INTRODUCTION

After many months of worries (and worse) about the practical arrangements for ICOM's 19th General Conference in Barcelona, it was a relief to finally get there and find that over 60 regular  ICTOP members and other ICOM members interested in our work, had registered for our three ays of working sessions.   Against this had to be weighed the disappointment that ICOM members in many parts of the world other than Europe and North America had received their official invitations, programmes and booking information too late to be able to arrange funding, travel or even visas in some cases, while those in an estimated 40 countries in the developing world were apparently still waiting for the post on the opening day of ICOM 2001. 

Though the President of the Spanish National Committee did apologise to the Advisory Committee for the many administrative problems nobody has yet been able explain why the official mailing to all ICOM members was sent out by surface mail during March, rather than airmail in December as had been repeatedly requested, most recently during the special session of the Advisory Committee at the beginning of December 2000.  This was only the most visible sign of the many difficulties that those planning Barcelona 2001 at the international committee level.

However, in ICTOP we were extremely fortunate in our Local Organiser nominated by ICOM Spain and the Local Organising Committee:  Prof. Gabriel Alcalde Gurt. Gabriel is an archaeologist with a lot of professional experience as a curator in the district council museum service of Olot, Girona Province, (north-west of Barcelona in the volcanic  foothills of the Pyrenees), and more recently has been on the full-time staff of the University of Girona's MA in Museology programme.  It is no exaggeration to say that without Gabriel's efforts it is very doubtful whether we could have mounted a worthwhile meeting for those of ICTOP's members and supporters who managed to get to Barcelona.