Dear colleagues and friends,

My long involvement with AVICOM goes back to 1992. I organized with Mrs. Claude-Nicole HOCQUARD in 1996 AVICOM Conference: “NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO HELP OF THE MUSEUMS TO MAINTAIN, CLASSIFY AND COMMUNICATE IMAGES AND SOUNDS”; and another event, the FIAMP, in Budapest in 2000. I thus know very well that AVICOM is an organization which depends on generosity on all to achieve its goals.

The Ecole du Louvre and the Musée de la Marine, successively hosted AVICOM. However, ICOM and AVICOM being French associations of law 1901, it was desirable that the administrative domiciliation of the committee is the same one as ICOM, and the administrative formalities are underway for the address with at 22 rue Palestro in Paris .

Anticipating a geographical delocalization of AVICOM, the preceding President, with the help of the “Libraries and Archives from Quebec in Montreal”, put the archives of the committee in deposit on the site of Fontainebleau at “Archives Nationales” (France). In addition to the administrative files, this deposit gathers the audiovisual productions registered to Faimp (Festival Audiovisuel International Musée et Patrimoine) since 1996: analogical technology is fragile and very difficult to use today and it is advisable to digitize the rich collection of some 800 films, for its safeguard, but also for the transmission of the contents to the specialists and the public. That supposes means for analyzing , indexing and cataloging, for a possible consultation on the Web site. It would be then a strong point of museologic reference in the field of museum virtual heritage.

Through the Web, we can make known the importance of these archives, which would promote AVICOM in a broader context. We could also choose multimedia tools used by all to develop our communication, and proposing them to our members, to the professionals of museum, and to the external researchers, to reinforce the presence of the museums. That will consolidate the prestige of Fiamp and will strengthen its distinctions awarded to the museums, and to the professionals of new technologies and audio-visual.

We need to develop the knowledge about the contribution of new and innovative technologies for museum and cultural and educational fields:  3D creation , virtualization , augmented reality, programs on the mobile systems and tablets, presence on social networks (YouTube, Facebook, etc), and we must think of the exchanges and the contributions that these new media can bring to our work.

We wish to create within AVICOM committee thematic Working Groups, following the example of the first “Photo Group”, and whose members could publish their studies and their experiment in media online and specialized, and to present their assessments at the time of conferences, in their area of expertise.

We need to build a new strategy based on current topics for the members of AVICOM. We must meet quickly to implement a regular communication, by choosing simple collaborative tools. That would also allow AVICOM to become a reference for all the museums which wish to develop projects using digital technologies through social networks.

I think that it is necessary to define a new strategy which includes more digital information technologies, to stimulating the promotion of heritage content in museums. ICOM wishes to be more effective on this topic (social media , websites, scientific approach), and we must support this approach during the conference museums and also at the university level.

As international committee, we can request the following subsidies:

1. Help for Special Projects,
2. Granting of travel grants in order to promote the presence of the young members to the annual meetings of the International committees of ICOM ; travel grants in order to support the participation of the Presidents or Members of the Board of directors of the National committees of the countries which belong to categories 2, 3 and 4 for the meetings in June in Paris in 2014. We must discuss it by e-mail or skype.

I would like also to invite you to visit the various sections of our Web site, and we back your suggestions to improve our visibility.

To finish, I would remind you that the date of the first meeting of the year of the Board of directors will take place between 21 and 28 January in Paris.

I present to you my best wishes and those of the new Board of Directors for the new year 2014.

Janos TARI
President of AVICOM

Friday, January 10, 2014