35th Annual ICOFOM Symposium

November 2012
Tunis, Tunisia
Deadline for submissions: 7 May, 2012

Museums are increasingly recognising that their visitors have needs and wants that are not always being fulfilled. Concomitantly visitors, and non-visitors, are becoming more vocal in expressing their hopes and desires for museums. The topic examines what visitors want and what museums are prepared to give. As well the topic looks at how museum are fulfilling their visitors’ requests and how visitors are pushing museums to respond to their concerns. This theme can be considered from either the point of view of the visitor or the point of view of the museum. There are three subsections to this topic. The first, process, posses the questions what and how. For example the Louvre hired Daniel Jacobi to examine the signage and found that only French is used on the permanent collections in that august museum, while many visitors do not read or understand French. This topic could probe what led the Louvre to commission this study, the theory of visitor empowerment, and why museums are shifting their priorities and interests towards visitors. The second part of this topic, process, seeks to study what museums have done to make museum more visitor–friendly. John Falk, in Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience, gives some nice examples. Finally some museums are resisting this shift towards visitor empowerment, seeing it as a loss of control, and some frustrated visitors are protesting museums’ attitudes. Protest by either the visitor or the museum can have consequences.  For example the 1988 Calgary protest of The Spirit Sings Glenbow exhibition has resulted in a major reconsideration of how Canadian museums treat First Nations’ visitors and artefacts.

How to submit a paper

Procedure

The papers will be submitted to a evaluation committee chaired by André Desvallées for selection. The selected papers will be published in ICOFOM Study Series 41 (ISS 41). The papers will be posted on the ICOFOM web site, open to the public, for perusal prior to the symposium to allow time for participants to read the essays and to prepare for the discussions.

Specifications:

Papers must be submitted in electronic form, written in software compatible to MS Office (MS Word), in one of the ICOM working languages: English, French or Spanish. Text must be saved as .doc or .docx.
 
Papers should be between 3000 and 6000 words, including the main text, the bibliography, footnotes, and one abstract (the other language abstract(s) can be added to the total number of words). The abstracts should be between 150 to 200 words, and be written in both the lead language and at least one of the other two ICOM languages.

Papers should be sent by e-mail – in an attached file – to the address:

André Desvallées, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
ICOFOM Advisor
Chair, Editorial Committee

The ICOFOM Editorial Committee chaired by André Desvallées, is composed of a group of English, French and Spanish speaking ICOFOM experts. We seek to ensure a double-blind peer review.

For further information and for full details on submission of papers, visit http://network.icom.museum/icofom