The IP SIG held its annual meeting at the MCN conference in Las Vegas on September 9. The following meeting minutes were kindly provided by Mikki Carpenter of MOMA. (Thank you Mikki!)
Diane Zorich
IP SIG Chair
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The meeting was chaired by Mikki Carpenter, sitting in for Amalyah Keshet, and was called to order at 9:10 AM. Four agenda items were raised for discussion:
The first item was the need for a mission statement for the SIG. Diane Zorich volunteered to draft a statement, and post it on the SIG listserve for comment.
There was some side discussion of the listserve, and whether the group felt that the separate listserves for each SIG were being used enough to warrant their continuation, or whether all traffic should be sent to the main MCN listserve, with subject headings identifying the interested SIG. The group decided to recommend the use of a single listserve, in order to both increase traffic on the MCN listserve, and so that the IP SIG's activities would reach a wider audience, and possibly attract more members to the SIG.
The second agenda item was the need for more contributions of professional links for the web site. Any additional links should be suggested to the SIG Chair, who will vet them and then notify the MCN web master to add any suitable links.
In light of the MCN Board's decision that SIG's should not be chaired by Board members, in a departure from the "formal" agenda, Amalyah Keshet announced that she was stepping down as SIGCchair. The duties of the Chair were described by Amalyah as "organizing, suggesting, delegating, coordinating, and liaising with e-Spectra. After a call for volunteers, Diane Zorich was duly elected SIG Chair.
The third agenda item was a call for topics and suggestions for panels for the 2001 MCN conference in Cincinnati. Diane Zorich and Barry Szczesny suggested a panel addressing on-line privacy issues for museums. Len Steinbach of the Cleveland Museum of Art suggested a "moot court," which could argue a "fair use" case. This idea garnered great support, both for its relevance, and for the novelty of its format.
The final agenda item was the consideration of a special issue of SPECTRA on Intellectual Property in Museums in the Digital Millenium. The group realized that there is already considerable content in existence, which could be augmented by papers from the speakers at the 2000 conference as well as abstracts of current or recent IP cases. It was also suggested that a "legal quiz of the month" could be done for e-SPECTRA. Amalyah will bring both ideas to the MCN Board for consideration.
There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 9:50 AM.
Meeting Attendees:
Rob Lancefield, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University
Barry Szczesny, American Association of Museums
Sam Quigley, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Anne Stevenson, UBC Museum of Anthropology
Leslie Johnston, Harvard Design School
Ann Mayo, Smith College Museum of Art
Diane Zorich, Information Management Consultant, Princeton, NJ
Len Steinbach, Cleveland Museum of Art
Steve Grigory, Alchemedia. Inc.
Amalyah Keshet, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Mikki Carpenter, Museum of Modern Art
Rina Pantalony, Canadian Heritage Information Network
