AVICOM, Long Needed…

Focusing on audiovisual and new technologies for museums, AVICOM is the resource museum professionals look for when dealing with issues of computerization of collections, maintenance of digital data and preservation of a digital memory.

Starting from today, ICOM’s international committee finally has a thematic commission affiliated to AVICOM: after a rather long process, Simona Caraceni, already a member AVICOM’s Executive Board, was elected as Coordinator of ICOM Italy’s thematic commission at a meeting of ICOM members and other interested people at MAMbo, the Modern Art Museum of the City of Bologna.

It was indeed long needed - digital documentation of collections does resolve many a problem in museum management and communication. It also gives birth to new ones, however: How is digital memory best to be preserved through time? How does it withstand technology change, obsolescence of both hardware and software? How can it be called to serve us, even after the technical setting that saw its flourishing days has long given way to a new, possibly very different one? How is a given solution to be integrated in a new, open source friendlier approach?

These issue - and many more - will challenge the youngest among the thematic commissions of ICOM Italy. There’s a lot to be done - but it is a good start, at last.