16 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21(4) & 22(1) – Winter & Spring 2013
Advancing common ground on advocacy for the museums sector
early after release. • Professor Graham Durant, Director of Questacon/ the national Science and Technology Centre, also emphasised the importance of the Inspiring Australia initiative. With several hundred organisations involved, this provides an important example of COLLABORATION + FACILITATION, and depends on an OPEN NETWORK model of delivery. • Colleagues affirmed that the collaborations happening across scientific institutions and museums are pushing forward new models of learning, knowledge-sharing and access for the sector. Collaboration is now advancing strong public access and engagement goals, harnessing: - open-sourced science - crowd-sourced science - citizen science • Proposal for a core platform was raised to facilitate collections access broadly “Is there the possibility to come up with a core platform (using apps etc.) – i.e. not focusing only on the hardware? A core platform could then be more easily modified and adapted.” (a national museum director) • The federal copyright regime and legal restrictions on access of collections • “The whole copyright framework cannot stand anymore as before.” (a state museum director). • “There is now a move to have a standard agreement governing all purchases or donations of artworks within institutions” – to deal better with copyright issues that inhibit institutional access of works in public collections, owned in the public domain. (a state museum director). • Open-sourced IP or commercially protected IP? • “A key issue is not just free data but free IP – i.e. to be able to make information available not just as open-sourced data but as open-sourced IP.” (a state museum director). • “The fact that universities are increasingly seeking to make a profit from their IP is actually proving to be one of the biggest brakes on innovation in other networks – and also involves difficulties for university stakeholders themselves (such as individual researchers). This conversation has sat with the universities for a while now, but has never arisen strongly as a topic within the museums sector.” It needs to be aired. (a state museum director, as above) • Library sector’s collaborative digitisation platforms – especially Trove (NLA) “The libraries have vital interest in these matters, where the user’s perspective is crucial from our vantage-point.” (a representative of the National Library of Australia) • Lyn Allan (offered comments from OFTA/Arts department) • The Office for the Arts keeps in touch regularly
with the Attorney General’s department on legal matters affecting the arts and the museums sector. • Noted that the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) is still in process with its review of the Australian Copyright Act. Consultation has been extensive. An interim report from ALRC on copyright review and reform issues is expected in November 2013. • In review: a ‘sectoral voice’ is needed on collections and digital access Digitised collections and data challenges are perceived as two-fold: (i) obtaining data, but also (ii) using and sharing it readily, once obtained
Other areas of possible collaboration Indigenous issues and museums • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and Indigenous issues Creative Australia has been “important in stressing the centrality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to national heritage” (a state museum director) • Concerning government provision for repatriation of ancestral remains: Lyn Allan (Office for the Arts) commented that, from the federal government’s vantage-point, the coordination of responses to requested repatriation of ancestral remains is now handled through the Indigenous Culture Branch within OFTA. • Continuing issues that complicate national repatriation of ancestral remains were also noted as involving cultural protocols (and associated funding) concerning ‘the right’ home communities to receive any returns. • museums’ ongoing responsibilities in repatriation processes need recognition • “We need to understand all the issues of international returns in process currently, as these continue to affect our museums.” (a state museum director) • “Not every state has a whole of government approach to returns, and this can leave museums in a difficult place. For example 119 ancestral remains are now held by my museum [within a positive framework for return]. However ongoing responsibilities concerning appropriate care and return issues will continue for a long time, and need direct consultation with museums.” (a state museum director, as above) • other museum issues involving Indigenous people and museum collections • “Conversation is needed rapidly about the borderlines of what constitutes human remains” in the case of new areas in collections not previously subject to requests for DNA analysis. • “A massive impost could be about to descend on communities in respect of new projects involving