Category Archive for Museums

Museum Blog Survey for Museums and Web Conference 2007

We are conducting the first comprehensive survey looking at museum blogs and blogging practices. If you write for, or operate a museum or museum-related blog, please fill out the survey on the Museum Blogs website. Seb Chan (Powerhouse Museum) and Myself (Ideum) are the conducting the survey. The results will be presented in a session, Radical Trust: The state of the museum blogosphere at the Museums and Web Conference in San Francisco in April 2007. We will also link…

Museums in Transition

Gyroscope, an exhibit design firm based in Oakland, CA has just released a report on how museums are using “new communication technologies to enhance and extend the visitor experience.” The paper Museums in Transition: Emerging Technologies as Tools for Free-Choice Learning was commissioned by the Science Museum of Virginia. Based on reviewing available publications along with interviews of twenty-four museum professionals (including myself), the report takes a comprehensive look at how museums are using Web 2.0 technologies, handheld devices, and other innovations. Museums in…

“Colonizing” Social Spaces

As museums and other informal educators continue to experiment with Web 2.0 technologies, the concept of “colonizing” existing social networking spaces is emerging as a viable option for institutions both large and small. Back in October at the Association of Science-Technology Center’s conference, we discussed the concept. More recently, in my course at University of Victoria and then at the National Digital Forum in New Zealand, I’ve come across more interesting examples. In addition, I’ve begun to compile some of the benefits…

National Digital Forum: Day 2 – By the People: social tagging…

This is going to be my last post on sessions from the conference. There were a lot of other very interesting speakers, I’ve just run out of time and need to catch my plane back! Susan Chun from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York presented on the Steve project. Susan is the General Manager for Collections Information Planning for The Met. Steve for those of you not familiar is a social tagging project involving mostly American Art Museums. The impetus for the…

National Digital Forum: Day 2 – Opening the gates: new opportunities in online collections

In the afternoon of Day 2, Seb Chan from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney presented on their innovative collections database. Seb started out by taking about visitor expectations have changed when comes to what they might be able to find on museum website and how they might browse collections. Seb cited Amazon and Last FM as examples of sites that provide visitors with “recommended” items, assisting users to browse materials within a collection as influential sites in developing their own collections database.

National Digital Forum: Day 2 – Mobile Guide Systems…

The second session on day 2 at the National Digital Forum here in Wellington, NZ focused mostly on the use of portable devices in museums. A highlight was the presentation by Hiroyuki Arita-Kikutani from the National Science Museum, Tokyo. His presentation was entitled, Mobile guide systems in museums through the use of portable game devices. Developed as part of the “e-Japan Strategy,” he discussed a trial using PlayStation Portable (PSP) devices. Between PSP and Nintendo DS, there are over 4 million of…

National Digital Forum: Day 2 – Let’s see what happens if…

A packed day today at the National Digital Forum in Wellington, NZ. Here’s the first of probably a couple of posts as I’m going through my notes. This morning’s keynote was delivered by Toby Travis from the Victoria and Albert Museum entitled, Let’s see what happens if … Experimenting with emerging technologies on the V&A website. Toby presented the story behind many of the innovative things the museum has been up to over the last few years. Perhaps the most compelling part of this…

National Digital Forum: Day 1

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is hosting the Digital Forum here in the capital city of Wellington. It’s a beautiful space, although honestly, I haven’t had as much time as I would have liked to check out the exhibits (perhaps today). From what I’ve seen the museum contains a mix of art and artifacts with a focus of the taonga (“treasures” in the Maori language) of New Zealand. They also have a Kid’s Zone which contains hands-on exhibits and programs…

National Digital Forum: Wellington, New Zealand

Tomorrow I’m off to New Zealand for the National Digital Forum 2006: Participating with Communities: Digital opportunities, collaborations and celebration. I’ll be presenting a keynote entitled, Museums and Web 2.0. Other folks from abroad such as Seb Chan from the Powerhouse Museum, Toby Travis from the Victoria Albert Museum, and Susan Chun from the Metropolitan Museum of Art will also be presenting, along with a number of speakers from New Zealand. It should be a very interesting week concluding with an…

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