name

The 2nd Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art Council Meeting in FY 2008

business (of the day)

Agenda Item 1: Election of Chairman and Vice Chairman
Agenda Item 2: Efforts in Fiscal Year 1991 and Evaluation Indicators

Date & Time

Thursday, March 7, 2019, 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Location

Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art Education Room B

attendance

Toshio Yamanashi (Chairman)

Director, The National Museum of Art, Osaka

Yoshihiro Nagatsu (Vice Chairman)

Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of The University of Kitakyushu

Wataru Nakamura

Counselor, Kitakyushu Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Hiroko Koga

Principal, Kitakyushu Municipal Tsutsui Elementary School

Miki Tani

Representative of NPO Child Rearing Think Tank

Miki Harada

Attorney at Law, Harada & Kawahara Law Office

Akemi Ohba

Kitakyushu Artists' Federation

Noriko Toyama

Head teacher, Yawata Elementary School, Kitakyushu

Hideko Moriyama

Deputy Director and Curatorial Manager, Kurume City Museum of Art

secretariat

Yukiharu Nishimura

Director, Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art

Motoaki Goto

Deputy Director, Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art

Yuji Kanegae

extension section chief

Mitsuhiro Hidaka

Chief, Extension Section, Extension Division

Takayuki Nasu

Chief of Curatorial Section, Curatorial Division

Yoshio Nagatomo

Branch Manager, Extension Division

Emi Nakayama

Extension Section, Extension Division

Akiko Okuda

Curatorial Section, Curatorial Division

minutes

secretariat

Explanation of today's handouts and agenda, confirmation of observers, greeting by the Director, self-introduction of new committee members

Agenda Item 1: "Election of Chairman and Vice Chairman."

secretariat

The Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art Regulations stipulate that the Council shall have a chairman and a vice-chairman, each of whom shall be elected by the members of the Council. Is there anyone who would like to run for office?
(No candidacy)
Now, the secretariat would like to propose the secretariat's proposal, if that is all right. I would like to propose that Mr. Yamanashi be the Chairperson and Mr. Nagatsu be the Vice Chairperson.
(No objection)
If there are no objections, I will appoint Commissioner Yamanashi as Chairman and Commissioner Nagatsu as Vice Chairman. Thank you for your cooperation.
The Chairman will now call the meeting to order.

Agenda Item 2: "Details of Efforts and Evaluation Indicators for Fiscal Year 2019"

chairman

Today, as the secretariat has mentioned, we would like to proceed with a discussion of the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art's efforts in fiscal year 1991 and the indicators to be used when evaluating these efforts. First, the secretariat would like to begin with an explanation.

secretariat

Explanation of the contents of efforts and evaluation indices for fiscal year 1991

chairman

Do you all have any questions about the current explanation from the secretariat?
We need to evaluate the indicators, so I would like to ask for your opinions as we check the indicators.
First of all, there are five categories of classification, and the current explanation is listed in the document entitled "Agenda Item 2. The rightmost column contains "evaluation indicators," which are the points to look out for when conducting evaluation. The materials have been distributed to us in advance, so I am sure everyone has read through them. If there are any points that are unclear, based on the explanation from the secretariat, we would like to hear your opinions.

committee member

It seems that you are thinking of creating a database for "collective management of art materials and books." Normally, when we think of a database, we think of digitization, but can we take it that way? If so, are you thinking of creating a highly accurate digital archive of the works in your collection and making it available to the public through the museum's website?

secretariat

The five-year plan aims to open the museum to the public in 2024, and the direction is to make it searchable on our website and on the Internet. The background behind this goal is that the museum's database is inadequate. We need to create a solid database before we open our collection to the public, and then we need to clearly divide the public and private portions of the database within that database.
The museum is celebrating its 45th anniversary, but it has been over 60 years since it was opened, including the time of the Yawata Arts and Crafts Museum. In the past, everything was managed on paper, but now we are beginning the process of digitizing the data, which has been done while the museum was closed for renewal, such as taking new measurements and checking materials.
Therefore, even if we are told to release the data at this stage, the data to be released has not yet been organized, which is why we have set this goal (1) and (2). The data used to be managed by library cards, but now they are being input again. The idea is to start from the basic point of organizing the database as well as the library's shelves.

chairman

How many databases of works and books, respectively, do you have?

secretariat

There are 7,000 works and books not fully counted.

chairman

The data of the works will be included in the catalogue or ledger. This data will be compiled into a database. The database will be organized according to the classification used by librarians, but the database will continue to be registered at a certain level in preparation for release to the public, and even after the registered items are released to the public, they can be updated and enhanced. At that time, however, the database of this museum and the databases of other museums in Japan must have a certain commonality in order to be able to search all the databases at once. Please keep this in mind as you proceed with this project.
Also, if we have to start from scratch in the next five years, we have to be prepared for the fact that we will need a lot of people and money. Right now at our National Museum of Art, book data from the National Museums of Art in Osaka and Kyoto are available to the public. We started to make the books available to researchers last November. Considering the time, money, and manpower it took to get to this point, I think we all need to be prepared for the fact that this is a very difficult task, and we all need to think about securing the money and manpower. Incidentally, Osaka and Kyoto together cost 50 million yen each every year. It is absolutely impossible to do this single-handedly.
And, I'll make sure that the finished product will be versatile, not just for this museum.
We need to ask ourselves whether we can use the information in the National Art Museums Conference, and since there are systems such as Axis and Parc for library materials, we can use such systems to make the information easier to understand. If we don't think about this, it will be meaningless if what we have created is isolated.

committee member

I heard that a library database will be created, but do you imagine that this will also be made available to the public?

secretariat

The extent to which the information will be made public and how it will be made public will be decided in the future, but the goal of the five-year plan is to make the information available to the public because it is the city's property. There are a number of steps that need to be taken, but at this stage we are starting with inputting information. Although we have written that it is a database of books, in addition to so-called books that have been published, there are also private letters and personal information that are dense.

chairman

It is better not to put the archive story in here. If we include even the archives, it would be a big deal again, and that is exactly what the National Museum of Art does, and the public at large does not know about the archives that museums have in general.
Besides, I think everyone here probably has a different idea of what is being associated with the word "archive," so if we include temporary electronic materials here, we will probably end up with a year like 2024.
In the Information and Research Materials Subcommittee, we are now in contact with the National Museum of Art, and first of all, rather than the National Museum of Art, there is a movement among member museums in the public art museum conference to map which museums have which materials and what materials are in which museums. Everyone is organizing things in their own way, and we have finally taken the first step with the recognition that we need to correct that part of the situation. With that in mind, I don't think we should say we are going to do too much archiving.

secretariat

The word "archive" was used when the proposal was made two years ago, but it has been changed to the form of a database.

committee member

Please tell us about the Museum Park Tour. The Museum Park Tour is currently underway, and third grade students are coming to the museum to take part in the tour. The museum park tour has finally settled down, and now we are seeing it for the first time and are surprised to see it expanding further. I was surprised to see the Museum Park Tour for the first time today. It is true that there is a course called "Our Lives," but this study is only offered in the third grade. Therefore, if we want to tie this study to the social studies course, I think that schools that wish to do so will probably concentrate on it when they study the social studies unit. This would be much harder to coordinate, as the schools would prefer this time of year rather than the museum tour, but will the program be expanded to include museum park tours in the future?

secretariat

The Museum Park Tour is a government-subsidized project to revitalize the Higashida area after the redevelopment of the Higashida district and the loss of Space World. We have no intention of extending the tour to all of the 20 or so schools. Since this is a social studies unit, "Our Lives" will not be presented until December or later. We are planning to select 20 schools around that area for the tour.

committee member

Since it is a five-year plan, I thought you were going to call on every school to cover all schools, but is that not what you are doing?

secretariat

I believe the Board of Education has notified each school, and we will select 20 schools from those that applied. Since it costs money to go from the museum to the museum, we will limit the number of schools to about 20. We have not yet decided on the number of schools to be selected for next year, but we do not plan to expand the program to all schools.

committee member

The museum tour will be offered to all schools. Is it correct to think of the park tour as an option, or as an added extra, for only some of the 20 schools?

secretariat

Yes, it is. By the way, this time it is social studies, but next time it may be science. If so, it may be a summer project, which will be discussed with the museum.

committee member

I would like to know if there are any specifics in terms of the use of the Friends of Public Relations.

secretariat

We do not have a concrete proposal yet, and the Friends Meeting has not yet taken place, so we would like to put it over to the next meeting, etc.

committee member

I was wondering how they would take it.

committee member

In the public relations section, you have written a plan to create an inbound pamphlet, but in fact, a British cruise ship came in a few days ago and I was surprised to see so many foreigners in the city. How much do you actually know about the number of people who are entering the museum?

secretariat

About 100 people have come in the past six months.

committee member

Annex and main building?

secretariat

These figures are for the Main Library only. The annex actually has not yet taken the numbers. It has only been about six months since the main library started taking figures.

committee member

How do you make the decision that it is inbound?

secretariat

We don't ask the customer directly, but capture data from, for example, a travel agency about how many people from other countries are coming.

committee member

The guests who come individually are.

secretariat

I'm checking it out by talking to them anyway. Taiwan, Korea, and China are the most common.

chairman

Nowadays, the number of foreign visitors to museums in both Tokyo and Osaka is rapidly increasing. As you just asked, how do you count that? It is difficult to say, especially for people from Asia, but I do know that the number is increasing rapidly. I don't think the number I just mentioned is very large, in fact.

secretariat

The fact is, we don't have a grasp of it.

chairman

It is difficult to grasp.

secretariat

It is obvious when you sign up for a group tour.

committee member

Since I am in charge of the local economy, there are three types of companies in the region: inbound companies, local companies, and outbound companies. For example, Nippon Steel and Sumikin export their products overseas, not to customers in the region.
The most typical example of inbound is hotels, which are not used by people within the region but come from outside the region. If we compare Fukuoka City and Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka City is completely inbound-centered, including commerce and shopping. Colette has recently made its debut. Kitakyushu is outbound. Museums are quite widely spread, and even in Kitakyushu, the Memorial Hospital and other facilities are completely wide-area. If we look at it in that way, I think it would be good if we could work from the perspective of a museum as an inbound business center, and not just within the region, because the population of the surrounding cities is decreasing, but also from the perspective of SNS. I think they are one of the few inbound business offices. It would be nice to see such an approach from the viewpoint of incorporation.

chairman

Since this is a plan for next year's activities, no decision will be made, but is there anything specific that you are considering from the perspective that the committee member just mentioned, such as actively utilizing the foreign language pamphlets that are being written?

secretariat

There is an idea to sell them to visitors or place them in hotels.

chairman

Put it in a hotel for a fee?

secretariat

That is under consideration now, but actually our budget is limited and it costs hundreds of dollars to print one copy. Whether to sell or distribute them is under consideration.

chairman

That said, they do not have the budget to produce an abbreviated version of this that could be distributed free of charge.

secretariat

The situation is severe at the moment.
What I am thinking of doing is to distribute them free of charge to those who are frequent visitors to the mayor's office.

committee member

I am a beginner and would like to know, how is the evaluation process supposed to be done?

secretariat

The five-year plan began in 2010, and in the first five-year plan, we focused as much as possible on numerical targets, such as the number of visitors to the museum and the number of workshop participants, because we thought that numerical figures would show increases and decreases. This led to an emphasis on the number of visitors rather than the content of the programs, and it was pointed out that this may not be the direction of the Council's purpose. The way we compiled the evaluation indexes was changed from the current fiscal year. Since this is the first year of implementation, we will discuss how to compile these evaluation indicators at the next Council meeting next year, at which time we will present a new way to present the results and have the Council discuss it.

committee member

Is that how you would rate them, good, bad, ABC, or something like that?

secretariat

First, we will do a self-evaluation on our part and send it to the committee members, who will use it as a reference and send detailed project materials, which they will then evaluate.

committee member

As was explained earlier, we are from the economic field, so we are obsessed with so-called numbers. How did the number of visitors compare to the target?
I made this drastic change to see how it would look if that was all. However, when it comes to evaluation However, when it comes to this kind of story, I think it is adventurous to devise a way to write the indicators, how to ensure objectivity, and how to express them in a way that is easy for a third party to understand.

chairman

However, if we leave the writing of the evaluation to the evaluation committee members, it will be difficult for them to read it, and it may be difficult for the secretariat to read it. For example, it would be easier for the evaluation committee members to write the evaluation from this perspective, which would be easier to understand externally, and then they could create their own evaluation text while incorporating their own opinions.

secretariat

As the Chairman just mentioned, the current evaluation index is abstract, so we would like to make it concrete and conduct an internal evaluation first. We would like to obtain the opinions of the committee members on this.

committee member

When I looked at the evaluation indicators, I thought they were very friendly to those who are involved in the activities. I am a little concerned about the content of the exhibition, but I am not sure to what extent an outsider can evaluate it. When we evaluate an exhibition, for example, we ask, "How many people did you set as your target? If we achieve the target, we will say that the exhibition was a success to some extent, and that is how we evaluate it internally. If the exhibition is covered by the newspapers, or if the customer surveys show a high level of satisfaction, we evaluate the exhibition accordingly. As curators, we are able to self-evaluate to some extent whether the content of a project was good or bad, and since we are conscious of the fact that we are trying to do something good, it is only natural that we should be evaluated. As an indicator of evaluation, it is very difficult, but I think it is a good indicator.

chairman

The fact that it has been made in this way with various innovations each time since the evaluation began many years ago.

chairman

May I approve today's agenda?
(No objection)
Approve the Secretariat's proposal.

Conference Materials