The Workgroup met twice at the Stavanger Conference. During these meetings, activities of the year just ended, and the plans for the coming year were discussed.

Much effort has gone into the production of the report on Multimedia in Museums. Originally, the publication was scheduled for the Stavanger Conference. The report is intended to provide at an introductory level an overview of the potential uses of multimedia in the museum context. The report as it was put before the Workgroup needed thorough editing. To this end a General Editor was appointed, Ben Davis of MIT (USA). Furthermore an editorial committee was set up consisting of David Bearman, Jennifer Trant, Tine Wanning and Jan van der Starre. This group was to review the edited manuscript and stay on hand for consultation during its development. Coordinated editing and desktop publishing of the report was the work of the Imaging Initiative of the Getty Art History Information Program, for which it is duly thanked.
The report will be distributed from both a European and a North American site. Jan van der Starre of the RKD offered to be the European distribution point, and Jennifer Trant of the Getty AHIP offered to be the North American distribution site. As the time of going to press (March 1996), the report is undergoing final editing and will be made available both in print and electronic form.

In view of other (and better) means of distributing information to the museum community, regular publication of a newsletter seemed unnecessary and was therefore discontinued.

The Workgroup participated in a feasibility study on an international inventory of multimedia software, an initiative of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), through the agency of its Standing Committee on Information Technology. The main conclusions of the study were:

• a worldwide guide to multimedia software is not feasible,
• an overview of software available in the Netherlands (one of the test beds for the feasibility study) has been produced and published in the last issue of ITEM and posted up on the IFLA Website.

The Multimedia Workgroup will focus its efforts on three main areas:

• Documenting multimedia data types (describing digital data, including still images, moving images, sound, and unstructured text)
• Documenting multimedia applications (both more ephemeral applications developed for a particular site, and published titles)
• Using multimedia as documentation (exploring the potential of sound, images and video as effective means of capturing contextual information about museum objects)

Concrete actions to be taken include:

• The group agreed that an Internet discussion group on Multimedia in Museums would provide a useful, focused venue for debating issues of concern to the Workgroup, as well as to other groups such as the Museum Computer Network, the American Association of Museums Media and Technology Committee and AVICOM. The Getty Art History Information Program will look at whether it can play host to this list.
• Metadata for documenting multimedia was seen as a useful topic to kick off on. The results of this discussion could then be summarized into a preliminary report on documenting multimedia data.
• A factsheet will be put out on multimedia in museums. A draft will be drawn up for discussion at the Nairobi meeting. The text will concentrate on documentation/data aspects. This, in effect, will provide the group with a working agenda for the years to come.
• Members of the group will examine the possibility of holding a workshop at the Nairobi conference to review rapid ways of capturing multimedia documentation (images, and sound in conjunction with text).
• The Workgroup reaffirmed their opinion that ICOM and its various international committees should refrain, until further notice, from entering into any preferential agreement with any vendor of services to the museum community.

The present officers of the group are:
Chair : Jennifer Trant, Getty AHIP
Secretary : Jan van der Starre, RKD

Address of the secretary:
c/o RKD
PO Box 90418
2509 LK Den Haag
The Netherlands

	Tel.: +31(70)3471514 Fax.: +31(70)3475005
	e-mail: jvdstarre@artnet.xs4all.n