As part of an effort to reorganize its collection management standards and systems, IVAM is currently pursuing research on the best practices and common standards among museums of modern art. More specifically, on the state-of-the-art as regards registry and inventory procedures, vocabularies, standards, etc.

For that purpose, we have prepared a short questionnaire. We would very much appreciate your help and time in providing us with a "reality check" for the results of our study. It is by no means a statistical study, but a largely subjective enquiry into the tenets of current registry practice. We have kept it deliberately simple, to avoid consuming too much of your time. Questions are left open, in order to let you decide the detail of your answers. If you feel you have already dealt with these topics in published form, we would appreciate your sending the bibliographic reference (or, even better, a copy) along with the questionnaire. Feel free to answer in your own language (other than English), should you prefer so. Different institutions or projects (not necessarily museums) with the same interests are also very welcome.

It is also available for download as a MS Word file at http://www.ivam.es/questionnaire.htm. You can work directly on the file template, there is no need to print it. Once answered, please send it as an attachment to investigacion.registro@ivam.es. You may also post or fax it to us (see below).

Any information you make available to us will initially be used within strictly confidential documentation. The final result of our research will be a set of recommendations for the museum's chief officials. We also intend to publish it later. In both cases, quotations and excerpts from your answers may be used; however, we will not disclose the identity of the commentator or his/her institution. We will be glad to correspond to your attention by sending you a copy of our report.

If you have any further question about our research or the questionnaire, do not hesitate to contact us, preferably by e-mail.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Yours truly,

Jorge Sebastián Lozano
Registry Department
IVAM – Institut Valencià d'Art Modern
investigacion.registro@ivam.es
Guillem de Castro, 118. 46003 Valencia.
Spain.
Telephone +34 96 386 3000 Fax +34 96 392 10 94