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?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Monika Lechner on April 16, 2009 at 5:46am

Mary, excellent!!! It's amazing how active you are. Besides that, you post shows one thing: you are extremley busy trying to get all the different platforms to connect to each other. For 2 obvious reasons:
1. to keep a comprehensive web self of yours
2. to save time and not have to do it all over again in each platform (application)
am I right?

See, that is what most people try to do on the web. We are so extremely busy to connect and share things that the least thing we need are 'walled gardens'. Which is the reason why I believe that web applications, hosted and launched by Institutions themselves, are too time consuming - because you can't connect them to your Myspace, Facbook of Flickr account. Whereas, if an Institution joins an alreay existing platform, it's convenient for the user, but for the Institution it means the loss of control over the content. Their own shared content and the user generated content. And as we know, user generated content may come for free, but is worth millions (consider the price Microsoft payed for small part of facebook!).
And from the user site: whether on facebook or if you contribute to an Institution's plaform directly: you will never own your contributed content - once you've created it, it's up to the one who runs the platform what to do with it.
But I am not sure, is that unfair or is that the price every contributor is willing to pay?

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Permalink Reply by Mary Harrsch on April 17, 2009 at 1:42am

Monika, any content created by an end user is the intellectual property of the end user not the platform provider. Although platform providers may terminate a user's account for violation of their terms of service, the platform provider does not have control over user content as far as editing or modification is concerned - at least not in any of the social networks I use - Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, GoodReads, Shelfari. In theory, copyright is created at the moment a piece of intellectual property is created (although most attorneys will not prosecute without a formal registration document). Hosting an environment where users generate and store their intellectual property does not grant the hosting service any copyright privileges unless it is clearly stated in their terms of service. I would hesitate if not outright refuse to contribute to a service that attempted to usurp my intellectual property for their own commercial purposes other than promotion of the hosting environment. I do consider contributions to Wikipedia somewhat differently as I view any editing or additions I make there as a social contribution to the public good.

When I photograph art objects in museums that have made special arrangements to accommodate me in some way, I grant them free use of my images for their promotional purposes (with attribution) but I do not transfer my copyright privileges. I also license all of my images on Flickr with Creative Commons non-commercial share alike privileges to encourage their use in non-commercial user-generated content, but anyone wishing to use my work for their own commercial purposes are required to seek permission even though the work is freely available for viewing on the web and is hosted by a third party. Before Flickr became the premiere image sharing service, there were a number of other sleazy efforts to establish image sharing services that stated in their terms of service that they gained ownership over images stored on their platforms. I avoided those like the plague and consider such strategies to be little more than online theft through deception especially considering most users don't bother to read the terms of service and the developers of such environments are counting on that. I realize developers of online services need to make a return on investment but I would rather have to pay a service directly (as I do with Flickr as a pro account user) than surrender my intellectual property rights for the mere privilege of storing it.

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Permalink Reply by Amelia Bowan on April 19, 2009 at 3:06pm

Mary I recommend you check the Facebook terms of service. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding the policy in terms of company use of data.

Under the User Content section it states:

"When you post User Content to the Site, you authorise and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sublicence) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorise sublicences of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the licence granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."

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Permalink Reply by davida de Hond on April 18, 2009 at 8:09am

First of all I think that we have to choose what social network we operate on, based by our own needs and personal preferences. I think therefore that cultural heritage institutions should obviously do the same thing.

Loss of control as Monika stated in her last reply, is something that I, and many others, see as a big problem withing heritage institutions. I am working on my thesis and I have seen allot of examples of " anxiety attacks". You don't loose control, you gain enthousiasm, conversations, relationships, other points of view and the sense the institution is something for everyone. Every institution that thinks it looses something, isn't ready to "3.0" themselves. Sharing is the key-word. That is the most important lesson that I have learned conserning this subject.

And for apps that are being made by institutions themselves: In my opinion it are mostly one-ff, "we got a grant" initiatives with often no follow-ups or good maintaining and updating. So I think that if you are not certain as a insttution that you can't maintain your application, connecting and sharing on already existing social media sites, that fit the goals of the institution ofcourse, is the best way to go. But on the other hand: experimenting is also something that is good for the future of the "shared-in" cultural heritage institution.

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Permalink Reply by Mary Harrsch on April 18, 2009 at 8:39am

Exactly, Davida. I'm always on the lookout for a social network that has value-added to those I already use but for the most part I have settled on those I have listed, although yesterday I actually set up a new account on Shutterfly to experiment with making a library of online pictures books with all of the images I have taken of art and historical sites over the years for public reference and enjoyment.

I also noticed that Shutterfly offers the ability to add widgets to their user-created sites, much like Blogger, that I also find quite helpful to point visitors to other web resources. I like to create an immersive experience for the visitor interested in the same subjects I am. For example, on my Roman Times blog (http://ancientimes.blogspot.com) I not only post articles of interest to Roman history enthusiasts but I include Roman-themed crosswords and jigsaw puzzles, a music play list featuring songs from favorite ancient historical epics like Gladiator, HBO's Rome, Spartacus, etc. (don't worry it has controls to let the visitor turn it off if they'd rather read quietly), interactive activities for children, links to era-specific books and movies on Amazon, links to related art galleries and other web resources and even Roman-themed videos from YouTube.

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Permalink Reply by Lynda Kelly on April 15, 2009 at 12:44pm

Here's a nice post 10 ways to measure social media success that may help add to this rich discussion.

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Permalink Reply by Emma Di Pietro on April 4, 2011 at 10:36pm

This is a very interesting question!! I have been doing a lot of research on museum 2.0 lately and I have come across an article on web 2.0 and museums which you may find interesting. Basically, it is a short article on how the McCord Museum (one of my favorite little museums!) is implementing some web 2.0 on its site and how successful the implementation is. It may be nice to see the real-life application of these web 2.0 tools and to see its impact on the public. Thanks again for the great post! Emma