Dear All,
MDA, the focus for standards and best practice in Collections
Management, has successfully concluded negotiations with Government
culture bodies in the Netherlands and Belgium to export SPECTRUM, the
UK industry standard for information management.
Already in use in over 3,000 culture-sector organisations worldwide,
SPECTRUM is an open standard, maintained and developed as part of
MDA's ongoing mission to promote best practice in the heritage
sector. The adoption of SPECTRUM will help Dutch and Belgian museums
manage their knowledge and information more effectively, as well as
supporting greater mobility of collections between the Netherlands,
Belgium and the UK.
MDA Director Nick Poole commented, 'This is a significant step
forward for standards within Europe, and this development represents
the culmination of almost 2 years work by the staff at MDA. Common
standards not only promote best practice, they also provide us with a
shared language which supports greater partnership. Museums in the
Netherlands and Belgium already have significant expertise in the
areas of knowledge and information management, and we all stand to
benefit as a whole by working together to common standards.'
Wilbert Helmus of the State Department for Cultural Heritage
commented, 'Dutch and Belgian museums have long been committed to the
principles of SPECTRUM. Our museums contain some of the world's most
diverse and exciting collections, and this agreement provides us with
a solid foundation on which to build. We are very pleased to be
working with MDA and we look forward to an exciting partnership in
future!'
Licenses were signed between MDA, the Netherlands Museum Advisors
Foundation and Culturele Biografie Vlaanderen vzw. Under the terms of
this new agreement, representative organisations in the UK,
Netherlands and Belgium will form part of a European Documentation
Standards Development Community. Each national version of SPECTRUM
will be linked to the UK standard on an ongoing basis and future
updates will be cascaded to each participating country. MDA will be
working with CIDOC, the documentation Special Interest Group of the
International Council for Museums, to identify further partner states
within Europe.
*******************************************************
Gordon McKenna e-mail: [log in to unmask]
MDA
The Spectrum Building,
The Michael Young Centre,
Purbeck Road
Cambridge CB2 2PD, UK
Tel: +44 1223 415760
Fax: +44 1223 415960
Setting the standard for managing collections information
*************** http://www.mda.org.uk/ ****************
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