what will the museum of the future be like?
Are museum-web 2.0 appliations too time consuming?
This question just arouse to me, while I was researching for my thesis topic.
Let me explain ( I am just brainstorming here, so sorry for the loose ends and hussled conclusions):
Over the past 1.5 years I have been monitoring the digital developments in the heritage sector. From 'simple' digitizing issues - like best practise for digitizing material, or Hertiage institution's websites as dead ends (every institution for itsself digitizes material that has been digitized by others in more efficient ways, no linking between websites etc.)
- to the call from web 2.0 an web 3.0 evangelists to heritage institutions to free their data and become platforms rather than provide moderated and closed content.
The bottom line is, what was true maybe a year ago, that heritage institutions were running behind the development on the web, has tremendously changed. It seems every single institution is engaging with the participatory web technology. Besides that, the people working in the heritage sector are so good connected and share best practices that it seems that web 2.0 has never had another purpose. Think only of all the wiki's that are in used only by stuff members to inform each other first, visitors are next in the line - so is their content.
While the practise sharing part is a very positive thing, because it finally gets heritage people out of their ivory towers and talking to each other, I still have the feeling that the final goal, namely to engage with the user is kind of driven to hights it was never supposed to reach. Or, it is misunderstood, because most things I see on the web are engaging the user, thus keeping him occupied with the instituition, but not engaging with him. Or what actually happens with the contributed content? (and I am not talking about special exhibitons that are made of user generated content etc.).
While it is great that now you can give your comment on every single picture and item on a museum website (e.g. http://www.maritiemdigitaal.nl/(S(tw4zeluiqqeaqju22m04l0bg))/default.aspx) and even upload your own pictures, I wonder if really a lot of people do that. Because what benefit do they have from it??? Except that it is extremely timeconsuming because you can't use already existing profiles on and uploaded pictures on other sites.
Museums, archives and libraries start to think web 2.0, yes, but they do not start to think as a user or vistior - at least, most of them don't. If they did, they would invent web 2.0 functionality that acts to the users needs, not create new artificial needs. But what are the user's needs? In my opinion, time is our most precious good these days. Anything that saves a visitor (user) time will be a success. What saves time? Anything that goes beyond the own websites walls - and enages with the places where users already are (facebook, flickr, etc. but also the real site: like buying your museum ticket online so that you don't have to wait in the long row before the entrance, ordering your documents for the readingroom online, etc.).
So, what do you think of it?
Let me explain ( I am just brainstorming here, so sorry for the loose ends and hussled conclusions):
Over the past 1.5 years I have been monitoring the digital developments in the heritage sector. From 'simple' digitizing issues - like best practise for digitizing material, or Hertiage institution's websites as dead ends (every institution for itsself digitizes material that has been digitized by others in more efficient ways, no linking between websites etc.)
- to the call from web 2.0 an web 3.0 evangelists to heritage institutions to free their data and become platforms rather than provide moderated and closed content.
The bottom line is, what was true maybe a year ago, that heritage institutions were running behind the development on the web, has tremendously changed. It seems every single institution is engaging with the participatory web technology. Besides that, the people working in the heritage sector are so good connected and share best practices that it seems that web 2.0 has never had another purpose. Think only of all the wiki's that are in used only by stuff members to inform each other first, visitors are next in the line - so is their content.
While the practise sharing part is a very positive thing, because it finally gets heritage people out of their ivory towers and talking to each other, I still have the feeling that the final goal, namely to engage with the user is kind of driven to hights it was never supposed to reach. Or, it is misunderstood, because most things I see on the web are engaging the user, thus keeping him occupied with the instituition, but not engaging with him. Or what actually happens with the contributed content? (and I am not talking about special exhibitons that are made of user generated content etc.).
While it is great that now you can give your comment on every single picture and item on a museum website (e.g. http://www.maritiemdigitaal.nl/(S(tw4zeluiqqeaqju22m04l0bg))/default.aspx) and even upload your own pictures, I wonder if really a lot of people do that. Because what benefit do they have from it??? Except that it is extremely timeconsuming because you can't use already existing profiles on and uploaded pictures on other sites.
Museums, archives and libraries start to think web 2.0, yes, but they do not start to think as a user or vistior - at least, most of them don't. If they did, they would invent web 2.0 functionality that acts to the users needs, not create new artificial needs. But what are the user's needs? In my opinion, time is our most precious good these days. Anything that saves a visitor (user) time will be a success. What saves time? Anything that goes beyond the own websites walls - and enages with the places where users already are (facebook, flickr, etc. but also the real site: like buying your museum ticket online so that you don't have to wait in the long row before the entrance, ordering your documents for the readingroom online, etc.).
So, what do you think of it?
Views: 67
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mary Harrsch on -
Monika, you raise some interesting issues that I have been wondering about as well. Amelia pointed me to an interesting site called Creative Spaces that is a collaboration of five major museums in the UK. It enables users to create notebooks about their favorite topics, illustrated with images from the museums' collections, and upload their own images, videos, and text. But the bottom line is, a visitor can do all of these things as a volunteer editor of Wikipedia (although I must admit Wikipedia's editing interface is a bit geeky!), with the exception that currently most museums do not provide images of their collections with the required Creative Commons licensing to Wikimedia Commons or even Flickr for that matter. So is it a best use of resources to create your own platform when other public and highly trafficked forums already exist simply to control access to museum images?
It seems these days I am constantly bombarded with invitations to join this social network or that social network and when you examine the network, it isn't offering anything particularly more helpful to you as a person than one of the more established social networking sites.
From a museum standpoint, a collaborative site I would like to see is one where current and upcoming exhibits across all museums are identified (and updated in a timely fashion), linked, and tagged by category and civilization. Then visitors could subscribe to e-mail updates based on a defined set of criteria. Traveling exhibit schedules would be listed so a visitor can see if a venue closer to their location is scheduled to host a particular exhibit and "tour itineraries" (with maps) could be developed by people who may be visiting a particular region and downloaded to their iPhones or other PDA devices. I don't think there is a cross-institutional centralized directory service like that now. Ticketmaster has a limited directory of museum events but not a comprehensive one where a visitor could click on a map and have all art & museum venues with current and upcoming exhibit information listed.
It can be very confusing for a visiting art lover to independently develop a schedule across multiple venues when visiting a major city or "target rich" region. For example, many museums are closed on Mondays but not consistently. In Rome, most museums and even archaeological sites like Ostia Antica are closed on Mondays (fortunately, you can always visit St. Peters on Mondays) but in Paris, although the Musee d'Orsay is closed on Mondays, The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays.
A scheduling program needs to take into account closures - even specific gallery closures. Recently I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time and had only two days to explore their vast collection. I planned to visit their Near East collection in the afternoon of day 2 only to discover they closed it without notice as far as I could tell. I was very disappointed!
A scheduler needs to warn if timed entries are required. I just returned from Rome and did not realize that timed reservations are now needed for the Villa Borghese. Fortunately, our hotel concierge did and called for reservations for us and got us in the same day (this probably would not have been possible in peak tourist season). The Borghese website did not mention this or the fact that, although the park opens in the morning, the art gallery does not open until 1 p.m..
Routing and transportation needs to be taken into account. When we were in Rome, we made a list of all of the art venues we wanted to see then got out a map with subway stations marked on it and clumped sites together to minimize walking (we are both retired and I have sustained injuries in a fall that become problematic with excessive walking) and train or bus transfers. Visitors with physical challenges need to know if venues are accessible (in Europe, I have seen few alternatives to stairs), if wheelchairs are available (especially those who travel to the venue by air), and everybody wants to know where to eat and what food items are available (snacks and drinks only, sandwiches, full "sit down" meals, etc. and price ranges.
Museums typically provide this kind of information on their own website but I have not found a site that aggregates this service across venues and provides visitor planning services like those I have described.
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Permalink Reply by Monika Lechner on -
Mary, thank you very much for your reply! Actually, the site you mention, http://nhm.nmolp.org/creativespaces/, was exactly the reason the question arose in me. Not another site where you have to contriute to! Me too, I get loads of invitations to this and that and quite frankly, in the beginning it was fun. But right now I am deleting all kinds of profiles and memberships of 2.0 things. It just takes so much time and doesn't add to life comfort anymore.
Thanks for posing this question: "So is it a best use of resources to create your own platform when other public and highly trafficked forums already exist simply to control access to museum images?"
---> I know exactly how most of the institutions will react to that. They will point out that they have to give their data away to other platforms, so they lose control over it. Institutions feel like they lose their collection by giving their data away. And who blames them? Yes, there are sucessful examples of tagged stuff on flickr that actually gives you back something for your data. But that doesn't really convince, does it? What if you were told that it is perfectly possible to make use of museum collections already - without consent? Have a look at http://www.hoard.it/ Does it hurt?
Your answer shows me that there is still a lot of potential for museums and institutions. For me, the things you mention point towards semantic web solutions. Where the computer will be able to conclude himself that there is an obstacle, even if it's not mentioned explicitly on the instituiton's website. Simply, because a semantically "dressed up" web will be understandable to computers, which will go further than just look for words on websites (like google does). It will be able to understand the difference between Rembrandt the painter and Rembrandt the snackbar. See Tim Berners Lee's article on the possibilities of the semantic web http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-semantic-web (from 2001, but still!).
But without going further into this, do you know http://revyu.com/ ? Even though I am not a contributor, I think it comes quite close to what users actually really want: knowing if something is worth doing/buying/seeing/going to or not and how much effort will be involved.
I just searched revyu.com for museums and there's actually not really anything on there.
And I think you really have a point there that most of the museum websites are just not up to date. Working in the heritage sectore I know that institutions sometimes just lack time to do it or simply don't have anyone to appoint responsible for that (ICT is extern, website hosted elsewhere, or internal ICT department doesn't have an interrest in the collection or instituiton as such, so another department has to tell them what to do, etc. In other words - all this takes time.). If museum staff is using faster communication methods, like blogging, the targetgroup is in most of the cases not the visitor, but collegues from other institutions. And then what is the topic? right, web 2.0...
But, there are of course also good web 2.0 examples. I really love that http://archiefstartpunt.nl/ is on twitter (Dutch mostly, but also some in English): http://twitter.com/archiefnieuws
there just very short I get an update on what's going on in the archives world, like that the Theater Institute has moved to another spot. This is priceless information, shortly presented and not bound to one institution only. It is kind of similar to RSS feeds, but still shorter.
I am also thinking, when heritage instituitons make use of web 2.0 applications they should know what they are engaging with. Does it really make sense to make a facebook group if you want to share foto's? Are you really going to integrade the possibility to comment and contribute on your website if you are not going to do anything with the user generated content?
On the other hand, imagine we let go of all the data and send it out there, like the people of the Linkend open data initiative (http://linkeddata.org/) proclaim, what will the role of heritage institutions be then? Neither will they have the export role, nore will they be platforms. They just simply will be the content providers, right?
This might cause some panic attacks I suppose. But, content alone is worthless, which is sadly proven by this website, the memory of the Netherlands: http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/en/homepage . IN ther beginning there was not much more than the searchbar. Now I see they extended it with themes and you can learn more about the instituitions that contribute to the website. Could be great for schools. But then again, if I found something I see that the copyright is restricted to the institution that owns the object. Since when are archived materials under the copyright of the archive that stores it??? (my example was a serach for: Piet Paaltjens). Oh yeah, descriptions are in Dutch only. I can not click on the instituion that owns the object, I don't get links to get to know more about the writer Piet Paaltjens, I can not add any of those either and tagging to give me some more down to earth search possibilities is not possible. The exhibitions they have on the website are excellent, aren't we passed moderated, walled content on websites...
So are there any more good or bad examples of how to use and use not Web 2.0?
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Permalink Reply by Amelia Bowan on -
Mary I think that regarding Wikipedia although anyone can edit it, most people would not go to Wikipedia as their first place to add or contribute information as it is quite a confronting decision to negotiate the technology for a first time user and for someone not au fait with the web it really would not be an option. Another issue is that of legitimacy and authority. While Wikipedia is a great first port of call for finding out basics, the democratic nature of the contributions means that it has little academic authority and often many inaccuracies or non-referenced claims. In contrast people view museums as having incredible authority (the IMLS National Study on the Use of Libraries, Museums and the Internet in 2008 found that museums and libraries consistently evoked extraordinary trust from the public) so a bonus of the Creative Spaces site is that it has institutional authority.
I completely agree with the bombardment of sites to join. I wrote in a reply to the Twitter thread on here about the overwhelming number of sites and networks I negotiate on a daily basis. I think it is easy to forget though that for someone starting out online or someone who is investigating joining networks who doesn't usually access or use them that an institutional website is a really good first step/intro to the process of creating an online presence.
Regarding your idea for a centralised website of museum exhibitions and insider info (a great idea!) this site may be similar to what you are proposing http://www.museum-tracker.com/ not quite as sophisticated as your idea but a good start.
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Permalink Reply by Mary Harrsch on
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Amelia, actually here in the US (I'm not sure where you are located), there is a movement among many academicians to change their previous policies about acceptance of Wikipedia citations in scholarly work. Many Wikipedia editors are experienced scholars and researchers and oversight by Wikipedia reviewers has become increasingly more rigorous. I read an article lately that mentioned how the number of Wikipedia editors that may be contributing to any particular article is proving to be a major advantage in helping to ensure an article's accuracy. The article said the more popular the topic the more likely its contents will be very accurate. It's the articles about obscure topics that you must approach with skepticism.
Another thing that an institution needs to keep in mind is that anytime you accept user-generated content there is always the risk of introducing inaccurate information. So, even Creative Spaces may contain inaccurate information if a visitor creates a notebook and adds their own content. However, I certainly agree with you about the difficult editing interface in Wikipedia. I know I have complained about it to Wikipedia administration and suggested they introduce a more user-friendly interface like the one used by PBWiki. What I think I would like to do is create some Creative Space notebooks on particular Wikipedia topics and then add them as reference links to the Wikipedia articles. That way the work involved in developing an authoritative notebook on Creative Spaces at least gains more exposure from its reference in Wikipedia, whose articles are generally Number 1 or 2 in many web searches.
Thanks for the information about the museum tracker website. I wonder if people have found it to be accurate in regards to temporary closures, etc? If a consortium of museums themselves would sponsor such an application (and I would recommend offering it for free instead of a charge svc - you lose a lot of people by charging, as the internet has spawned an "info for free" mentality) I think it would be a more widely used and trusted tool. The reason I would hesitate to use it is that it appears to be a third party product and the publisher would not have as timely an access to closure information as someone on staff with an institution nor would they have as much vested interest in the product's accuracy as the institution would.
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Permalink Reply by Monika Lechner on
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Mary, do you know Google Knol? knol.google.com Because that seems the closest to a wikipedia like most heritage institutions would like to have it: trusted sources and not anyone can edit your text. Wiki's are great, but sometimes you just don't want the text or passages of it changed. In wikipedia you don't have control over that. in Knol you do. And Knols are easier to write than a wiki article. I agree, the markup of a wiki article is a bit geeky stil. Not really something you can do without having studied it before.
What you say about the accuracy of the most popular wiki article is true. But what about the not popular ones? The user can't see how many times an article has been edited and thus gained some credibility or not. And, wikipedia might feature a lot of very popular items, like details about all Pokemon characters, but not lack detailed and accurat information on 'unpoular' historical issues like. Not to mention the political impact and coulour of some articles.
That is where the problem of inaccuracy starts to itch. And that is also why heritage institutions choose to make their own wiki, rather than join the big initiative. (I reserached that topic for the National Library of the Netherlands). An example of an instituiton that made its own wiki, with its own rules is the British National Archive:
http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Home_page
But I agree with you, Wikipedia is a great entrance point (as are similar platforms like Flickr or Facebook) for a lot of users, so the articles on wikipedia should definitely link further to more credible sources and institutions wikis and homepages.
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Permalink Reply by Amelia Bowan on
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That is very interesting. I am in Australia and as far as I know there is no similar movement happening in universities here (although as I am only aware of the academic policies and guidelines of the University of Sydney there may well be other universities that accept references to Wikipedia in scholarly work). We are advised, often rather strictly, to avoid using Wikipedia. I do not reference Wikipedia in essays I write but I do often go there as a starting point when I am researching or even curious about something I am not familiar with.
Regarding the museum tracker website I agree it would be great if a sonsortium of museums would sponsor it and that charging for it, especially as it is run by a third party, would limit its accessibility and accuracy.
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Permalink Reply by Sheila Carey on -
Hi Mary -- I think this site is trying to do some of what you mention. This site was pointed out to me at MCN last fall.
http://www.mutualart.com/
At the time there was a temporary login available, but I haven't gone in and looked at it recently. I have to admit that I wonder if it will eventually become 'for fee' once it is not in Beta, but worth looking at for now.
I agree something that gave the information you mention for Rome would be wonderful. It would need frequent updating, though, to warn you of the items/rooms 'In Restauro'. It can indeed be frustrating to go expecting to see something that is offlimits at the time you visit.
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Permalink Reply by Monika Lechner on
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Hi Sheila,
this is awsome, not so much because of what the site does because it is mostly for art collectors and people who really actually want to buy art, rather than visit museums, but because it's one of the first semantic Web applications:
"Today marks the launch of the first such project for the buying public - the New York launch of MutualArt.com, a global initiative to link art collectors (the buyers) with artists, museums, galleries and information sources including the leading art publications, auction house information and prices. It is the first major application of the semantic web to a consumer service." (Irish Times, 10 march 2008 : http://www.mutualart.com/Static/pr-irishTimes)
Look, this is what I mean by considering the user (in the same article as mentioned above): "We have relationships with over 250 publications and over 1,000 news feeds," says Moti Shniberg, founder of MutualArt. "Our contribution is to analyse the users and understand their needs."
"At the centre is a service that learns user preferences. It learns what you want to know and uses those preferences to form relationships between information, events, artists, galleries and museums."
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is working on the same thing, but then, for their users. In short: working on PDA's that guide you through the museum, based on your personal references: http://www.chip-project.org/
Thinking of it, this might be what Mary wanted to have, but then based on one museum.
I know also of initiatives that work on digitizing the city, so that when you walk around with you phone and you pass by a hertiage site, you get a notice that there is information accessible about this site or museum. But I don't have an actual projectwebsite in mind, I think I heard about that at a conference.
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Permalink Reply by Amelia Bowan on
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I think your point about museums not thinking of and as a user is an extremely important and relevant one.
My research has led me to conclude that blogs (specifically and really any venture into the online world) have the potential to be the most successful vehicle for museums to actually live and achieve their mission, goals, and promote their values (more details to come when I actually finish writing it up).
Two of the blogs I have studied, Australia in the 80s and All About Evil have integrated Facebook which has had great results.
Your point about anything that saves time will be a success is a good one as well. Facebook has a great system of updates so you don't need to keep going back and checking different pages, and Blogs that have an RSS feed or an email notification facility are also great in this respect.
On the other hand, billions of people spend an incredible amount of time sitting online looking for ways to waste their time/distract them from work/procrastinate especially when meant to be studying *guilty as charged haha* so having Web 2.0 applications that can entertain and interest people who do have a lot of time on their hands can be useful as well.
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Permalink Reply by Monika Lechner on
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Amelia, thanks for your reply! You have a point that people are surfing around and want to get entertained (me, guilty of charge too! ;-) ). And then of course, it's great if you spend time on a museum website and get involved. No doubt about it. Also for schools its great that there is a lot of educational content out there that attemts to be entertaining as wel.
However, if the institutions portal gets neglected and the amount of visitors drops, the neglected forum or platform will be more negative PR than positive, or not? The user as such does not exist. Some institutions break "the user" down into different targetgroups. That is a beginning, I guess. I am very curious if more institutions have targetgroups in mind when they invent social media applications?
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Permalink Reply by Amelia Bowan on
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Thanks for a great discussion topic!
I am very curious if more institutions have targetgroups in mind when they invent social media applications?
I am also very curious about this. I think that equal numbers of institutions do and don't think about possible/intended audiences. I think it is essential for any social media application to have a deeply considered purpose and intended audience. If you are unsure why you are launching a new application or who is going to use it then it is almost impossible to make it work positively for your institution. The easiest way to identify a purpose is to look first to your institution's mission statement and strategic plan. If the proposed idea does not fit these guidelines then it is unlikely to be successful, both directly in the interactions with the public and indirectly as a way to generate actual visits and/or increased revenue (or even advertising).
A good way to avoid portals becoming or looking like they are neglected is to (in relation to having a specific purpose) close the portal once it is seen to have completed its purpose. For example if there is a Facebook group about an exhibition, update the group with an announcement that the exhibition has now closed (and maybe include something like 'although we welcome you to continue your discussions' - maybe refer them back to the institution's website to find out about new/upcoming exhibitions they may also be interested in).
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Permalink Reply by Mary Harrsch on
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Amelia & Monika, as someone who has designed educational materials for different age groups, I try to extend my experience in this area to my participation in social networking environments and the materials I post there. For example, I maintain both a Facebook and MySpace profile page. I use Facebook to interact with colleagues and other, mostly adult, history and art enthusiasts. I have my Facebook status connected to my Twitter feed, then use a number of Twitter-based tools to automatically update Facebook from other Web 2.0 applications that I use. I have my history blogs tied to my Twitter account through Twitterfeed and thereby to my Facebook account so anytime I post something to my blogs it updates my Twitter account and Facebook account simultaneously. I connect my Flickr account to Twitter with a tool called Snaptweet so everytime I upload a new image to Flickr and tag it with snaptweet, it posts to Twitter and thereby to Facebook. (I have shared my Museum 3.0 profile page but haven't figured out how to get each post to appear in my Twitter account yet)
I use MySpace, however, to post materials I think would be interesting to a younger demographic - like my grandsons! I posted my short video clips of the "Dinosaurs!" exhibit I attended to MySpace (eventually I'll upload them to YouTube as well). I have a music application that runs on MySpace (I include both pop tunes I like as well as movie soundtracks - usually historical epics) I include links to web pages I have created like "Fun with Ancient History" and my virtual Egyptian archaeological dig that uses javascript to enable young visitors to virtually "dig" for artifacts from King Tut's tomb, etc. My only regret is that I don't have time to update MySpace as often because I can't automatically filter my Twitter feed for age targeted posts. What I need is a way to tag a Twitter post with "MySpace" and then have a tool to copy that specific post to MySpace. Maybe there's a tool like that on Twitter but I haven't seen one yet. In fact, I just posted this request to Twitter as a suggested feature. We'll see what they do with that.
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