One of the last things we did before Santa’s sleigh rattled into town and we shut up shop for the holiday was to update the Standards Program with its new guidelines.

New guidelines are produced biennially by the Standards Taskforce to keep resources current and to accommodate changes within the program itself. They meet throughout the year and convene at the annual Museums Australia conference to finalise what’s in and what’s out.

Last year this process was particularly challenging as several state organisations launched new websites which meant resources were assigned to new locations and addresses. We also saw the final curtain close on the much-loved Collections Australia Network (CAN) where a significant number of Standards documents had resided happily for many years.

Resources which were held by CAN have been relocated to new homes: conservation resources were transferred to the AICCM website (Australia Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material); Significance 2.0 documentation can be found on the federal Ministry for the Arts website; and the new and improved version (1.4) of the National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries has been distributed to the following organisations.

• Arts Tasmania
• ACT Museums & Galleries
• History SA
• Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
• Museums & Galleries Queensland
• Museums & Galleries of NSW
• Museums Australia (Victoria)
• Western Australian Museum

So if you have a copy of the previous version, make sure to throw it out and download or bookmark this one! We want you to improve your standards too!