In April, Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries published its Annual Workplan for 2002/2003, which maps out its key tasks for this year.
Underlying all of those tasks is a recognition of the need for the museums, archives and libraries sector to promote cultural diversity, audience development and social inclusion. To help meet this need, Resource has recently boosted its Learning and Access Team with three new appointments, including Rajiv Anand as Development Officer for Cultural Diversity.
Since its inception in 2000, Resource has supported a variety of projects relating to cultural diversity and broadening access to museums, archives and libraries. In the libraries domain, for example, the ?Quality Leaders? initiative looks at ways in which ethnic minority library staff can break through the glass ceiling through training and mentoring; and for museums, Resource has recently announced funding for ?Diversify?, a positive action project designed to help people from underrepresented minorities to compete on a level playing field for jobs in the sector. The project, managed by the Museums Association (MA), will create a series of bursaries and traineeships to prepare minority ethnic individuals for employment in museums. The MA will work with universities to offer bursaries to students to take one year postgraduate courses in museum studies, and with museums to offer fixed-term traineeships. Our focus now, however, is on establishing a broader programme of activity, which cuts across all of our corporate objectives, and which encompass all three domains - museums, archives and libraries.
Much of Resource?s work in this field will be channelled through our new National Cultural Diversity Network. This Network has been established to provide advice and support across the English regions and in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In England, the Network will form an advisory body for the new Regional Agencies, which Resource is working to establish by April 2004.These Regional Agencies unite the work of their predecessors, the Area Museum Councils, the regional library system and Regional Archives Councils into once single cross-domain agency. The National Cultural Diversity Network will be advising the Regional Agencies on appropriate objectives and emerging priorities, and ensuring that all three domains incorporate cultural diversity at the heart of their strategic planning processes, corporate objectives and work-plan tasks.
The National Cultural Diversity Network will also ensure that colleagues throughout the English regions play an active part in the Arts Council of England?s Diversity Project which aims to support and encourage diverse arts, and to challenge perceptions of the arts in a contemporary British society. The focus of the Project for Resource and for the Network will be the Diversity Festival being held in autumn 2003, for which Resource will be funding a programme of activities across the museum, archive and library domains which will celebrate the contribution of the diverse communities and the heritages they bring with them.
The UK?s arts and cultural sector leads the field in promoting cultural diversity, ensuring productions, collections and services are relevant to people from all walks of life and all sectors of society. Resource aims to provide the sector with the strategic leadership and thinking to ensure that museums, archives and libraries continue to champion best practice.
For further information on Resource?s cultural diversity agenda contact Rajiv Anand t: 020 7273 1444; e: rajiv.anand@resource.gov.uk.