Technology + Museums

Technology is being used to “transform museums into more dynamic institutions in the 21st century” (Canos 313). Traditionally, museums have made use of text and labels as a storytelling aid and, while invaluable as a means of conveying background information at once, they are rather static and limited. Technology is now used to augment in-person visits to museums with virtual information designed to enhance the visitor's understanding. With the availability of the public internet and the World Wide Web the amount of people utilizing online resources and the number of resources available as well as contributing providers have increased exponentially. Anyone with internet access can publish information as illustrated by this blog.

TRS-80, Tandy Radio Shack´s first desktop computer
source: Computer History Museum

Museums + Web 2.0

The Hermitage has done an excellent job of making some of its 3,000,000+ item collection available online but definitely has some room to grow. Many museums are now making use of recent trends in the use of World Wide Web technology, or what is known as Web 2.0. This new use of existing technology is intended to “enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration, and functionality of the web.” Most people are familiar with Web 2.0 in the form of social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, video sharing sites such as YouTube, and blogs. A blog (a portmanteau of the words “web” and “log”) is a website maintained by an individual and regularly updated with entries, or posts, of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as photos or video. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format are an important part of most blogs. Many museums, especially contemporary art museums with a young demographic, have blogs in addition to their websites. The blogs differ from the website in that they use a conversational and personal tone rather than an institutional one and may consist of many contributors' voices. Blogs also evolve with the community that contributes to them and “can create an environment of person to person communication by seeking opinions, ideas, and feedback and by encouraging the visitors to participate and contribute . . . and share experiences” (Beazley). This shows that the museum is listening to its visitors, helps to break barriers, and allows visitors to be more engaged with the museum. Blogs are also an opportunity for smaller museums that may have very little funding to create an online presence for free.

(click image to enlarge)

source: Museum 2.0

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Blogs + Social Networking

Blogs very often incorporate links to other blogs, videos, audio, and slide shows. For instance, the MASS Moca blog has a feature called Flickr Finds. Flickr (one of the first Web 2.0 applications) is a popular image and video hosting website where users are able to upload their digital images and create albums and slide shows to share with others. A contributor to the MASS Moca blog searched Flickr for photos uploaded by users that feature a MASS Moca installation called Tree Logic and posted them on the blog with links back to each person's Flickr profile. In this way blogs personalize the museum and make visitor content an integral part of their online presence. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has created a widget that anyone can easily install on their desktop, website, social networking profiles, or blogs. The widget features a different work of art from the Rijksmuseum collection every day. When the widget is clicked on, it flips to the reverse side to reveal information about the piece and artist. Some may view this as nothing more than a novelty, but it certainly has the potential to keep visitors engaged, allow users to promote the museum, and even create enough interest that viewers are compelled to visit the museum and see a piece in person. Of course, blogs are not used exclusively by art museums that cater to the young and hip. The Children's Museum of Easton, also in Massachusetts, has a blog on which they allow visitors to vote on content and hosted a digital photo contest for parents' photos of their children participating in activities at the museum. They also link to their MySpace and YouTube profiles.

The Rijksmuseum widget is featured on this blog to the right. Click in the middle to enlarge the image or click the lower right corner to see the title and artist.

Directly below the Rijkswidget is the Global Museum widget which feeds information to this blog from globalmuseum.org.

(click image to see this blog post)

On the sidebar of this blog to the right, you can also see an RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed from the MASS Moca blog. It shows links to the five most recent blog posts at any given moment. To subscribe to a feed from New Wave Museums you would use the "Subscribe" tools below the MASS Moca feed.