Dear OMJer

I am write to apologise for the inordinate time taken to publish the last
two Journal issues and, to explain the reasons for this delay. I also wanted
to outline the recent developments affecting the AMOL site and their future
implications (vis-à-vis the OMJ).

As you may well be aware, the Cultural Minister’s Council announced in
February 2004 that it had commissioned an ambitious redevelopment of the
AMOL website. A key objective of this redevelopment was to create a site
capable of serving the needs of all Australian collecting institutions,
rather than just museums and galleries. Although this new site
(www.collectionsaustralia.net) – known as CAN -  is now online,  it remains
under development and has yet to be officially launched.

Since early last year AMOL’s limited resources have been focused exclusively
on redevelopment priorities, the OMJ being just one of several programmes
that have been unavoidably delayed by this overriding commitment. It’s fair
to say, with the vantage of hindsight, that we could – and should – perhaps
have kept our supporters (yourself included) better informed of these
developments and their likely implications. I apologise that this never
happened, and stress that this reflects a shortcoming on our part, rather
than the Editor.

The current situation is that AMOL (now CAN) remains committed to publishing
OMJ Issues 7 and 8. While the site redevelopment must continue to take
precedence, we are hoping to have Issue 7 completed and online by November
this year by which time, we would also expect to be wrapping up the site
redevelopment (thereby allowing us to move on Issue No.8).

THe AMOL redevlopment has also had another significant impact on the
Journal. Whereas it was appropriate for a dedicated museum-gallery site like
AMOL to host a peer-reviewed journal focusing on museum and gallery-related
issues, it is conceptually difficult for us to give OMJ the same prominence
and level of resourcing on the replacement site (i.e. CAN) which is required
to even-handedly serve the interests of all collecting institutions
(including archives, libraries, zoos and botanical gardens). Perhaps you’ve
got some views on this important matter that you’d like to share with us
and/or our discussion list subscribers?

Please feel free to contact me should you wish to further discuss any of
these matters.




Mark Clayton
National Project Manager
Collections Australia Network

Ph:  02 92170469
Mob: 0408 405 941
Fax: 02 92170469

www.collectionsaustralia.net