Reality Show Response

This project sounds like a typical project for a small town, attempting to focus on an aspect of its history and create an exhibit with community involvement. When doing an exhibit like this, however, which involves the donation and loan of artifacts from the private sector as well as the acquisition or loan of valuable artifacts, it is necessary that the museum, however small, have the necessary skills, resources, and guidelines to properly deal with these influxes.

The first issue that should be addressed is the donation of artifacts. In order for the museum to accept the pieces, they should be included within the mission statement of the museum, must have proper documentation of ownership, must be determined as genuine, and should not be subject to repatriation according to NAGPRA. Seeing that the artifacts come from a nearby site, it is likely that they would fall under the mission statement of the museum, but care must be taken that the objects being donated follow all of the other guidelines. After the object itself has been accepted, the museum must make sure that its storage facilities are able to manage and curate the pieces sufficiently. Lastly, the proper paperwork for transfer of title must be filed, and objects should be assigned acquisition numbers, recorded, observed for a condition report and labeled immediately.

Loan items must also have paperwork describing the length of time for the loan and any payment received for the loan. A condition report should be drawn up at the beginning of the loan to monitor any changes in condition at the end of the loan period.

The “effigy beads” present a unique problem because of their worth. It is unlikely that a small museum has high-tech security equipment to properly guard very valuable items and care must be taken to create a secure environment for the pieces if taken in on loan or donated to the museum. A first step in this process would be the completion of a risk assessment taking into account the acquisition of the “effigy beads” and the specific problems that the display of these might create. Special care must be taken in the construction of the display case for both stability of the objects and security of the case itself as well as the construction of the entire exhibit in order to best protect the rare artifacts from both thieves and other damaging influences, such as environment, temperature and humidity, etc. Because of their rarity, if the museum obtains the pieces, it should consider its educational role in society and make the beads available for study to both the public and other institutions.

In relation to this, the visual recording (photography) of these beads as well as the other objects in the exhibit, needs to be of the highest available quality along with the representations used in both the exhibit and video being produced. The labels and exhibit themselves need to be worded so that the public can understand and learn from them and they must be presented in a way that flows without interruption within the exhibit. Therefore, before drawing up labels, it would be useful to know how the exhibit will be set up as well as what all will be included in it. Thought must also be given to the availability of these materials that are to be collected in the research for the exhibition and the best method of dissemination. Copies of all the fieldwork notes, etc. sent to Mr. Turner should also be made available to the public in some way. Along with this, the creation of take-home pamphlets and the option of selling the video or offering it to teachers would greatly expand the educational outreach of the exhibit.

All of these considerations must be taken into account when creating an exhibit which requires the acquisition and loan of materials.

Creation Science Museum in Petersburg KY

Take a look at this link and the letter by Alysia Fischer at Miami University in Oxford OH. Your thoughts

http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/abs/10.1525/an.2007.48.6.fm

Nazi-era art repatriation in the news

It came up again last night, so here is an article on the subject that showed up in today's times.

Heirs Make Huge Claim Over Dutch Works of Art

By MARLISE SIMONS
Published: September 26, 2007
Just as the Dutch government was moving to discourage new claims for restitution of art looted during World War II, the heirs of a Dutch Jewish art dealer have filed one of the largest claims to date for paintings now held in Dutch museums.

Four heirs of the dealer, Nathan Katz, who died in 1949, say that he was the rightful owner of more than 200 artworks recovered in Germany at the end of the war and handed over to the Dutch government. The claimants are Mr. Katz’s four children: Sybilla Goldstein-Katz, who lives in Florida; her brother, David; and her sisters Margaret and Eva, who all live in Europe.

The details of the restitution claim have not been made public, but Dutch museum directors say the works in question include paintings by 17th-century Dutch masters, among them Jan Steen, Gerard Dou and Nicolaas Maes. Some works are by Flemish and Italian artists. Many are centerpieces of major museums in the Netherlands, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem.

The Dutch Ministry of Culture said the claim was filed in March for 227 items — 225 paintings and 2 tapestries — but Bob van het Klooster, a spokesman, declined to provide further details. The matter became publicly known only on Friday when museum directors were notified of the claim.

The spokesman said the claim will now be studied by the Restitution Commission, a group of experts set up in 2001 to advise the government on the return of cultural property that was lost, sold or stolen after the Nazis invaded the Netherlands.

The application filed by the Katz heirs is larger than the claim for 202 paintings made by the heirs of Jacques Goudstikker and finally resolved in favor of the heirs in 2006. However, it also appears to be less clear cut.

Nathan and Benjamin Katz, brothers, had one gallery in Dieren, their hometown in the east of the Netherlands, and another in The Hague. They reportedly continued doing business after the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940. Researchers for the Restitution Commission said that the brothers sold many works to Alois Miedl, who was buying art for Hermann Goering and other Nazi leaders.

Tina M. Talarchyk, the Florida lawyer who is representing the Katz heirs in their claim, said that when Nathan and Benjamin Katz wanted to flee the Netherlands, they traded several sets of paintings for visas, and in this way also enabled 65 relatives to leave the country to eventual safety. One poignant detail, she said, was that the dealers’ mother was released from Westerbork, a Dutch concentration camp, in exchange for a Rembrandt painting through the intervention of Miedl.

Nathan Katz left in February 1942, after he obtained German permission to take his family to Switzerland via Frankfurt. They had to leave behind their home and many of their possessions.

Although the Dutch government in exile had decreed that citizens could not trade with the enemy, many Dutch art dealers, both Jews and non-Jews, sold works to eager German collectors, who circulated wish lists in the first few years of the war. Dutch traditional painting was sought after, because the Nazis did not consider it “degenerate” art.

After the war the Dutch government returned 28 paintings that the Katz brothers had claimed. Among them was Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Man,” believed to have been used to buy their mother’s freedom.

Evelien Campfens, a member of the Restitution Commission in The Hague, said the claim of the Katz heirs would “be a complex case, with many different aspects to it: it will take time.” She said that the Katz brothers were important dealers involved in many transactions, and that many important paintings had passed through their hands.

The commission was notified of the claim in June, she said, and still has a large backlog of other applications.

Ms. Talarchyk, the lawyer, said the family discovered the Dutch restitution program only several years ago, while on a visit to the Netherlands. They filed for the return of one painting in 2003 as a test case and received a reply only in 2006. Their full claim was made in March to meet a government deadline of April 4.

They were assisted in their search for former Katz properties by Rudi Ekkart, a well-known Dutch art historian who is the director of the Origins Unknown Agency. His group has helped the government set standards for its restitution policy and has compiled inventories of the thousands of cultural objects lost by their owners.

In an interview Mr. Ekkart called the Katz claim “haphazard,” saying that it had been made in a “slapdash and hasty manner” and included art owned by the dealers in the 1930s that was sold before the war and therefore could not be subject to any claim.

But Mr. Ekkart added that the largest number of paintings claimed were sold after the Nazi invasion. During the war, he said, no paintings owned by the Katzes had been confiscated by the Germans. The central question, he stressed, was to determine which works had been sold involuntarily. “This will be judged by the Restitution Commission,” he said.

Ms. Talarchyk said that she saw the issue as “very straightforward.”

“When you’re dealing with German intermediaries and Jewish sellers in the war, there is no other conclusion than that this art was subject to forced sales,” she said. “There is a wrong that needs to be righted.”

A Reality Show Comes to Museum Practices

For your writing assingment due October 9, we will change the project to the following. Last Friday, I was asked to consult on a museum project. Below I briefly describe some of the project detail. Based on what you have read, discussed in class, learned through the Pink Palace visit, if you were in my shoes, what concerns do you believe need to be addressed in the project? What are some of the specific problems? What would you recomend to Mr. Turner? Are there issues that need to be resolved before you even consider participating in the project? and so on . . .

So here's the story . . . I received a phone call from John Connaway, staff archaeologist in Clarksdale with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH). He said a Mr. Tom Turner in Belzoni was putting together a museum of collections from the Jaketown site, a nearby mound complex that dates to the time of the Poverty Point culture. John knew that I worked for 8 years as the Station Archaeologist at the Poverty Point site located near Epps Louisiana, a couple hours as the crow flies from the Jaketown site. John asked me to come down and give some advice on exhibits, text, and so forth based on my experience at Poverty Point. I agreed to the meeting for a couple of reasons. First, I believe such small town museums are important as a means of educating local citizens about scarce cultural resources and insuring the resources preservation - along with a host of identity and economic benefits for the community. Second, I have a couple of ongoing research projects that could benefit from more complete access to Jaketown site collections.

Here is what I learned about the musuem during my visit. The artifacts exhibited in the museum will be composed of Jaketown site collections curated with MDAH, a public entity. As well, several individuals agreed to donate their collections to the museum and other individuals agreed to loan artifacts. I asked Mr. Turner if he had obtained for the musuem any "jasper owls" or "effigy beads" rare and highly valued artifacts from the region and period. He said not yet, but there was one collector that owned 2 of 16 jasper owls known to exist in the entire Southeast United States. Tommy Turner, until just recently, had been mayor of Belzoni for the past 24 years. He knows everyone. He remembered me from when I spoke at the Belzoni library during Archaeology Week nearly 10 years ago.

After a lunch of catfish, peas, greens, corn bread and sweet tea at the Varsity Cafe (the best blue plate eating in Belzoni), I agreed to do the following: assist in the production of graphics for the museum displays, assist with exhibit label wording, search archive materials for photographs and field records from the 1952 excavations, assist in the production of an introductory video, mail Mr. Turner numerous articles and so forth I have on Poverty Point collection exhibits I have worked on in the past.

So . . . if you were in my shoes, what would your next steps be.

Thanks,

Robert Connolly

Care and Preservations of Collections
The Pink Palace: A Review

Museums are charged with the long-term duty of preserving and presenting the patrimony of a nation, culture or community. The primary concern of museums is to protect the intellectual integrity of collections and objects through their care and preservation. During our tour at the Pink Palace Museum, led by Ron Brister, I was surprised to see that in such a brief time he mentioned many aspects of preserving collections in museums. These aspects included adhering to mission statements concerning the loan of objects, collections management, collection preservation, environment control, risk assessment and disaster planning.

Mr. Brister clearly stated that the museum must adhere to their mission statement regarding objects that they purchase or receive as a gift, loan or exchange. The Pink Palace preserves the cultural, historical, archaeological, and biological history of the Memphis region. If an object does not contribute to the mission, it can not be acquired. If it does follow these requirements, then the object must have a valid title of ownership. In the Collections department, each of the objects is given an up to date catalogue of the collections which provides the museum with easy access to the information and location of objects. However, the catalogue did not have photographs of these objects as ICOM states as one of the basic collection preservation strategies.

Other characteristics of collection preservation discussed in our readings were apparent in policies at the Pink Palace. The conservator does not permanently alter objects if the techniques to preserve them extend beyond what is necessary to ensure its survival. Rooms that require different conservation techniques are separated into clean and dirty rooms, and rooms with hazardous materials. The Pink Palace also practices preventive conservation where the main agents of deterioration, such as temperature, humidity, pest control and storage facilities, are monitored. This allows the care of the whole collection instead of responding to individual aspects of each object. Mr. Brister covered most of these agents, although he did not address pollutants, lighting or water prevention. As I observed water stains on the ceilings in the exhibition rooms, I wondered how long it had been since they had performed a risk assessment survey of the plumbing. The collections department also employs acid free tissue to wrap around textiles so as not to contribute to the breaking down of the fabric. In addition to this, they do not fold the textiles, because over time the crease in them breaks down the material and makes long-term preservation difficult.

To support environmental control, the Pink Palace utilizes a hygrothermograph that monitors the objects relative humidity. As stated in ICOM, museums aim to achieve 50-55% humidity, but the Pink Palace humidity levels are kept at 60%. The levels of humidity are extremely important in the preservation of collections, therefore documentation of these humidity levels are recorded in object condition reports for the purposes of loans. Another issue Mr. Brister addressed was the risk management of pests. ICOM mentions a new pest control strategy called IPM (Integrated Pest Management) which is the strategy that the Pink Palace employs. ICOM states that museums should avoid sources and attractants for insects, especially food garbage. All of the conservation rooms had signs that prohibited any food or drink which follows the rules of IPM. In addition to this, screens were installed over the vents in airtight collection cases that would further exclude an insect infestation. Simon Knell mentions that extremely low temperature also helps with bug infestations, and Mr. Brister affirmed this by commenting on how they keep their collections store room at cooler temperatures as part of preventative conservation.

Inspection of collections in storage and exhibits and a detection system for theft is very important to museums. The Pink Palace has guards that inspect the museum every hour. Further, they have security guards stationed there 24-hours a day to monitor for theft problems. These are among the basic collection preservation strategies that ensure protection against the agents of deterioration. They also consider disaster planning in the construction of their cases, because of the risk of earthquakes in the area. Therefore, these cases are mad by museum staff in order to protect the displayed objects if such an event occurred.

The Pink Palace seems to have addressed many of the policies and ideas involved in the care and preservation of collections. In addition to this, they adhere to many of the rules and regulations stated in these policies. My observations of our tour to the Pink Palace further bolstered the belief that preservation of collections is one the most important to museum practices.

Pink Palace Response

Despite coming from a varied and background, the Pink Palace Museum has come to follow many of the standards set forth for museums by ICOM and Spectrum regarding mission statement, acquisitions, collections management, conservation, deaccessioning and educational outreach. The mission statement of the museum clearly sets out what is to be expected from the exhibits and educational programs offered by the museum and even sets out a specific geographic area of concentration. The museum is careful to adhere to these guidelines, as is evidenced by their collections on display, their high level of community outreach commitment through educational programs and their acquisitions policies as stated by Ron Brister.

As is condoned by ICOM, the museum does not accept donations of items that do not represent their mission statement. Also, they do not accept donations without clear proof of ownership, or those that the museum would be unable to use. Likewise, their deaccession policy follows the ICOM standards. Although they do deaccession, which is to be avoided, they look to first put items on loan or offer them to other institutions and only deaccession items that they are no longer able to care for, have moved out of the focus of the museum, or they have duplicates of. They also must have the permission of the director as well as the board to make final decisions regarding both accessions and deaccessions.

As for collections management and care, they follow strict guidelines in order to protect the objects. Security cameras, personnel and security systems are employed along with the use of sturdy and secure cases. Each object is numbered and has an information surrogate in a card file, an appropriate way to keep abbreviated yet accessible documentation. The cases are made specifically for what is to be contained in them and because of the threat of earthquakes in the area, mounts for objects on display are each handmade by staff to protect the object in case of an earthquake. This care involves appropriate risk assessment, including accounting for the natural surroundings of the area. A side note here, however, regarding this is that there are plants surrounding the building at close quarters on at least three sides while bug problems were listed by Ron as a strong threat to many of the artifacts in the building. Perhaps a more thorough risk assessment involving this point should be taken into consideration.

Other aspects of collections care, such as storage environment and conservation seemed well within good museum practice codes. A hygrothermograph is stationed within the storage facility (although I am not sure they are positioned in the galleries, which is also a necessity) and the temperature and humidity are kept at a constant determined amiable for the artifacts housed there. Acid free tissue is used in wrapping artifacts and, wherever possible, folding is avoided. Proper storage containers with seals to protect the items within are also in use.

As for conservation, the Pink Palace employs a professional conservator who uses all reversible techniques in an attempt to stabilize objects. Pieces are not over-conserved or added to, but put in a condition that keeps them intact without altering them permanently. Spaces are set aside for both clean and dirty conservation so that hazardous chemicals and conservation methods may be kept away from objects that could be harmed by them.

Although faced with a number of issues concerning politics and funding, as are all museums, the Pink Palace has been able to put into place practices that very closely follow the guidelines set out my the museum governing institutions in regards to a number of their departments. As well, they are able to keep research collections and a library for the active research of their collections. In addition, they keep teaching materials which are used for public outreach programs. All in all, this museum meets the requirements of both its mission statement and the general guidelines for museums very well in almost all aspects that were seen in the tour.

Week 3 discussion notes

Week 3, 11 September 2007
Inventories and Documentation of Collections and the Virtual Museum
ICOM ch.3*
Spectrum (MDA standards) *
Marty, “Museum Informatics”, Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science *
Marty and Jones, Museum Informatics, Chapters 3,4,6,10,11and 20 *


Museum informatics?

Reasons for information collection around items:
1. Establish legal ownership of items
2. Reduce damage by creating information surrogates
3. Collections information contextualise objects

Methods
1. Unique numbers for all items
2. Consistency
3. Flexibility
4. Inventory control

5 standards from ICOM – history and differences

Relationship to libraries

Core components

ICOM p. 39

Create a list on the board of information objects and interventions in museums and talk about the implementation of each.
- collections (the objects themselves as information resources)
- inventory
- research library
- image collection
- contextual research information
- collections database
- exhibits
- educational materials and programs
- books in the gift shop
- websites
- in museum kiosks
- marketing materials

Explore the idea of an information surrogate. (Paul story re: safe information) and burden on objects through access and research (Marty 22)

Explore the idea of a virtual museum.

Personalisation technologies (Marty 66)

Chapter 4 “Representing Museum Knowledge”
27 – museum knowledge representation supports museum missions.

“information management is the central role of the museum”

object v. process v. action data models


Chapter 10, “A World of Interactive Exhibits”
110 – talks about difference between data nad interpretation. Is this possible.

Virtual museum – sort this out

Shift form objects ot ideas in museums (like new museology – what do we think about this?)

Ch. 11 “Bluring boundaries for museum visitors”

Museums are paces for the social conduct of information


Chapter 20 “future of museums in the information age”
“techno-skeptical museum leaders”

Underlying meta-question from readings
By calling objects information resources do we diminish the role of the object in the museum?

Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Blurring the Boundaries for Museum Visitors

Areti Galani, University of Newcastle

Matthew Chalmers, University of Glasgow

This chapter, proposed by Areti Galani and Matthew Chalmers, deals with a visitor-centered approach to local and remote museum visiting that is shaped by social conduct in terms of both visitor’s intentions and overall experience. These studies investigate social interaction among friends and how social context is one of the three key elements that influence visitor’s experience. Other visitor-centered studies looked at how social interaction might affect learning and how social behavior is expressed by family and friends in museums. These studies have helped give insightful information in the ways social interaction have influenced interpretation and learning. This visitor-centered approach was inspired by sociological ethno methodology that attempts to examine how museum objects are constantly constituted in and through the social interaction of visitors by utilizing video recordings that captures social interactions around displays among friends and strangers at the object face. This sociological study looked to other resources visitors use to re-organize their conduct with fellow visitors and the exhibition. Inspecting this behavior around displays may help in the design of novel displays and enable and encourage social interaction.

Further visitor-centered studies indicated that the pace of the visit is influenced by social conduct and verbal and visual cues facilitate direct interaction and peripheral awareness of the group. These studies are primarily concerned with physical visits but the remote on-line viewer is increasing and they usually visit on-line museums with the company of others. Studying this social conduct is a better way to understand the visiting activity and design and social action (i.e. gestures and postures) support overall museum experiences and informs ones own engagement with artifacts.

The next section focuses on how the museum visit is a social activity and social interaction often mediates and shapes personal engagement in both asynchronous and synchronous environments. These collaborative virtual environments use 3D graphics and chat technologies to support synchronous remote visits among distributed on-line visitors. The evaluation on these technologies focused on technical and usability issues of the system and limited analysis of conversations that took place in the system indicated guided tours generated more talk about the artifacts. Social awareness and interaction have also been explored through networked art installations by supporting a two-way communication between physical and digital by offering view of the virtual museum environment to local visitors and view of physical environment to remote visitors.

After this was a discussion on a mixed reality museum application, called the Mack Room Mixed Reality, which supported social conduct among local and remote participants and sought to capture and understand the visiting activity in relation to its sociality. It also supported simultaneous visiting among local and remote visitors (whose categorization of participants is not a straightforward cut) whose social conduct may blur boundaries among the local and remote museum visitors and may have shared experiences for on-site and on-line audiences. This application combined virtual environments, hypermedia technology, handheld devices and an ultrasound positioning device. This was so all three visitors, one on-site and two remote, could visit the Mack Room simultaneously.

Further, they discuss the shared engagement with museum artifacts, along with the empowerment of the remote visitor and the emergence of a mutually complementing physical and digital museum design. The design’s diversity does not seem to inhibit their shared experience which supports Galani and Chalmers idea that in looking at mixed reality environments one must treat all media – new and old – as equal resources in the course of interaction. In these instances, social conduct can support interaction in and through physical and digital environments and facilitate the blending of media and environments in one common activity.

Last, they discuss the practical consideration of two aspects regarding the application and maintenance of mixed reality technology in museum settings: the ecology of the museum environment and issues of maintenance and updating. These technologies are not just about presenting information, but also about supporting social interaction. They recognize the costs of design and maintenance of new technologies and they suggest that the computing and telephone technology of the 21^st century will make such interaction accessible. This technology may offer the means to augment the accessibility of collections and educational activates of an institution.

Review of Chapter 4

Chapter four explores the representation of knowledge in museums, problems inherent in representing that knowledge, and the ways in which the objectives of museums have changed with the widespread use of sophisticated computer equipment among the general public. The way that a museum represents knowledge is dependent on several factors including its internal objectives, which relate to its mission statement, the needs of the public and researchers, as well as the importance of standardizing the process so that museums can share information among themselves.

Knowledge representation refers to the ways in which museums store and organize information. How a museum represents knowledge is linked to the goals of the specific institution. For example, a museum may want the information to be accessible to the general public and not be presented in a way that is incomprehensible or intimidating to the lay person, while at the same time retaining vital information about the object, such as its original cultural context, or scientific measurements, that may be useful to researchers. Because of the varied objectives of museums, cataloging and storing information presents unique challenges. There is currently no standard protocol for museum knowledge representation. Attempts at adopting systems used by libraries have mostly been unsuccessful because of the inherent differences in cataloging books and cultural objects. One obvious difference between books and objects is that books have a title page that gives all of the information needed to systematically categorize and organize information about them. On the other hand, objects can only be identified by the information that is known about them, and this knowledge is often limited which leads to difficulty in categorization.

Another aspect that the article briefly discusses is the sharing of knowledge among museums. Historically, museums have not shared information with each other. This seems to be antithetical to the role museums claim to play in our culture. As the article states, the goal of museums is as all encompassing as representing all of human knowledge and interpreting that knowledge. If there is no communication among museums this goal can never be fully realized. It is for this reason that museums must find some way to standardize their protocol on knowledge representation. Communication among museums, as well as partnerships with information specialists and software designers, should become the standard for museums so that a solution to these problems can be found.

Arguably one of the most important changes in museum knowledge representation stems from the advances in computer technology in the last twelve years. With the advent of cheap, sophisticated computer equipment and high speed Internet, the role that computers play in representing knowledge to the public has become primary. A carefully developed website can help a museum accomplish its mission by offering high quality images and information to the general public and researchers alike. Additionally, the multi-media capability of today’s computers can serve to enhance knowledge through video lectures and other multi-media presentations.

In conclusion, it may be possible for museums to accomplish the objective of representing all of human knowledge and interpretation of that knowledge by working with computer scientists and software designers to standardize the protocol for knowledge representation. Additionally, museums can further accomplish their missions through the use of technology to represent knowledge to the public and researchers. By working together and including other disciplines such as computer and library science, museums may eventually reach the ultimate goal of representing the whole of human knowledge.

Review of Museum Informatics, Chapter 10

Chapter 10 delves into the use of computer based information and communication technologies within a museum and the experiences that these technologies can create as well as the dangers of using them. When used in public displays and in interpretation of artifacts, these technologies have the potential to create a unique and sometimes personal interactive experience for the visitor. According to the article, involvement can be physical, intellectual, emotional or social, although the social aspect can be questionable.

Four types of technologies are discussed with the pros and cons of each enumerated. We begin with the information kiosk. Information kiosks offer a wide variety of aids to the visitor such as maps, object information, labels and information about exhibits and the museum in general. They also have the potential to create 3-D or virtual reality and collaborative group experiences. One very important aspect of the kiosk which is only touched on in the chapter is the ease of changing and adding information to these portable computers. They can constantly be updated and moved in order to be reused for different exhibits. Although no doubt expensive, over the long term, the money saved from printing and mounting numerous labels and pamphlets can add up.

A drawback to the kiosk is the fact that it must be properly placed for functionality within the gallery space. It must not impede the viewing of objects but must also be accessible to everyone. This, however, creates another problem. When there is a large amount of information on a kiosk, it is likely that it will be used for a significant amount of time by each person. Many people might miss out on the information that it has to offer because they do not want to wait.

A solution to this wait is the use of handheld or personal computing devices. These can personalize a tour or allow a person to search information at their own speed. It can also be interactive by giving the person access to the web, a camera and other functions. Handhelds, however are extremely expensive and, as noted by the authors, a museum must think hard about purchasing them. They need to be able to work within the goals of the museum. I would add that they also need to have a lot of information put into them, more than would be offered by any other media in order to make them worthwhile.

The web is another wonderful resource being used by museums to promote, share and research collections. There are many things that the web allows, however, again, the goals of the museum must be met by what is placed on their site. The site must be navigable by many different types of people, standard vocabularies must be used, and colloquial searches enabled for the public. High quality images must be used to represent objects, and sufficient information on pieces needs to be included in databases. Otherwise, they are useless to the researcher or even the interested public. The information, if presented, needs to be organized and suitable for all users, or, separate sections should be set up. A type of this separation can be seen on the British Museum website, which has independent collections searches for children and adults.

Lastly, the chapter briefly introduces the take-home media. This is any type of media that can be taken away from the museum, usually a CD or DVD, for educational purposes. This is a very important facet of the technology used in museums and plays a crucial role in the visitor’s experience. These resources allow the visitor to extend their interaction with the museum and also possibly share it with others. Although given only a small paragraph in the chapter, I believe this to be one of the best and most cost effective ways for museums to heighten education, interaction, and promotion.

Week 2 discussion notes

Role of Museums and Professional Ethics
ICOM ch.1*
Macdonald, Chapters 25-26
Kavanagh, Part 6: Codes of Ethical Conduct

What is the role of the museum in society? How has this role changed as reflected in shifting definitions of the museum and shifting obligations outlined in professional ethics?

To what extent does the museum profession conform to notions of a profession?

How is museum practice controlled or influenced by codes of conduct and ethics?


Look at the codes in Kavanaugh. Compare the codes for contents and details, similarities and differences, exclusions and inclusions. What are the priorities of these codes? Are they different? Who were these codes written for? How do these documents work within museums?

Besterman – 435 – “intergenerational stakeholder” – unpack and discuss

Read three news articles at the break (one per student) and discuss ethical consideration in each.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-history4sep04,0,3248493.story?coll=la-home-world

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rosenbaum4sep04,0,7124279.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

file:///Users/jmgorman/Desktop/MUSEUM%20PRACTICES/ethics%20papers/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx.webarchive

Ethical situations and case studies.

1. You are the curator of a social history gallery and have a large collection of photographs and negatives, from a business that has operated in your area for over 70 years. Some of the photos are very striking, particularly those of children and you use them in your social history gallery in an interactive program on a new leaflet.
2. The nat hist collection for which you are responsible is stored in a damp basement and you know it is deteriorating rapidly. Your museum has become much more interested in active environmental work and has not exhibited any stuffed specimens for at least ten years.
3. Apulian krater example
4. Houston fine arts example
5. Lydian horde from Genoways and Ireland

NYT article concerning charitable giving in the US

September 6, 2007
AGE OF RICHES
Big Gifts, Tax Breaks and a Debate on Charity

By STEPHANIE STROM
Eli Broad, a billionaire businessman, has given away more than $650 million over the last five years, to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to establish a medical research institute, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and to programs to improve the administration of urban schools and public education.

The rich are giving more to charity than ever, but people like Mr. Broad are not the only ones footing the bill for such generosity. For every three dollars they give away, the federal government typically gives up a dollar or more in tax revenue, because of the charitable tax deduction and by not collecting estate taxes.

Mr. Broad (rhymes with road) says his gifts provide a greater public benefit than if the money goes to taxes for the government to spend. “I believe the public benefit is significantly greater than the tax benefit an individual receives,” Mr. Broad said. “I think there’s a multiplier effect. What smart, entrepreneurial philanthropists and their foundations do is get greater value for how they invest their money than if the government were doing it.”

It is an argument made by many of the nation’s richest people. But not all of them. Take the investor William H. Gross, also a billionaire. Mr. Gross vigorously dismisses the notion that the wealthy are helping society more effectively and efficiently than government.

“When millions of people are dying of AIDS and malaria in Africa, it is hard to justify the umpteenth society gala held for the benefit of a performing arts center or an art museum,” he wrote in his investment commentary this month. “A $30 million gift to a concert hall is not philanthropy, it is a Napoleonic coronation.”

Elaborating in an interview, Mr. Gross said he did not think the public benefits from philanthropy were commensurate with the tax breaks that givers receive. “I don’t think we’re getting the bang for the buck for gifts to build football stadiums and concert halls, with all due respect to Carnegie Hall and other institutions,” he said. “I don’t think the public would vote for spending tax dollars on those things.”

The billionaires’ differing views epitomize a growing debate over what philanthropy is achieving at a time when the wealthiest Americans control a rising share of the national income and, because of sharp cuts in personal taxes, give up less to government.

Familiar Recipients

A common perception of philanthropy is that one of its central purposes is to alleviate the suffering of society’s least fortunate and therefore promote greater equality, taking some of the burden off government. In exchange, the United States is one of a handful of countries to allow givers a tax deduction. In essence, the public is letting private individuals decide how to allocate money on their behalf.

What qualifies for that tax deduction has broadened over the 90 years since its creation to include everything from university golf teams to puppet theaters — even an organization established after Hurricane Katrina to help practitioners of sadomasochism obtain gear they had lost in the storm.

Roughly three-quarters of charitable gifts of $50 million and more from 2002 through March 31 went to universities, private foundations, hospitals and art museums, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Of the rest, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation accounted for half on the center’s list. That money went primarily to improve the lives of the poor in developing countries. Valuable as that may be, it also meant that the American public effectively underwrote several billion dollars worth of foreign aid by private individuals, even though poll after poll shows Americans are at best ambivalent about using tax dollars in such assistance.

In contrast, few gifts of that size are made to organizations like the Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity and America’s Second Harvest, whose main goals are to help the poor in this country. Research shows that less than 10 percent of the money Americans give to charity addresses basic human needs, like sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry and caring for the indigent sick, and that the wealthiest typically devote an even smaller portion of their giving to such causes than everyone else.

“Donors give to organizations they are close to,” said H. Art Taylor, president and chief executive of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance. “So they give to their college or university, or maybe someone close to them died of a particular disease so they make a big gift to medical research aimed at that disease. How many of the superrich have that kind of a relationship with a soup kitchen? Or a homeless shelter?”

Philanthropists like Mr. Broad say that looking at philanthropy solely as a means of ameliorating need is too narrow. “If you look historically at what Carnegie did with creating a library system and the Rockefellers in creating Rockefeller University, I think it does a lot more for society than simply supporting those in need,” Mr. Broad said.

About 2 percent of the money Mr. Broad has given away through his two foundations over the last five years, or $15 million, went to support organizations like the United Way and the United Jewish Fund, which serve needy people as well as the middle class. The foundations also have given money to groups that help homeless children, and the International Rescue Committee.

Still, Mr. Broad dedicates his biggest gifts to areas he thinks lack government support, like the $25 million he gave to the University of Southern California last year to found an institute for integrative biology and stem cell research, or the tens of millions he dedicated to complete the new Disney concert hall in Los Angeles.

Like many major philanthropists, Mr. Broad said he considered such gifts an illustration of the Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” The argument is that simply taking care of the poor does nothing to eliminate poverty and that they will ultimately benefit more from efforts to, say, find cures for the diseases that afflict them or improve public education.

As for Mr. Gross, despite his uncharacteristically fiery criticism of what he calls “philanthropic ego gratification,” some of the large gifts he and his wife, Sue, have made are not so different from those made by other billionaires. He has given millions to a local hospital, for example, and for stem cell research.

And in 2005 the couple gave roughly $25 million to Duke, Mr. Gross’s alma mater.

But the Duke gift illustrates Mr. Gross’s priorities. The money is almost exclusively for scholarships.

“Universities have their own thing going — they want to build infrastructure and endowments and perpetuate their system, which isn’t necessarily in the social interest,” Mr. Gross said. “Scholarships get a little more down to the ground level.”

Taking Aim at the Tax Code

The investor Warren E. Buffett also voices strong feelings about how donations are used.

When Mr. Buffett pledged $30 billion to the Gates Foundation, he included a little-noted requirement that the foundation spend each increment of the gift he hands over, in addition to its own annual legally mandated spending. If Mr. Buffett transfers $1.3 billion of stock to it, it must spend every nickel within a year.

“I wanted to make sure,” he said, “that to the extent I was providing extra money to them, it didn’t just go to build up the foundation size further but that it was put to use.”

The Gates Foundation’s work is largely international, although a portion of its spending supports efforts to improve urban education and access to college, so Mr. Buffett’s money is unlikely to be used to address basic needs in this country.

“I think the government ought to make sure that all the people here who drew short straws have a decent minimum,” Mr. Buffett said. “We moved toward that with Social Security, but we could go a lot further now.”

He does not regard his gift as charitable and expects no tax benefit from it, in part because he has credit for past donations that he has not used.

Rather, he calls his sister, Doris Buffett, the “real philanthropist” in the family. Ms. Buffett runs an organization, the Sunshine Lady Foundation, that helps the needy pay for college, medical expenses, mortgages, glasses and cars.

Mr. Buffett recently has brought attention to himself as a critic of inequities in the nation’s tax system, which offers the wealthy better tax breaks for charitable giving than it does the average taxpayer. Deductions for charitable giving can be claimed only by the fewer than half of all taxpayers who itemize, and those falling in higher tax brackets get bigger deductions for cash gifts.

The charitable deduction cost the government $40 billion in lost tax revenue last year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, more than the government spends altogether on managing public lands, protecting the environment and developing new energy sources.

Rob Reich, an assistant professor of political science and ethics in society at Stanford, goes so far as to say that the tax code promotes inequities through the breaks it provides for charitable giving.

Take schools. The Woodside Elementary School in Woodside, Calif., where the median family income is $196,505, raised $7,065 a pupil in 1998 from charitable contributions to a foundation it created, according to Professor Reich’s research. Across the San Francisco Bay, a similar foundation to support the Oakland Unified School District, where the median family income is $44,384, raised $138 a pupil that year.

In effect, the government is subsidizing a system that enhances inequities between poor and wealthy public schools, Professor Reich said.

Raising Questions

Legislators, regulators and others are asking more questions about exactly what charities do with the money they are given.

“When foundations, corporations and individuals give money to the opera,” said Xavier Becerra, a California Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee who represents a district in Los Angeles populated largely by young working-class immigrant families, “my folks are very unlikely to benefit from those forgone tax dollars that could have been used for health care, for after-school programs for kids, for help in getting access to college education.”

Yet Mr. Becerra himself is a beneficiary of one of the country’s wealthiest charities, Stanford, which has a $15.2 billion endowment and gave him a scholarship. “There is no way my parents could have afforded for me to go there without the generous financial aid the university gave me,” he said.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Grover G. Norquist, whose Americans for Tax Reform lobbies for lower taxes, suggests taxing nonprofit hospitals that cannot demonstrate that they provide significant care for the poor.

“I’m not aware of anything they do that a for-profit hospital doesn’t do in terms of providing free care,” Mr. Norquist said.

Like other billionaire philanthropists, Thomas M. Siebel, founder of Siebel Systems, has given his largest gifts to his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1999, he donated $32 million for a computer science center bearing his name, and he pledged $100 million this year to support basic research that he hopes will reduce dependency on carbon-based fuels.

But when the university suggested using some of that gift to put up another new building named for him and hire new professors, he said no.

“I told them to use the basement of an existing building and some of the really smart people they already have,” Mr. Siebel said.

Attracting philanthropic support to fight substance abuse is one of the biggest challenges in fund-raising, but Mr. Siebel has donated more than $15 million to the Meth Project, an organization he created. “I think we’ll save a lot of lives in the end,” Mr. Siebel said. “Isn’t that what philanthropy is supposed to be about?”

He has also given the Salvation Army more than $18 million over the last six years, mostly to support services for the homeless. He said he gives to the organization because of its low administrative costs and lack of frills.

“When I first started doing this, I made a contribution to some organization, Harvest something or other, I think, that was working on homelessness,” Mr. Siebel said. “The next thing I knew, I got a plaque in the mail and an invitation to an awards ceremony.”

He added: “I never gave them another nickel. What were they spending money on plaques for?”


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

AAM Code of Ethics for Museums (2000)

Introduction

Ethical codes evolve in response to changing conditions, values, and ideas. A professional code of ethics must, therefore, be periodically updated. It must also rest upon widely shared values. Although the operating environment of museums grows more complex each year, the root value for museums, the tie that connects all of us together despite our diversity, is the commitment to serving people, both present and future generations. This value guided the creation of and remains the most fundamental principle in the following Code of Ethics for Museums.

Code of Ethics for Museums

Museums make their unique contribution to the public by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the things of this world. Historically, they have owned and used natural objects, living and nonliving, and all manner of human artifacts to advance knowledge and nourish the human spirit. Today, the range of their special interests reflects the scope of human vision. Their missions include collecting and preserving, as well as exhibiting and educating with materials not only owned but also borrowed and fabricated for these ends. Their numbers include both governmental and private museums of anthropology, art history and natural history, aquariums, arboreta, art centers, botanical gardens, children's museums, historic sites, nature centers, planetariums, science and technology centers, and zoos. The museum universe in the United States includes both collecting and noncollecting institutions. Although diverse in their missions, they have in common their nonprofit form of organization and a commitment of service to the public. Their collections and/or the objects they borrow or fabricate are the basis for research, exhibits, and programs that invite public participation.

Taken as a whole, museum collections and exhibition materials represent the world's natural and cultural common wealth. As stewards of that wealth, museums are compelled to advance an understanding of all natural forms and of the human experience. It is incumbent on museums to be resources for humankind and in all their activities to foster an informed appreciation of the rich and diverse world we have inherited. It is also incumbent upon them to preserve that inheritance for posterity.

Museums in the United States are grounded in the tradition of public service. They are organized as public trusts, holding their collections and information as a benefit for those they were established to serve. Members of their governing authority, employees, and volunteers are committed to the interests of these beneficiaries. The law provides the basic framework for museum operations. As nonprofit institutions, museums comply with applicable local, state, and federal laws and international conventions, as well as with the specific legal standards governing trust responsibilities. This Code of Ethics for Museums takes that compliance as given. But legal standards are a minimum. Museums and those responsible for them must do more than avoid legal liability, they must take affirmative steps to maintain their integrity so as to warrant public confidence. They must act not only legally but also ethically. This Code of Ethics for Museums, therefore, outlines ethical standards that frequently exceed legal minimums.

Loyalty to the mission of the museum and to the public it serves is the essence of museum work, whether volunteer or paid. Where conflicts of interest arise — actual, potential, or perceived — the duty of loyalty must never be compromised. No individual may use his or her position in a museum for personal gain or to benefit another at the expense of the museum, its mission, its reputation, and the society it serves.

For museums, public service is paramount. To affirm that ethic and to elaborate its application to their governance, collections, and programs, the American Association of Museums promulgates this Code of Ethics for Museums. In subscribing to this code, museums assume responsibility for the actions of members of their governing authority, employees, and volunteers in the performance of museum-related duties. Museums, thereby, affirm their chartered purpose, ensure the prudent application of their resources, enhance their effectiveness, and maintain public confidence. This collective endeavor strengthens museum work and the contributions of museums to society — present and future.

Governance

Museum governance in its various forms is a public trust responsible for the institution's service to society. The governing authority protects and enhances the museum's collections and programs and its physical, human, and financial resources. It ensures that all these resources support the museum's mission, respond to the pluralism of society, and respect the diversity of the natural and cultural common wealth.

Thus, the governing authority ensures that:

all those who work for or on behalf of a museum understand and support its mission and public trust responsibilities
its members understand and fulfill their trusteeship and act corporately, not as individuals
the museum's collections and programs and its physical, human, and financial resources are protected, maintained, and developed in support of the museum's mission
it is responsive to and represents the interests of society
it maintains the relationship with staff in which shared roles are recognized and separate responsibilities respected
working relationships among trustees, employees, and volunteers are based on equity and mutual respect
professional standards and practices inform and guide museum operations
policies are articulated and prudent oversight is practiced
governance promotes the public good rather than individual financial gain.
Collections

The distinctive character of museum ethics derives from the ownership, care, and use of objects, specimens, and living collections representing the world's natural and cultural common wealth. This stewardship of collections entails the highest public trust and carries with it the presumption of rightful ownership, permanence, care, documentation, accessibility, and responsible disposal.

Thus, the museum ensures that:

collections in its custody support its mission and public trust responsibilities
collections in its custody are lawfully held, protected, secure, unencumbered, cared for, and preserved
collections in its custody are accounted for and documented
access to the collections and related information is permitted and regulated
acquisition, disposal, and loan activities are conducted in a manner that respects the protection and preservation of natural and cultural resources and discourages illicit trade in such materials
acquisition, disposal, and loan activities conform to its mission and public trust responsibilities
disposal of collections through sale, trade, or research activities is solely for the advancement of the museum's mission. Proceeds from the sale of nonliving collections are to be used consistent with the established standards of the museum's discipline, but in no event shall they be used for anything other than acquisition or direct care of collections.
the unique and special nature of human remains and funerary and sacred objects is recognized as the basis of all decisions concerning such collections
collections-related activities promote the public good rather than individual financial gain
competing claims of ownership that may be asserted in connection with objects in its custody should be handled openly, seriously, responsively and with respect for the dignity of all parties involved.
Programs

Museums serve society by advancing an understanding and appreciation of the natural and cultural common wealth through exhibitions, research, scholarship, publications, and educational activities. These programs further the museum's mission and are responsive to the concerns, interests, and needs of society.

Thus, the museum ensures that:

programs support its mission and public trust responsibilities
programs are founded on scholarship and marked by intellectual integrity
programs are accessible and encourage participation of the widest possible audience consistent with its mission and resources
programs respect pluralistic values, traditions, and concerns
revenue-producing activities and activities that involve relationships with external entities are compatible with the museum's mission and support its public trust responsibilities
programs promote the public good rather than individual financial gain.
Promulgation

This Code of Ethics for Museums was adopted by the Board of Directors of the American Association of Museums on November 12, 1993. The AAM Board of Directors recommends that each nonprofit museum member of the American Association of Museums adopt and promulgate its separate code of ethics, applying the Code of Ethics for Museums to its own institutional setting.

A Committee on Ethics, nominated by the president of the AAM and confirmed by the Board of Directors, will be charged with two responsibilities:

establishing programs of information, education, and assistance to guide museums in developing their own codes of ethics
reviewing the Code of Ethics for Museums and periodically recommending refinements and revisions to the Board of Directors.
Afterword

In 1987 the Council of the American Association of Museums determined to revise the association's 1978 statement on ethics. The impetus for revision was recognition throughout the American museum community that the statement needed to be refined and strengthened in light of the expanded role of museums in society and a heightened awareness that the collection, preservation, and interpretation of natural and cultural heritages involve issues of significant concern to the American people.

Following a series of group discussions and commentary by members of the AAM Council, the Accreditation Commission, and museum leaders throughout the country, the president of AAM appointed an Ethics Task Force to prepare a code of ethics. In its work, the Ethics Task Force was committed to codifying the common understanding of ethics in the museum profession and to establishing a framework within which each institution could develop its own code. For guidance, the task force looked to the tradition of museum ethics and drew inspiration from AAM's first code of ethics, published in 1925 as Code of Ethics for Museum Workers, which states in its preface:

Museums, in the broadest sense, are institutions which hold their possessions in trust for mankind and for the future welfare of the [human] race. Their value is in direct proportion to the service they render the emotional and intellectual life of the people. The life of a museum worker is essentially one of service.

This commitment to service derived from nineteenth-century notions of the advancement and dissemination of knowledge that informed the founding documents of America's museums. George Brown Goode, a noted zoologist and first head of the United States National Museum, declared in 1889:

The museums of the future in this democratic land should be adapted to the needs of the mechanic, the factory operator, the day laborer, the salesman, and the clerk, as much as to those of the professional man and the man of leisure. . . . In short, the public museum is, first of all, for the benefit of the public.

John Cotton Dana, an early twentieth-century museum leader and director of the Newark Museum, promoted the concept of museum work as public service in essays with titles such as "Increasing the Usefulness of Museums" and "A Museum of Service." Dana believed that museums did not exist solely to gather and preserve collections. For him, they were important centers of enlightenment.

By the 1940s, Theodore Low, a strong proponent of museum education, detected a new concentration in the museum profession on scholarship and methodology. These concerns are reflected in Museum Ethics, published by AAM in 1978, which elaborated on relationships among staff, management, and governing authority.

During the 1980s, Americans grew increasingly sensitive to the nation's cultural pluralism, concerned about the global environment, and vigilant regarding the public institutions. Rapid technological change, new public policies relating to nonprofit corporations, a troubled educational system, shifting patterns of private and public wealth, and increased financial pressures all called for a sharper delineation of museums' ethical responsibilities. In 1984 AAM's Commission on Museums for a New Century placed renewed emphasis on public service and education, and in 1986 the code of ethics adopted by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) put service to society at the center of museum responsibilities. ICOM defines museums as institutions "in the service of society and of its development" and holds that "employment by a museum, whether publicly or privately supported, is a public trust involving great responsibility."

Building upon this history, the Ethics Task Force produced several drafts of a Code of Ethics for Museums. These drafts were shared with the AAM Executive Committee and Board of Directors, and twice referred to the field for comment. Hundreds of individuals and representatives of professional organizations and museums of all types and sizes submitted thoughtful critiques. These critiques were instrumental in shaping the document submitted to the AAM Board of Directors, which adopted the code on May 18, 1991. However, despite the review process, when the adopted code was circulated, it soon became clear that the diversity of the museum field prevented immediate consensus on every point.

Therefore, at its November 1991 meeting, the AAM Board of Directors voted to postpone implementation of the Code of Ethics for at least one year. At the same meeting an Ethics Commission nominated by the AAM president was confirmed. The newly appointed commission — in addition to its other charges of establishing educational programs to guide museums in developing their own code of ethics and establishing procedures for addressing alleged violations of the code — was asked to review the code and recommend to the Board changes in either the code or its implementation.

The new Ethics Commission spent its first year reviewing the code and the hundreds of communications it had generated, and initiating additional dialogue. AAM institutional members were invited to comment further on the issues that were most divisive — the mode of implementation and the restrictions placed on funds from deaccessioned objects. Ethics Commission members also met in person with their colleagues at the annual and regional meetings, and an ad hoc meeting of museum directors was convened by the board president to examine the code's language regarding deaccessioning.

This process of review produced two alternatives for the board to consider at its May meeting: (1) to accept a new code developed by the Ethics Commission, or (2) to rewrite the sections of the 1991 code relating to use of funds from deaccessioning and mode of implementation. Following a very lively and involved discussion, the motion to reinstate the 1991 code with modified language was passed and a small committee met separately to make the necessary changes.

In addition, it was voted that the Ethics Commission be renamed the Committee on Ethics with responsibilities for establishing information and educational programs and reviewing the Code of Ethics for Museums and making periodic recommendations for revisions to the board. These final changes were approved by the board in November 1993 and are incorporated into this document, which is the AAM Code of Ethics for Museums.

Each nonprofit museum member of the American Association of Museums should subscribe to the AAM Code of Ethics for Museums. Subsequently, these museums should set about framing their own institutional codes of ethics, which should be in conformance with the AAM code and should expand on it through the elaboration of specific practices. This recommendation is made to these member institutions in the belief that engaging the governing authority, staff, and volunteers in applying the AAM code to institutional settings will stimulate the development and maintenance of sound policies and procedures necessary to understanding and ensuring ethical behavior by institutions and by all who work for them or on their behalf.

With these steps, the American museum community expands its continuing effort to advance museum work through self-regulation. The Code of Ethics for Museums serves the interests of museums, their constituencies, and society. The primary goal of AAM is to encourage institutions to regulate the ethical behavior of members of their governing authority, employees, and volunteers. Formal adoption of an institutional code promotes higher and more consistent ethical standards. To this end, the Committee on Ethics will develop workshops, model codes, and publications. These and other forms of technical assistance will stimulate a dialogue about ethics throughout the museum community and provide guidance to museums in developing their institutional codes.

2000