European Standards Map

France

EMII gratefully acknowledges the help of the following people in France:

Philippe Avenier, Direction des musées de France
Jeannette Ivain, Direction des musées de France

National Overview ¦ International Initiatives ¦ National Initiatives ¦ Regional Initiatives ¦ Procedural Standards ¦ Information Management Standards ¦ Future Vision for EMII ¦ Home

National Overview

The national definition of museum:

'Any permanent collection of works of art opened to the public which has an historical, artistical or archeological interest.'

The national legislation for museums: Ordonnance du 13 juillet 1945 (for collection of fine arts, ethnology, history and archeology).

The partner estimated that 51% (or more) of French museums comply with the ICOM Code of Professional Ethics. The Direction des musées de France is responsible for co-ordinating museum documentation and information.
The total number of public museums in France is estimated as 1,400.

Public museums can be defined as:

'a museum which is controlled by the State, even if collections belong to a local authority, an association, a Foundation or other institution.'

And private museums as: ' a museum which is not controlled by the State.'

Categories of Public Museums

Additional comments: The direction des musées de France has developed a data base of museums controled by the State called "Museofile" http://museofile.culture.fr.

The ministry of Education and Research (Office de coopération et d'information muséographique) has developed a database of museums belonging to its network http://www.ocim.org

Employment

There are 8,000 people are in full time (more than 35 hours per week) employment in French museums. It was not possible to respond to how many are in part-time paid employment and very few people work on a voluntary basis in France.

Information Management

Percentage of cultural heritage held in Museums that is:

For documented collections, what percentage is:

(1) To national minimum standard where one exists or international alternative. (2) Catalogued beyond national minimum standard.

An estimated 500 museums record information digitally. The national documenation guidelines are Méthode d'inventaire informatique des objets beaux-arts/arts décoratifs, edited by the direction des musées de France.

Partners Comments:

135,000 data (and 16,000 digital images) available on line in Joconde (database for fine arts)
9,700 data available on line in Archeologie (national database)
3,000 data available on line in Ethnologie (national database)
20,000 data available on line in Narcisse (database of scientific documents of the laboratory)
100,000 data (and images) available in Videomuseum (local consultation)
100,000 data (with digital images) available on line in the database of l'Agence photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux.
3,000 data (and digital images) available on line in the regional data base of museums of the North of France Certain of the data are common to several databases.

On the total number, a very small part is not in the national data bases (around 1500) So, we can say 0.8% in regional data banks and 99.6% in national data bases. Total is more than 100 because a part of the data is both into national and regional data bases.

Images and Multimedia

An estimated 25 museums have collaborated to publish 5 CD-Roms. 15 museums have interactive gallery systems and a further 5 plan to install systems by December 2001.

Percentage of museums with digital images of all or part of their collections:

Comment: The Ministry of Culture has decided to support a special program of digitization in 2,000 for museums depending on local authorities. The amount is 4 million French Francs.

Museums and the Internet

The partner was unable to estimate how many museums have Internet access for Web browsing, it is thought that approximately 170 have email and a Web site of which 10 sites are brochureware only, 20 include educational content and around 50 have databases on-line.

Partners Comment: All the public museums have the opportunity to put their data in national databases. Museums can also record data locally at institution level and in regional databases.

¦ National Overview ¦ International Initiatives ¦ National Initiatives ¦ Regional Initiatives ¦ Procedural Standards ¦ Information Management Standards ¦ Future Vision for EMII ¦ Home

International, National and Regional Initiatives

We asked partners to describe current or recently completed international initiatives to facilitate remote access to cultual hertiage information. These can include participation in professional working groups and other EC funded projects.

• Initiative details

¦ National Overview ¦ International Initiatives ¦ National Initiatives ¦ Regional Initiatives ¦ Procedural Standards ¦ Information Management Standards ¦ Future Vision for EMII ¦ Home

Procedural Standards

Partners comment: One thing is important to take into account. We (direction des musées de France) have worked with four of the five companies mentioned to propose a gateway between local and national data bases. It means that users can give us automatically all the information we need. This gateway doesn't yet exist with Atlas Photo.

We also asked what Collections Management Software is in use:

¦ National Overview ¦ International Initiatives ¦ National Initiatives ¦ Regional Initiatives ¦ Procedural Standards ¦ Information Management Standards ¦ Future Vision for EMII ¦ Home

Information Management Standards

We asked about:

• Content and Resource description standards including Term Lists, Classification Systems and Thesauri
• Content and Structure Description Standards
• Technological Standards and Protocols

Content and Resource Description Standard

Term lists in use include:

• L'Art du métal: vocabulaire technique
  Catherine Arminjon et Michle Bilimoff, Paris : Editions du patrimoine, 1998, 365 p., (Principes d'analyse scientifique), ISBN 2-85822-236-3
• Systéme descriptif des antiquits classiques
  Laurence Villard, Paris: Editions de la Réunion des muses nationaux, 1984, 111 p., ISBN 2-7118-0248-5

Theasuri in use include:

• Ethnophoto : Thesaurus pour l'analyse de la photographie ethnographique du domaine français
  Philippe Richard, Brigitte Lozza - Paris : Editions de la maison des sciences de l'homme, 1997. - 317 p. : ill. - ISBN 2-7351-0754-X

Content and Structure Description Standards

See www.culture.fr/documentation/joconde/methode.htm for details of the French data content and structure standard.

Technological Standards and Protocols

The French partner was not able to answer the questions in relation to technological standards and protocols.

¦ National Overview ¦ International Initiatives ¦ National Initiatives ¦ Regional Initiatives ¦ Procedural Standards ¦ Information Management Standards ¦ Future Vision for EMII ¦ Home

Future Vision

The French response to our question:

'Please use this space to describe ways in which you consider EMII should develop to provide a value added resource to museums in your country. Feel free to address any aspect of our current remit or to propose new roles. You may be as detailed as you like and include references to publications, Web sites, iniatives etc. Whilst we are developing our vision for EMII's future activities we also want to ensure that we capture your needs and concerns.'

Three points for the future EMII:

1/ With EMII, museums could know what is done in the fields of data bases and multimedia everywhere in Europe (standards, methods, and so on.),

2/ Museums could exchange information, ask questions and get answers (forum),

3/ Musuems could organize common programs at an international level to develop common services (information) and establish links beetween existing realizations.

¦ National Overview ¦ International Initiatives ¦ National Initiatives ¦ Regional Initiatives ¦ Procedural Standards ¦ Information Management Standards ¦ Future Vision for EMII

Funded by the European Commission -Education and Culture Directorate-General - Raphaël Programme

Created on 07 July 2000