Conference Name

The 3rd Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art Council Meeting in 2010

agenda

How to proceed with the museum operation evaluation system

Date & Time

Friday, March 4, 2011 14:00 - 16:40

Location

Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Auditorium, Main Building
(21-1 Nishi-Sabagayacho, Tobata-ku, Tokyo)

Name of person(s) present

committee member

Chairman Hiroki Yoshitake
Takashi Hatano, Vice Chairman
Commissioner Hiroko Koga
Commissioner Satoshi Matsuei
Commissioner Miki Tani
Commissioner Toshio Yamanashi
Commissioner Mihiro Nagatsu
Commissioner Chizuru Kawanami
Commissioner Hiroshi Sekino
Commissioner Yasuko Iimori

secretariat

Director of the Museum of Education, Hayaharu Nishimura
Kazunari Kudo, Deputy Director, Museum of Education
Tsukasa Odaguchi, Director, Museum Extension Division, Board of Education
Yuji Ota, Director, Curatorial Division, Museum of Art, Board of Education
Takeshi Left, Director, Museum of Art Branch, Board of Education
Shuji Kera, Director, Extension Section, Museums and Extension Division, Board of Education
Takayuki Nasu, Director, Curatorial Section, Museum of Art, Board of Education
Hiroshi Shiokawa, Chief, Museum Extension Division, Board of Education

Summary of Agenda

• report
• Agenda: How to proceed with the museum operation evaluation system

Conference proceedings

director

Today's council meeting will be the first meeting of the new committee members, who were elected last November when their terms expired.
All of the committee members hold important positions in their respective organizations, and we sincerely thank them for taking time out of their very busy schedules to serve as members of the Museum's Council.
It has been 36 years since the museum opened in 1974 (Showa 49), last November, and at the end of last fiscal year, we established a new vision and direction, "About the Municipal Museum of Art in the Future. Currently, we are working on various projects to realize this vision.
In proceeding with the project, we hope to realize our new vision by placing the four basic functions of an art museum - collection and preservation of materials, research and investigation, exhibition, and educational dissemination - at the core of our operations.
This council is a place for the director of the museum to consult with and express his/her opinions in accordance with the Museum Law. We would like to ask the members of the council, who are experts in their fields, to freely exchange their opinions on the agenda of the day and to find a better direction for the council.
For this purpose, I will be sitting in the same seat as you all, not on the secretariat side.
The secretariat will answer questions about practical details, but we ask for everyone's cooperation in making this a stimulating exchange of ideas among committee members.

Agenda Item: How to proceed with the museum operation evaluation system

director

There is an evaluation sheet with five evaluation items. It would be difficult for all committee members to be involved in all evaluation items. Therefore, we would like to have two to three committee members in charge of one evaluation item, taking advantage of the expertise of each committee member. We will consult with the chairperson to decide who will be in charge of each evaluation item.
In making the evaluation, please refer to the results of the internal evaluation conducted by the museum and the collection of documents related to the evaluation.
In June of this year, we will have an evaluation of the FY 2010 projects, and since most of you were not members of the Council in FY 2010, you did not see the projects directly, so you will be asked to evaluate them based only on materials prepared by the museum. From FY2011 onward, we would like to proceed with the external evaluation by actually seeing the projects as much as possible, or by having committee members send us the materials they would like to have.

chairman

According to the explanation so far, we will ask for an external evaluation by the Museum Council in June or so. For this purpose, the museum will conduct a self-evaluation in April.
Therefore, I think the issue is when to distribute materials on self-evaluation to the Council members.
Since the collection of materials distributed now is data as of the end of December 2010, the secretariat will send updated data as of the end of FY22 by the end of June, before the external evaluation.
Today, we will hold a free discussion on how to proceed with the evaluation. We would like to hear your questions and opinions on how to proceed with the evaluation, as well as any other comments you may have about the museum's past operations, your expectations for the future, and what items you would like to see checked.

committee member

This evaluation method is simple and straightforward. It has a very clean form.
The symbols (A-E) for the evaluation items should be linked to the notations on the evaluation sheet and in other documents, as they are necessary for the committee members to collate the documents.
What should we consider the difference between "measures" and "administrative operations"? Also, what is meant by "the number and content of museums and other institutions with which joint research can be conducted"?

secretariat

The symbols for evaluation items are as you indicated. We will unify the notation and revise it.
Regarding the difference between "measures" and "administrative operations," we can basically say that the smallest single unit in the budget category is "administrative operations."
In addition, since this evaluation is to assess measures, it sets "achievement targets for measures in each fiscal year" based on the assumption that there should also be achievement targets for each fiscal year against the "five-year achievement targets for measures. However, a closer look at the contents reveals that the "policy attainment targets for each fiscal year" are broken down to the level of "administrative operations.
I think it is necessary to organize the "policy achievement goals for each fiscal year" in a slightly more abstract form, so that the details of the achievement goals are explained in detail in individual administrative projects in order to clarify their content.
Usually, a certain collection of "administrative operations" in the same category becomes a "measure," which is slightly more abstract, so we would like to devise a way to write a "measure achievement target" corresponding to it and a way to write goal setting at the "administrative operations" level in the sense of explaining it.
As for "museums with which joint research is possible," at the time of writing this report, we did not know which museums would be willing to conduct joint research with our museum and on which themes. As we continue to evaluate the results, we hope to be able to name specific museums and themes for joint research in each fiscal year.

director

In relation to "museums, etc. where joint research is possible," specific museum names and themes will differ from year to year. In reality, an exhibition would have to be completely joint research, so I would like to describe it in the form of whether it is or is not possible. This does not mean that it has to be done every year, but it will differ from year to year.

committee member

Regarding Evaluation Item A: Collection and Preservation of Materials, the number of newly purchased or donated works was about 6 in FY2011, compared to 27 in FY2010. What does this difference mean?

secretariat

We had thought that we could expect to purchase or receive donations of about 50 new works over the next five years. However, the number of donated works was unexpectedly large in FY2010. Accordingly, we adjusted the number of donated works from FY2011 onward and divided it evenly, which resulted in about 5-6 works per year.

committee member

What is the status of art purchases?

secretariat

The art purchase fund currently has approximately 120 million yen. The purchase of art works is planned on an annual basis; four works were purchased in FY 2009 and one is scheduled to be purchased in FY 2010.
The situation is that art works are purchased within a budget and with some narrowing down.

committee member

The document states "Formation of a distinctive collection. We will evaluate the collection every year for a single year, and I believe that this is based on the accumulation of works and the selection of works in accordance with the collection policy. I understand the general framework of "outstanding works" or "prints," but what do you consider to be distinctive? If there is a direction for the collection and its utilization that you intend to strengthen over the next five years, please let us know.

director

The museum now has a collection of about 7,000 pieces. Although it has been 35 years since the museum opened, there are only a few impressionist works. One of the things we are doing is to supplement this with prints, and to expand the collection so that it can be presented in a more systematic way.
We have also put a lot of effort into collecting contemporary art, but it is still an "island" in itself. We would like to link them together in such a way as to provide an overview of the trends in postwar art.
The same can be said for the modern period, where there are no works by local artists that the museum should have. In the area of modern art, we have established a framework of western Japan as a whole. We are thinking of enhancing this framework to make it more distinctive.

committee member

When conducting evaluations, the qualifications of the evaluator are questioned.
If I were in charge of evaluation item A: Collection and Preservation of Materials, I think it would be easier to understand if the target indicator was not only the number of points, but also, for example, the number of works by artists that match the content policy of collecting works in this genre and period of modern Western-style painting. It would be easier to understand if you could indicate, for example, that you have collected works by artists that match the content policy of collecting works in this genre and period of modern Western-style painting. We believe that the quality of the collection should be evaluated in addition to the number of works. In this case, it is important to set evaluation indicators in what form.
What is the difference between an art volunteer/museum junior volunteer and a museum management supporter?

secretariat

There are currently about 70 art volunteers who have been active in the museum since its opening. They study on their own and provide explanations of the works in exhibitions to visitors. Junior Art Volunteers are volunteers for elementary and junior high school students in the city. Their activities include making guide cards for the works in the exhibition and creating materials on the highlights of the exhibition. These two types of volunteers focus on activities related to exhibitions and works in the museum's collection.
On the other hand, the museum management supporter is a newly established system since October 2010. They perform volunteer activities at the administrative level of the museum. For example, they roll posters and distribute posters and flyers during publicity activities, tally exhibition questionnaires, and set up and clean up lecture halls. This project targets high school and university students and others who support the operation of the museum itself through volunteer activities.
Art volunteers and junior volunteers support the management of the exhibition with an art historical approach. They are motivated to make use of their own interest in art history in their activities.
The purpose of the museum operations supporter is to study museum operations in general from a museological perspective, to gain a total understanding of the behind-the-scenes work of the museum, including curatorial work, and to support it on a volunteer basis, although for high school and university students, the internship motive may be at work.
The director gave lectures to both art volunteers and museum management supporters. For the art volunteers, he gave lectures on art historical approaches, while for the museum management supporters, he gave lectures on museological content. We look forward to seeing some of the museum management supporters become curators in the future.

committee member

To begin with, what are the current issues facing the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, and what is the purpose of implementing this administrative project to solve them? In addition, we do not know the situation from a macro perspective, to what extent the issues can be resolved through this administrative project.
Looking at the current documents, there are no documents on "people" and "money," i.e., "budget" and "staffing," which are necessary to evaluate management. Since administrative operations can only be carried out within the scope of the budget and staffing, it can be said that the documents that are available only describe what can be done. In a sense, this can be considered an administrative inaction. The problem is that there may be issues that are falling between the lines, things that are not written down but must be done.
In a municipality, an art museum is not a facility that must be kept in place. Like a university, it is a facility that can be stopped unless it has the support of the citizens. Therefore, regarding evaluation item E: Contents of citizen participation and collaboration, I think there should be more measures for approaches to the community.
Then, there is no mention in the evaluation materials about the organizational management system of the museum to facilitate the measures, such as demanding more about personnel, the need for training to enhance the expertise of administrative staff, and cooperation with curators.
I am concerned about this point.
I hope that this will not lead to a situation where sand spills out of one's hands, because the evaluation will be based on the micro perspective of how many items one has purchased, for example.

chairman

To do something new, you have to stop something you have been doing and then shift to something new. Even if you want to do more and more new things because they are good, you end up holding on to old work and can't discard it. The scrap part of scrap-and-build is hard to come by.
Also, we need to be careful not to overlook things that are forgotten when evaluation items are crossed over. For example, in evaluation item C: Educational dissemination and learning support, there is a mention of "art appreciation classes," but in another item, it also says that new ways of looking at art and active ways of appreciating art are to be promoted. So, is this being done in the context of art appreciation for children? Is it possible to make concrete efforts to broaden children's perspectives simply by increasing the number of artworks? As a person in charge of evaluation, I think we should be careful about the points where the items are interlinked, since they are often omitted.

committee member

In the specific efforts of "Future Municipal Museums," the contents related to "efforts for overall infrastructure improvement" are hardly included in the items of the evaluation system. However, I think this is a simple and easy-to-understand evaluation system based on the understanding that this content will be done based on the description and will not be the subject of evaluation at this museum on a dare.
For example, the evaluation system of the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art is quite meticulous, and the museum is constantly improving its evaluation system every year. The more meticulous the evaluation system is and the more careful one is to avoid omissions, the more difficult the evaluation itself becomes. The Nikkei newspaper once ranked museums in various fields throughout Japan, and the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art came out as the best in the field of evaluation systems. However, in reality, the effort required to operate such an evaluation system is very difficult, and when more effort is focused on evaluation than on the museum's various activities, the question arises as to what is the best way to evaluate an art museum.
Unless each institution is quite consciously positioned as to what it aims to achieve through evaluation, the evaluation system itself will stand alone, and museum staff will become exhausted by the evaluation process. I think that avoiding this is an important thing to consider behind the scenes when conducting evaluations.
Therefore, I think it would be a good idea to consider once and for all how the contents related to "efforts to improve the overall infrastructure" should be put forth in the evaluation system.
The annual achievement goal for each year is to "fumigate the storerooms at least once. The goal for the next five years is to "divide the storage area into three zones and fumigate each year on a three-year rotation basis. The current conservation science strongly supports the opinion that fumigation should not be carried out too frequently.
At our facility, we have decided to drop the fumigation plan we had been doing and implement it on an as-needed basis.
I think you should also look into the current state of preservation science and make a plan for fumigation.

chairman

As was mentioned earlier, fundamentally, the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art needs to keep in mind the essential point of what the evaluation is for.
Also, if you do a lot of things meticulously about the evaluation, it becomes a lot of work, and you lose sight of what you are doing the evaluation for, which could affect the original work.

committee member

One of the issues facing the museum is how to manage its two museums, the main building and an annex. I have also heard through the grapevine that there is a plan to build an annex in Kurosaki's Comcity. I am concerned about whether the current two-wing system can be managed properly.
Regarding the procedure of how to proceed with the system, the document states that the Council will conduct an external evaluation in May. How much time do you think it will take for the evaluation sheet and materials containing the self-assessment by the museum to be sent to us, the members of the Council, to fill in our opinions in the "External Evaluation" section, and to return them to the secretariat?

secretariat

We are thinking about a month to a month and a half.

committee member

If that is the case, the external evaluation will not be completed by at least June; considering that the next step is coming up in August, we will have to work very compactly to make it in time. The secretariat should be properly aware of this point.

secretariat

As for how to proceed with the external evaluation by the Council members, there are five measures, which is a lot, so we would like to discuss this with the director of the museum. For example, we would like to consider measures such as creating subcommittees as necessary and having them gather according to each theme as appropriate.
Among the opinions expressed earlier, we believe that evaluation of quality should be done, and we would like to do so, so we would like to consider the contents of evaluation indicators and other matters in the future.
Regarding the issues pointed out as administrative inaction, including the museum's budget and personnel structure, which have not been clearly mentioned, we would like to clarify the issues through discussions among the committee members in the future, and make improvements as this evaluation system is repeated every year.

committee member

I understand that the schedule for conducting the evaluation has been pushed. However, in filling in the evaluation sheet that was sent to us, I think there will be differences depending on the involvement, understanding, and information about the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art. We would like you to follow up on this point in the materials and at the subcommittee meetings.
In addition, fumigation should take into account the recent situation. For example, the Kyushu National Museum has been doing a lot of research on IPM (Integrated Pest Management).
As was mentioned earlier, the term "citizens" is used to describe a number of items that straddle a number of categories. The word "situation" is used as an indicator, but while "number of people" and "number of times" are easy to imagine, "situation" makes it unclear whether it is the satisfaction level of the citizens or what it is. I think it would be better to consider what kind of guideline should be used here, not only quantitative ones.

committee member

Seeing these materials for the first time, I felt the depth of the museum's management. Frankly speaking, I have a sense of expectation that the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art's efforts will change in the future, whether in exhibitions or in the way it collects art. I could sense the museum's attitude of wanting to move forward by looking at these materials. I am looking forward to working together with everyone at the museum as we move forward.

chairman

The fact that museums are now also conducting evaluations can be said to be a trend of the times and the mood of the times. The background to this trend is the financial difficulties, and cultural institutions must be accountable to a certain extent.
However, if we do not really focus on some points, the evaluation will be exhaustive. It could become an evaluation for the sake of evaluation. The items made by the Museum Association cover a wide range of topics, but it is not necessary to do all of them, and I think that the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art would like to focus on this and do it within this range.
However, since we are in the position of conducting an external evaluation, each of us will be asked to cooperate with the evaluation from now on, while being aware of which of these five areas we consider to be issues for the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, based on our respective priorities.

committee member

The evaluation sheet differs from those of other museums in one respect. It allows the external evaluation committee members to clearly write recommendations for operational improvements, which are then organized as issues and reflected in the policy achievement goals for the following year and beyond.
In a sense, I think the evaluation system is a very open system that allows us to be more proactive in thinking about this area and expressing various opinions. In a sense, the evaluation system is a very open system. It is not a system of assigning a point to whether or not a given indicator has been achieved. Rather, I think the good thing about this evaluation system is that there is room for the external evaluation committee members to express their opinions on what they have noticed.

audience

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contact information (for inquiries) (e.g. corporate phone number)

Board of Education, Museums and Extension Division, Extension Section
Phone number (093) 882-7777