ICR History

The history of ICR is a history of people full of idealism and engagement and also a story of meetings all over the world.

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• Former Board members
  Persons and leaders behind the official work of ICR.
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ICR History

At the moment we try to write the ICR history. Please visit this page again.

But here is a glimpse of ICR´s history:

1953 or 1954: The International Committee for Regional Museums was founded as “Committee for Local Museums”.

1954: The 1st Annual Conference of the new committee was held from 7-9 July 1954 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

1960: At the annual meeting of the committee in Belgrade and Plitvice, Yogoslavia from 18 to 30 September 1960, the committee was renamed to the “ICOM Committee for Regional Museums and Specialized Museums”.

1962: At the 6th General Conference of ICOM in The Hague, The Netherlands, 4-11 July 1962, the committee was re-named “ICOM International Committee for Regional Museums – ICR”, the name it continues to operate under today.

1974: ICR reorganized during the 10th General Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. For doing this work, the board met in August 1974 in Coventry, United Kingdom to set a programme of activities.

1978: the ICR board decided the internal roles for the committee and also to edit an information bulletin of ICR. In this time, ICR had 17 ordinary members and 13 observers.

1981: the brochure Contributions to the Work of Regional Museums was published.

1986: During the 14th General Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 26 October-4 November 1986, ICR discussed about the theme Regional museums and ecomuseums. One idea was to change the name of ICR to “International Committee for Regional Museums and Ecomuseums”. The ides was discussed at the ICOM Executive Council at 31.3.1987. The result was that John Age Gjestrum of ICR contacted Pierre Mayrand of the affiliated organisation, MINOM – International Movement for a New Museology, to ask them about their opinion. The result was a joint annual meeting in Portugal 1990. The new name was never adopted. Also in 1986, a South American working group of ICR was founded. Its leader was Luz Maria de Colombres. The team for the information bulletin was managed by John-Aage Gjestrum.

The ladybird as sign for ICR was created.

The first ICR leaflet was printed.

Hartmut Prasch became the editor of the Newsletter – ICR News.

1999: ICR published the booklet Museum Accreditation. A quality proof for museums.

2005: the redesign of ICR´s image with new sign, webpage and newsletter was done by Heimo Kaindl, who was also the editor of the ICR Newsletter. The board decided to publish the newsletter only as electronic paper. A new leaflet was designed and printed.

2006: ICR held its annual meeting as the first international committee of ICOM in Iceland.

The 21st General conference in Vienna, Austria was the meeting with the largest number of participants from all over the world. ICR had a joint meeting with ICME, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Ethnography. ICR produced a promotion DVD about the activities in the past years.

Collected by Heimo Kaindl.