essential part of the
Forum's policy. The Forum is governed by Sir Neil Cossons (President,
United Kingdom), Wim van der Weiden (Chairman, The Netherlands),
Massimo Negri (Director, Italy) and Ann Nicholls (Administrator, United
Kingdom). EMF operates across 46 European Countries, which are
identified by the Council of Europe. It visited and assessed more than 1500
4
K., Hudson, The European museum of the year award. A mirror and a catalyst of European
museum change and development, Bristol , 1998
5
In 2006 the composition is as follow: Mr Thomas Brune, Curator of Württemberg State Museum
Stuttgart; Mrs Taja Vovk Cepic, Director of Mestni Muzej Ljubljana; Mikhail Gnedovski,
Director of Moscow Cultural Policy Institute; Christopher Grayson, Head of Secretariat for
Culture, Science and Education in the Council of Europe; Mr Jean-Jacques Bertaux, Former
Director of Museum of Normandy; Mrs Lola Mitjans, Founder and Presindent of the Dalì
Museum; Miss Jane Morris, Journalist and writer specialising in museums and galleries; Mr
Massimo Negri, Museum Consultant; Miss Ann Nichols, Administrator of European Museum
Forum; Mrs Ulla Keding Olofsson, Founding member of EMYA; Mrs Maritta Pitkänen, Director
of Gösta Serlachius Art Museum in Finland; Mrs Aleid Rensen-Oosting, President of Noorder
Dierenpark Foundation; Mr Hermann Schäfer, President of the Haus der Geschichte der
Bundesrepublik in Bonn; Mr Wim var der Weiden, Former Director of Museon in the Hague and
on Naturalis in Leiden; Mr Hans Woodtli, Architect and specialist in design.
21
museums so far, and operates a Supporting Scheme open to any
organisation willing to support EMF activities. EMF recruits an average of
300 supporting partners per year. It operates on a trans-national level under
the auspices of the Council of Europe and under the patronage of Her
Majesty Queen Fabiola of Belgium. During the 28 years of its history EMF
on one hand had to adapt itself progressively to changing circumstances
and attitudes in order to identify and publicise pioneering museums and
individuals; and on the other hand had to modify the criteria by which it
assesses the achievements of museums.
1.1. Aims and activities
The European Museum Forum has different aims
6
. Each one of these
will be declined in the next lines, but it can be said that the principal idea
which generated all of them can be resumed in a few words: to identify
innovative experiences in the European museum world and to give them
visibility to the European museum community as well as the general
public. And all the activities organised by the EMF aim to achieve this
purpose.
In details, EMF is committed:
ƒ To raise the standard of museums throughout Europe by publicising
excellence;
ƒ To give special recognition and visibility to outstanding cases of
innovation by means of the European Museum of the Year Award scheme;
6
These information are taken from European Museum Forum’s site,
www.europeanmuseumforum.org
22
ƒ To cooperate with the Council of Europe in running the Council of
Europe Prize scheme devoted to museums which are making a significant
contribution to the understanding of the European heritage;
ƒ To be a point of reference for newly opened or restored museums;
ƒ To encourage exchange of ideas, information and experiences
among museum professionals from countries included in the Council of
Europe on the basis of equality.
EMF is involved in spreading information about innovations and
providing workshops to bring together like minded museum professionals.
For this reason, it encourages new forms of organisation and aims to
increase Public Quality in museums. It aspires to interpret the dynamics
between museums and the public in different European social and cultural
contexts and to encourage fruitful relationships between museum
professionals and the variety of stakeholders involved in museum life.
The European Museum Forum’s activities are a lot and very different.
Maybe, it can be said that the most important is to organize the European
Museum of the Year Award competition. This event includes the
publication of a brochure describing the entrants and winners of the
European Museum of the Year Award and the organization of a three days
Annual Meeting to support the Awards Ceremony. EMF also publishes a
three-monthly Bulletin and organises, since 1996, an annual European
Workshop lasting one week to raise the expertise of museum practitioners.
Due to popular demand, the number of the annual workshops has increased
year by year, and in 2005 it organized five workshops taking place in
different countries. Another important activity is to organize the Kenneth
Hudson Lecture, each year taking place in a different city. Finally, it offers
a European Museum Consultancy Service, to promote exchange of
23
information and to co-operate in EU funded programmes. In order to do
this, EMF collaborates with international, governmental and local
organisations to carry out events and conferences which match with the
aims of its mission.
1.2. The Awards
The awards promoted by the European Museum Forum are different and
consist in:
ƒ The European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA), symbolized by
“The Egg” statue by Henry Moore;
ƒ The Council of Europe Museum Prize, which consists in the
“Femme aux beux sein” (sculpture by Joan Miró) and a cash prize; it is
awarded by the Council of Europe;
ƒ The Micheletti Prize, which is a special award provided by the Luigi
Micheletti Foundation in Brescia and is conferred to the most promising
technical or industrial museum;
ƒ There are also citations for "specially commended" and "nominated"
museums.
Postponing to the next paragraph the illustration of the EMYA award, we
examine here the other awards short description.
The Council of Europe Museum Prize is a special award in the form of a
trophy by Joan Mirò made to a museum which is judged to have made a
notable contribution to the understanding of the European heritage.
This prize is awarded by the Council of Europe who makes use of the
EMF reports in order to choose the winner among the short listed
candidates. The role of EMF in conferring this prize is to offer its high
expertise: it selects a short list of possible winners from the museums
24
visited from the Committee and it points them out to the Council of
Europe. However, EMF always invites the winner museum to make a
presentation during the EMYA annual ceremony. In fact, the EMYA
annual ceremony takes usually place one or two weeks after the awarding
of the Council of Europe Prize in Strasbourg.
The Luigi Micheletti Prize is an award for the most promising technical
or industrial museum among the current year candidates. This award,
promoted by an Italian Foundation and wanted by Kenneth Hudson, father
of industrial archaeology, is born to remember the care Mr. Luigi
Micheletti (an Italian entrepreneur native of Brescia) took for the
promotion of culture and industrial history..
1.3. The EMYA Award
The idea of setting a European Museum of the Year Award goes back to
January 1976 thanks to John Letts
7
and Kenneth Hudson. Quoting his
words, “…On 26 January 1976, at a private lunch at the Reform Club, John
Letts suggested to Kenneth Hudson, a member of the MOYA Committee and
an international authority on museums, that a European Museum of the
Year Award might be possible...”
8
.
In December 1976, after some unfortunate attempts, the European
Cultural Foundation agreed to offer £5,000 “for research purposes”. Soon,
the EMYA promoters met with the interest of other European personalities
and Professor Richard Hoggart, Assistant Director-General of UNESCO,
agreed to become chairman of the first EYMA Policy Committee. The
launching of the European Museum of the Year Award was regarded as a
risky business at the time, with no guarantee that the venture would either
7
A London publisher who in 1971 established the MOYA, Museum Of the Year Award in the
United Kingdom.
8
K., Hudson, The European museum of the year award. A mirror and a catalyst of European
museum change and development, Bristol, 1998
25
continue or succeed beyond its first year. However, 32 European museums
subscribed for the first EYMA award and from these a short-list of nine
was drawn up. In 1977, two significant announcements were made: “…first
that sculpture Henry Moore agreed to make a suitable piece of sculpture
available as permanent trophy for the Award; second that EYMA had been
granted the privilege of functioning under the auspices of the Council of
Europe
9
. This formal recognition opened the door to a bigger opportunity:
later, in 1977, through the help of Association for Business Sponsorship of
the Arts, IBM chose to support EMYA providing £15,000 a year for a
period of four years, in addition to covering the costs of the annual
Presentation Ceremony…”
10
. EMF decided to spend part of the IBM fund
for printing a brochure where the Committee wanted to express the criteria
that the members should ask themselves when visiting a museum: “What
battles has this museum had to fight in order to get itself established?” and
“In what ways is this museum likely to change the course of museum-
thinking or museum practice, either nationally or internationally?”. Until
the end of 1978 EYMA had no legal identity, which indubitably
represented a weakness. So, in August 1978 the European Museum Trust
was established as a charitable organisation registered in UK. From that
time on, the Council of Europe offered to host in Strasbourg the meeting at
which the Awards are decided and to cover the relevant cost of bringing
9
The Council of Europe is the oldest political organisation of Europe, founded in 1949. It is a
different organisation from the Council of European Union, which shares with Parliament the
responsibility for passing laws and taking policy decisions. The Council of Europe gathers 46
countries (differently from the 25 of the European Union). Its organs are: the Committee of
Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly, the Congress of local and regional authorities and the
1800-strong secretariat headed since September 2004 by Secretary General Terry Davis. The
Parliamentary Assembly was the first European Assembly in our Continent. It promotes
cooperation among the 46 countries of the Council of Europe. The formal link between EMYA
and the Council of Europe was formalized by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Ministers of Foreign Affairs with the adoption of Recommendation 806. From www.coe.int,
Council of Europe site.
10
P., Galli, The European Museum Forum SWOT analysis, Paper presented at the University of
London, School of Arts and Cultural Studies, 2005
26
together the members of the Committee. The first winners of the award
were equally distributed among several nationalities.
EMF is a wholly independent body, deriving its income from a
supporting scheme and entry fees and various forms of sponsorship. It
considers that its main duty is to the public, but it maintains good relations
both with national and international professional organisations. Under the
auspices of the Council of Europe since 1978 and the patronage of Queen
Fabiola of Belgium since 1995, the EMF has successfully and continuously
devoted itself to recognition for and promotion of outstanding new projects
and ideas in the museum sector in all member states of the Council of
Europe. EMF is guided in its work by the knowledge that in a Europe
growing together economically and politically, museums have special and
increasing importance being able both to preserve national cultural
identities and at the same time to transcend them through promoting a spirit
of cooperation.
As already said, in selecting the European Museum of the Year
(EMYA), EMF aims at discovering and publicising a museum which has
succeeded outstandingly well in fulfilling the definition of Public Quality
mentioned above. This means inevitably to deal with problems that are
related with visitor’s perspective. In fact, “…the ‘public quality’ of a
museum is the extent to which it satisfies the needs and wishes of its
visitors. (…) So, the public quality of a museum involves, first, the general
atmosphere. Does it look and feel like a place which puts the consumer
first? Is the presentation and the interpretation of objects attractive and
understandable?...”
11
. If we start from this definition of public quality, we
can easily understand the reason why the criteria which oriented the
11
K. Hudson, The public Quality of a museum, EMF papers, 1997
27
Judging Committee area oriented to evaluate qualities and activities from
the visitor point of view. This does not mean that the Judges do not
evaluate some technical aspects as, in Kenneth Hudson words, “…the
professional virtues (which) we would define as those which are
traditionally esteemed by the people who work in museum as being the
justification for the existence of museums –effectiveness in collecting,
conserving, displaying and interpreting…”
12
. It means only that a museum,
which is not perfect and excellent from a technical point of view, is not
precluded from the award’s win. In fact, according to Mr Hudson, “…the
best museums, in our judgement, think of their visitors first and their
employees second…”
13
.
Two kinds of museum are eligible for EMYA. The first possibility is for
established museums which have completed a substantial programme of
modernisation, extension, reorganisation or re-interpretation during the
past two years. The other requirement is to be new museum, first opened to
the public during the past two years. The application form clearly states:
“…The judging Committee is looking for enterprise and innovation likely
to have a significant influence in the national and international museum
field. Special attention will be paid to imaginative interpretation and
presentation, amenities, financial organisation, social responsibility,
educational work, marketing and management…”
14
The European Museum
of the Year Award winner holds the Henry Moore trophy for one year.
EMF currently receives applications from an average of 55/60 candidates
per year. The candidates are asked to fill out an Application Form to
participate to the award
15
. They have also to send these following
materials:
12
K. Hudson, The public Quality of a museum, EMF papers, 1997
13
K. Hudson, The public Quality of a museum, EMF papers, 1997
14
From European Museum Forum’s site
15
See Appendix 1
28
1. Illustrations: EMF accepts only digital images. Two copies on CD of
12 digital images, 600 dpi in JPEG format. These should include one
exterior of the museum and general views of the galleries and activities.
We do not require images of individual items. Each folder must be
identified with the name of the museum and the year (2007) and each
image must be named. The images must be free of copyright only for use
in the EMYA publication and on the EMF Internet sites and the European
Union Bricks Internet site (any other use by EMF is excluded). All material
will be retained in the EMF Archive after the judging has taken place.
2. One copy of the following information on CD: (a) A description of
the project, its method of financing and future plans (two typewritten pages
in English) (b) A list of any accompanying material (see below).
16
3. One copy of the museum’s leaflet, brochure or catalogue.
4. A poster advertising the museum (if available).
5. A small selection of relevant press cuttings.
6. A copy of the bank transfer instructions for the entry fee.
The entry fee is £ 200.00, 325 €
To better understand the complete process of the choice of the winners, we
report in the box below a document called “How we choose the European
16
The request of digital images is a newness of the 2007 edition. Before, the request was different.
With the application form, the museum had to send:
1. Six black and white photographs showing general views of the museum galleries and
activities, and one exterior
2. Ten 35 mm colour slides, also showing as many aspects of the museum as possible.
These will be used in the judging process and in the case of museums nominated for the
award will be shown at the Annual Meeting. Pictures of individual items are not required.
All photographic material are retained in the EMYA Archive in Berlin after the judging
has taken place
3. A description of the project, its method of financing and its future plans
4. One copy of the museum’s catalogue, brochure or leaflet
5. Examples of educational literature prepared by the museum
6. Relevant Press cuttings
7. A poster advertising the museum
As we can say, points 1 and 2 were different, because the museums had to send photographs and
slides, but no digital supports were foreseen.
29
Ricevi informazioni sui nostri servizi, sulle offerte e non perdere news e consigli su università e lavoro.
