Dear Rodnoy,
Today we are putting the State Charter of the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York here, for everyone to see. It describes the structure of the museum, its original Board members (including Yuri and Svetoslav Roerich) and explains the purpose and mission of the museum.
To answer certain misunderstandings about how these structures work in the West, it must be said that the Board is the managing entity. For example, in normal practice it can hire the Director, or dismiss him/her if he/she has violated any of the working principles of the museum, as laid out by the Charter and the By-Laws (ustav).
In the particular case of this museum, there was a tradition that the board followed. The Director, Sina Fosdick, was named from India, and approved by the Board. When Sina was preparing to leave her body in 1983, she asked me to replace her, and the Board approved.
Normally, the Director manages the museum, and reports to the Board about the activities. The Board can approve or disapprove of particular actions, and require the Director to change them, if necessary. So you see, there is no one who is an absolute monarch here. A good administrator will also pay attention to the opinions of his/her co-workers, because they often know more and better about certain problems.
The museum itself is a corporation. That means that legally it is an individual, and can own property. This museum, as a corporation, owns the building in which it is housed and all the collections of paintings and the archives stored there. The Director makes the day-by-day decisions and sets out the style of management, but the Board has the right to intervene.
So things can change from Director to Director, and the question originally asked here was, at least in that part, a good one. For example, Sina Fosdick was a "no" person. She usually said no to requests of any kind, and the person making the request then had to prove to her that he/she deserved a "yes". I tend to be a "yes" person, based on the idea that everything should be available to everyone, and my personal opinion about the person making the request should have nothing to do with the request itself. I believe in the free flow of information. There should be no more control over who has access to information than a traffic policeman would have in a road -- he is there just to avoid traffic jams. In practical terms, that is why we began putting our archive on the Internet, for everyone to see, and we will continue with that task for a long time, until it is done. All our photo archive and film archive, and all our drawings and sketches, are already on line, and very soon we will begin putting large quantities of documentary materials there.
My successor, whether chosen by me or by the Board, may have the same approach -- which I would prefer -- but may not be quite so open. Only the future will tell. If he/she is too restrictive, and the Board objects, they can force him/her to change the approach.
I hope the clarifies some of the questions. If not, ask more.
Daniel |
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