Cultural diversity has become a key issue in the 1990s for a number of reasons. In the United States we have recently completed a census. The results of that census indicate a dramatic change in the nation's demographics.
Museums are complex social phenomena and valuable resources. There's an ecological analogy there; if you mess with even apparently trivial elements of a complex system, the results can be unpredictable, powerful and are most often catastrophic.
De-accessioning is too often characterised as an ill-wind, blowing through the vast and mostly undisturbed reaches of our cultural store-houses capriciously violating the integrity of our collections.
According the the Australia Council figures in 1990 a number of people exceeding the entire population of Australia visited the 187 Australian Museums that employed paid staff in 1989/90 at a cost, for maintence, development and operations in excess of $13.00 per head of population, excluding any charges imposed on entry to museums or exhibitions. And what does $13.00 buy for the Museum going public?
Exhibition review The Heritage of Namatjira
Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute
Adelaide South Australia
November - December 1991
Curated by Angela Tidmarsh and JVS Megaw on behalf of the Flinders University of South Australia
Catalogue edited by Ruth Megaw.
Looks at the exhibition 'Terra Australis Incognita' at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in New Zealand, to celebrate the 350th anniversary of Abel Tasman's discovery.
Accreditation is set to become one of the significant features of the Victorian museum scene in the 1990s. At a time when Victoria might be perceived as out for the count it may seem unlikely to be introducing major developments in the operation of the State's 400 Museums.
Book review Australian Art Museums and Public Galleries Directory published by the Art Museums Association of Australia Inc and the National Centre for Australian Studies Monash University 1991.
In 1975 the Whitlam Government's Committee of Inquiry on Museums and National Collections (the Piggott Committee, after its chairman P H Piggott) unsuccessfully recommended setting up of a Museum's Commission.
In the first project of its kind, private investors will provide half the money needed to build the Museum of Victoria at a new site on the Yarra River.