INDEX & LINKS

INDEX

• The Ownership of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and its Collections – click here
• The QVMAG and the Tasmanian Local Government Act 1993 – click here
• The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest – click here
• Ownership and Marketing – click here

LINKS

• TASMANIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1993 ... click here
• LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1993 - SECT 332 Division 2 - Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery 332. Endowment  ... click here
• LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1993 - SECT 333  333. Management ... click here
• TASMANIAN MUSEUM ACT 1950 [TMAG] ... click here –  Act No. 55 of 1950 as amended
• 3. Establishment and constitution of board of trustees ... click here
• 4. Incorporation and powers of trustees ... click here
• 5. Property of trustees ... click here

The Ownership of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and its Collections

Please click on the highlighted text to make the link to reference websites etc.

Please click on an image to enlarge it .

'Ownership' is amongst the most contested concepts in contemporary Western culture. On the face of it ownership, pure and simple, refers to the legal right to the possession of something. 

It is typically taken to mean that the article in question belongs to its owner alone and thus cannot be rightfully transferred to another person without the owner's consent. One can buy something, and thus claim exclusive ownership of that thing and one can also have a legal right to a particular substance  – be it written material or physical property.

When an individual, or corporate entity, 'owns something' they have the right to enjoy as well as discard it after its use given that ownership is taken to mean the state of being an owner; the right to own; exclusive right of possession; legal or just claim or title; proprietorship– 1913 Websters. All this serves the concept of 'private ownership' well enough but it is not so useful in regard to 'Public/State ownership' or 'Crown Property'. As a sole 'owner', the owner, has no obligations in regard to the property itself except to herself/himself or the corporate entity and/or its shareholders – she/he may do anything to/with it they all wish, use it, destroy it, venerate it, whatever, except in the case of live animals.

Crown property in the context of modern representative democracy, "public property" is synonymous to state property, which is understood to be owned by the people 'in common', thus by 'the government' – Local, State or Federal – on their behalf for their common benefit. In many Commonwealth realms, such property is said to be owned by the Crown – and typically supported by 'common law'.  

Examples of this include Crown land, Crown copyright, Crown Dependencies and indeed cultural property held in the collections of public museums and art galleries – albeit that 'cultural property' is better understood in the context  of lore rather than law. But it is not quite that simple. Somewhat like the debates that are raging locally, nationally and internationally in regard to the ownership of and access to water, the 'ownership' of public museum collections is layered and multifaceted  – more complex than private ownership. 

Interestingly, not all the layers of ownership held in a museum collection are held outright by the museum even when it is claimed that a museum owns something. For example, in the case of 'intellectual property'  and 'moral rights' these thing 'belong' to the author and are generally not transferable to anyone except the beneficiaries of her/his estate and endure for 70 years after the death of the author. After that, there is the collection's QVMAG's Community of Ownership and Interest (COI) where the ownerships involved are a mixture defined by lore and law.

Against this background Launceston City Council's claim to "own and operate the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery" is open to contest. Indeed, from a marketing perspective this  dose not and has not served the institution or the QVMAG's COI all that well – this will be discussed later. In relationship to 'governance' the concept of, and understandings of 'ownership' is at the very foundation of understanding all that is at risk and who is accountable and to whom. 

One way or another the QVMAG is indebted to the the Public Purse contributed to by taxpayers, ratepayers, sponsors and donors in inestimable measure. 

INDEX

The QVMAG and the Tasmanian Local Government Act 1993 – click here
The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest – click here
Ownership and Marketing – click here

The QVMAG and the Tasmanian Local Government Act 1993

• Please click on the highlighted text to make the link to reference websites etc.

.

The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery falls under the Local Government Act 1993 and under the Act " The Launceston City Council has the management and control of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and its contents and may sell and exchange the contents and generally act in such manner as appears best calculated to advance the objects of the institution."  If possession is, as they say, "nine points of the law" it might be extrapolated by some that LCC 'owns' the museum and its collections. 


However  there is a significant difference between 'ownership' and "management and control".  There would be little argument that the museum's collections are in 'Public Ownership'.  Strategic assets – Police & Armed Forces, Water, Roads,  Sewage Systems, the Electric Grid etc. – are kept under public ownership given that they are vital to national infrastructure and security and those areas which require the highest safety standards. Likewise, a Nation's, a State's , a Region's, cultural assets – cultural capital –  is arguably best held in Public Ownership. 


Given that there is an innate belief that National, State, Regional museums hold within their collections publicly owned cultural property – Indigenous & Nonindigenous – and held there for the common good this belief impacts itself upon the expectation a museum's Community of Ownership and Interest (COI) has for the museum's and its collections' management and accountability.


Rather than extrapolate 'ownership' from the Local Govt. Act 1993 it is more appropriate to characterise management and control as custody or stewardship. With this management and control comes both rights and obligations. The act provides for the right to " sell and exchange the contents" with the obligation to do so in "such manner as appears best calculated to advance the objects of the institution." All of this  is more analogous to enduring power of attorney than it might be to ownership. 


From a marketing perspective the assertion that LCC "owns and manages the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery" is, and has been, unhelpful  – counterproductive even. At the 2002 QVMAG Search Conference there were in attendance members of and residents from LCC's adjoining Local Govt. areas. At that time LCC residents had free entry to the QVMAG while people living a few streets away were required to pay a $10 per person entry fee. It is no surprise that attendances during the time of the $10 entry fee attendance levels at the QVMAG fell – and arguably dramatically. Furthermore, while on one hand there were complaints that:

•  LCC was picking up the lion's share of the QVMAG's costs;
•  The constituents of adjoining Councils were enjoying the benefits of the QVMAG at no cost;
• Adjoining Councils were not contributing to the QVMAGs recurrent costs;
• By comparison to Hobart, LCC's ratepayers were carrying all the costs and Hobart's ratepayers were making no real contribution to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery  etc. etc.

on the other hand, people living elsewhere were 'contributing' a great deal to the QVMAG via sponsorships and donations – and indeed still do.

While LCC asserts "ownership" – sometimes characterised by some as exclusive ownership – the incentive for these Councils to contribute to recurrent or project funding for the QVMAG is diminished. In the review of the QVMAG's governance this is an issue that is worthy of some consideration.

INDEX

The Ownership of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and its Collections – click here

The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest – click here

Ownership and Marketing – click here

The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest

•

The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest (COI) should be understood to include:

• visitors to the museum’s campus and visitors to its website;
• participants in off site programs and projects;
• the people who made, used, owned, collected or who have gifted items held in the collections;
• staff members and volunteers;
• researchers, lecturers, teachers and students;
• ratepayers, government funding agencies, sponsors and donors;
• cultural institutions, project partners and service providers;
• plus others who identify with and have an interest in the museum and its collections –intellectual and other.

Indeed, individuals within the museum’s COI will almost certainly have multiple, and sometimes competing/conflicting, layers of ownership and interest in the museum. Furthermore, some will be seen as "stakeholders" and even understand themselves as such. Typically, Stakeholders are ranked – Key Stakeholders, Primary Stakeholders, Secondary Stakeholders – which in the end casts a stakeholder in a different light to that which might be applied to a member of a COI. By ranking stakeholdership the emphasis shifts towards rights rather than obligations in an attempt to deliver an outcome in conflict that accommodates stakeholders in accord with their stake-cum-equity in an issue, project, whatever. 

Members of a museum's COI should be understood as having both rights and obligations commensurate with their ownership, their interest and/or their relationship to the museum enterprise and its collections. It is counterproductive to attempt to rank one ownership as being more important than another as 'importance' will always depend on the issue at hand and ultimately it will be assess differently and subjectively from different people's perspective.

As above, a member of the COI may also be referred to as a “stakeholder” but stakeholdership in its current usage has generally come to mean a person, group, business or organisation that has some kind vested or pecuniary interest in say a project or a place. Typically, stakeholders self identify, self assess their importance/ranking and assert their rights. However, they are rarely called upon to meet an obligation. A COI member is less likely to self identify but nonetheless will have they will have obligations they are expected to meet and rights to enjoy.

Typically, 'stakeholders' assert their rights when there is a contentious decision to be made that directly impacts upon them. However, 'stakeholders' are rarely called upon to meet or acknowledge an obligation. Conversely, members of a COI will often have innate understandings of their obligations and the rights they expect to enjoy – indeed, they typically assume that they have these ‘rights’ even when they're not articulated. In the QVMAG's case, Launceston's residents and ratepayers meet an obligation by paying a QVMAG levy embedded in their rates or rent.

Stakeholder groups and Communities of Ownership and Interest are concepts with kindred sensibilities. Nonetheless, they engage with different community networks, different expectations and relationships and/or different sensibility sets – even if sometimes many of the same people are involved.

INDEX

The Ownership of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and its Collections – click here
The QVMAG and the Tasmanian Local Government Act 1993 – click here
Ownership and Marketing – click here

Ownership and Marketing

At the 2002 QVMAG Search Conference governance and marketing were identified as the two issues for the museum that were most in need of urgent attention. For a myriad of reasons, not the least the machinations of Local Government politics, neither have received the kind of attention flagged as being needed at the conference.


Given that marketing is the process by which organisations generate audience interest, and here, engage communities with their services, it is something that a museum's management is obliged to address in the 21st Century. It is the management strategy that underlies the operation's development and legitimises it. It is an integrated process through which organisations build strong community relationships and creates value for their Communities of Ownership and Interest (COI).

Interestingly the QVMAG Search Conference was a three day affair attended by people who self selected to attend and were clearly members of the institution's COI. That they did so and collectively identified these two issues is not insignificant – even eight years on. 

At the time non-residents were being charged a $10 entry fee, attendances were falling and the recurrent costs of the institution were rising – and have done since. Despite the outcomes of this conference and the Chamberlain  Report that was commissioned by Council following the conference, and that advocated change for the QVMAG, the institution is in essence currently trying to address the same set of issues as before 2002 – albeit stimulated by a different set of circumstances.

Clearly this history has inhibited the effectiveness of the QVMAG's marketing. The 2002 Search Conference was in fact a demonstration of the levels of,  the diversity of and the passionately asserted ownerships and interests people had invested in the institution. It was also a pointer to the unrealised outcomes and the missed opportunities the museum's governance, and consequently its marketing needs that are yet to be addressed as comprehensively in 2010 as it was identified that it needed to be in 2002. Ultimately this is a failure of governance.

INDEX

The Ownership of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and its Collections – click here

The QVMAG and the Tasmanian Local Government Act 1993 – click here

The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest – click here

The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest

The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest (COI) should be understood to include:

• visitors to the museum’s campus and visitors to its website;
• participants in off site programs and projects;
• the people who made, used, owned, collected or who have gifted items held in the collections;
• staff members and volunteers;
• researchers, lecturers, teachers and students;
• ratepayers, government funding agencies, sponsors and donors;
• cultural institutions, project partners and service providers;
• plus others who identify with and have an interest in the museum and its collections –intellectual and other.

Indeed, individuals within the museum’s COI will almost certainly have multiple, and sometimes competing/conflicting, layers of ownership and interest in the museum. Furthermore, some will be seen as "stakeholders" and even understand themselves as such. Typically, Stakeholders are ranked – Key Stakeholders, Primary Stakeholders, Secondary Stakeholders – which in the end casts a stakeholder in a different light to that which might be applied to a member of a COI. By ranking stakeholdership the emphasis shifts towards rights rather than obligations in an attempt to deliver an outcome in conflict that accommodates stakeholders in accord with their stake-cum-equity in an issue, project, whatever. 

Members of a museum's COI should be understood as having both rights and obligations commensurate with their ownership, their interest and/or their relationship to the museum enterprise and its collections. It is counterproductive to attempt to rank one ownership as being more important than another as 'importance' will always depend on the issue at hand and ultimately it will be assess differently and subjectively from different people's perspective.

As above, a member of the COI may also be referred to as a “stakeholder” but stakeholdership in its current usage has generally come to mean a person, group, business or organisation that has some kind vested or pecuniary interest in say a project or a place. Typically, stakeholders self identify, self assess their importance/ranking and assert their rights. However, they are rarely called upon to meet an obligation. A COI member is less likely to self identify but nonetheless will have they will have obligations they are expected to meet and rights to enjoy.

Typically, 'stakeholders' assert their rights when there is a contentious decision to be made that directly impacts upon them. However, 'stakeholders' are rarely called upon to meet or acknowledge an obligation. Conversely, members of a COI will often have innate understandings of their obligations and the rights they expect to enjoy – indeed, they typically assume that they have these ‘rights’ even when they're not articulated. In the QVMAG's case, Launceston's residents and ratepayers meet an obligation by paying a QVMAG levy embedded in their rates or rent.

Stakeholder groups and Communities of Ownership and Interest are concepts with kindred sensibilities. Nonetheless, they engage with different community networks, different expectations and relationships and/or different sensibility sets – even if sometimes many of the same people are involved.