The BBC ran a news article today about a new plan for a museum lovers social networking site, that involves the National Portrait Gallery, Natural History Museum, the Tate, the Wallace Collection, Royal Armouries, Sir John Soane's Museum, V&A, British Museum and Imperial War Museum. That's quite an impressive list.
I've not seen too much in the way of interactive museum socialising outside of museums own websites in the past - there's still a limited amount of museums taking part on sites such as Twitter, and even Facebook tends only to have 'fan pages' and not actual groups run by museum learning staff.
Because of the large amount of traffic I follow on Twitter anyhow, I tend to limit the museums I follow at the moment to ones here in London - the British Museum's recently joined up but it's not doing much, the V&A doesn't really do much for me, but the Science Museum tweets are friendly, and very interactive and informative! So at this level I definitely think museums have a long way to go (from what i've seen - there's a few big ones in the States that seem prolific though).
So this National Museums Online Learning Project sounds very dull with a name like that, but if it's a purpose built project that will allow museums to get what they need, as well as their visitors getting what they need, from the site then it is definitely promising. I think these parts interest me the most:
The museums are collaborating to allow online visitors to search across their combined collections, so that a single search might gather material from any of them.
It will also allow visitors to set up social networking groups on the website where they can talk about what has inspired them and about their creative interests.
The project allows visitors to collect scrapbooks of images or text or videos that they find in the museums, which they can share with other website users.
Point A is fantastic, if it's got useful information. When I was at the Science Museum lates evening last month, I saw at one of their computer terminals they have an Object Wiki, which intrigued me. It's got info on collection pieces as well as publications and exhibitions. Very well collated resource. If this project can get together something comprehensive and useful for users, it's a huge step forward in what museums offer online for their visitors. I can't imagine the juggling they'll have to do intellectual property wise with this one.
The last couple of paragraphs sound a little bit geared toward sitting schoolkids down in front of this thing and forcing them to put together a project. I imagine if it's anything like trying to get them to complete worksheets or activities when actually in the museum it could be a ruddy mess. On the other hand, it could be terrific - the project outline mentions 'WebQuests' for kids, which will focus their use quite a bit. There seems to be the more general 'lifelong learning' approach for other users - considering most people when physically visiting museums do little to engage with other visitors, this could be a fantastic way for people to get together and almost debrief about their visiting experiences. Flickr-like photo sharing, a bit of blog-esque or message board stuff, it'll be great. Not to mention a ridiculously useful resource for the learning and audiences staff at participating museums to feed off! The mutual feedback that would (hopefully) ensue could really enrich visitor experience for these museums.
At any rate, it will be an interesting project, I just hope the funding will continue for it - it's no use paying for this sort of thing to be set up and then forgetting it needs dedicated staff, maintenance, and development. Too often web projects for museums go this way, and it'd be frustrating to see such a bit ship sink.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Social networking and museums
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Statuephilia @ the British Museum
I recently finished working at the British Museum, just before the Statuephilia exhibit was fully installed. Toward the end of last month I had a chance to go back as a visitor and check out the few installations that make up this exhibition.
It's an interesting thing for a museum like the BM to do, it's a bit 'thinking outside the box', with its integration of modern art and traditional collecting. There are five installations, each one in a different gallery. This in itself takes a step away from a traditional exhibiting space, the coherent whole and narrative that usually accompanies it. Instead, "five of Britain’s leading artists have contributed a sculpture responding to these world-famous collections," each a separate part of the museum - most often one that has inspired them in their work.
I like that the BM has taken on something like this (even with guest curators), because it speaks to the importance of museum collections outside the four walls of the institution. I suppose a lot of folk in the museum industry (specifically curatorial posts) most often think of collections within the bounds of their museum, and that context. The stories they can tell do have a broader cultural interest and content, but generally they are still bound by the institution itself. I think what Statuephilia does is show that museum collections do have more than just an immediate impact on a visiting public, and they demonstrate this very specifically by showing the work of sculptors who have been influenced not just by the BM as a whole, but the specifics of their collection.
I think Antony Gormley's quote sums this influence up simply: Seeing as a child the great head of Ramesses and the Assyrian winged bulls at the British Museum was what made me become a sculptor. Damien Hirst takes it a step further and examines the context and display of collections themselves: The gallery itself inspires me as a space with all those beautiful cabinets and cases complete with artefacts.
Statuephilia is a small and fairly simple idea, but it's got great impact - and it also spans the traditional museum and gallery worlds. If you're in London I definitely recommend seeing it, because it's definitely made me think about the broader scope of collections in society and the appeal that various museums can have on us all.
Below the jump are some photos of 4 out of 5 of the installations - unfortunately, Damien Hirst does not allow photography of his, but you can view it at the link above.
All images (with titles and info) on Flickr!
Monday, April 16, 2007
Public Inquiries, helping visitors.
It's a difficult position working in a museum as a white Australian talking to visitors about Australian Aboriginal culture. There are so many opportunities for miscommunication, misunderstanding and outright bigotry that it can be a real minefield to walk into. I've come out of Uni with an anthropology degree, but I do not profess in any way to be an expert on Australian Aboriginal culture; however, I know a little and can often point people in the right direction more than provide them with expertise I don't have.
This afternoon I had a basic query here from someone at the front counter in the Inquiry Centre. To begin with, he was asking about websites that gave general information about Aboriginal history; this then led to him wanting somewhere he could look at old photos or snapshots of art. I suggested checking out State Library or State Art Gallery websites in Australia, and asked a little further about what he was looking for. It turned out he had some photos of rock art. So I then confirmed a state library or art gallery would be a good way to go - perhaps even if he wanted general identification one of the curators here could look at it. Was he just after an identification, I asked, or general information on rock art?
Eventually he said that he'd gotten some photos of rock art from a NSW site. I then directed him toward the Australian Museum - more relevant, with a large(ish) Anthropology department. Further prodding gave up the information that the site was on his brother's property. Bingo. He wanted information and (of course) he 'respected their culture' but they were all afraid their property would be taken away from them. I assured him that native title was an incredibly misunderstood issue in this country, and it was his duty to (or at least his brother's duty to) report a finding of an Aboriginal heritage place/artefact as it's covered in legislation (National Parks and Wildlife act down there I believe, and the QM Act up here); reporting it did certainly not mean their property would be whisked away. He got very very cagey about all of it after that and ended up thanking me and leaving.
In this circumstance, there are a lot of things I feel in the wake of an inquiry like this. I feel like it definitely is my responsibility to make white Australian visitors aware of the law regarding Australian Aboriginal culture in Australia and their responsibilities in relation to that. I feel like I might have pushed a little hard. I feel frustrated the guy wasn't up front about what he was really trying to find out. I am sad that a lot of his attitude was "i'm not racist, but..." - simply because of the history of this country and its current politics. I hope something positive comes out of the exchange, at any rate..
The entomologists have it way easier, you know.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
A Night at the Museum - film and reality
Just a few grabs from recent news:
Thousands visit Natural History Museum after Ben Stiller movie.
New York's American Museum of Natural History has seen a 20 percent jump in attendance over the holidays. And museum officials say it's due in part the new Ben Stiller comedy... But the museum's president says the increase in attendance can also be pinned on a spike in New York City tourism.
Don't forget your sleeping bag! American Museum of Natural History launches sleepover program.
"A Night at the Museum" monthly sleepover program officially begins Saturday, but word-of-mouth has spread quickly -- it's booked through March.
Suddenly, this museum is hot!
Attendance at the American Museum of Natural History, in Manhattan, soared higher than a T-rex skeleton over the holidays — thanks in large part to the popularity of the new kid-oriented comedy Night at the Museum.
Fake Museum Increases Attendance at Real Museum
To respond to the increased attendance and frequent movie-related questions of museum visitors, the AMNH "scoured the movie" (pity the poor intern with that duty!) so they could "tell visitors what was here and what wasn't" according to AMNH director of visitor services Brad Harris.
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I pretty much figured this would be the case; the presence of any museum in the media (generally visual) will always mean an increase in interest, whether it's been seen via advertising or something like a film such as this. More often than not it will give a lot less than 100% of an idea of what the museum is and what it entails. (We get countless people phoning my work with little to no idea of what the museum/sciencentre actually are and what's in them.)
So with something like this, where you have a movie ostensibly set in a museum where it's really a set of a museum, there's going to be confusion, along with excitement. It's really, really awesome that the movie (which is fun and terrific, by the way) is making people enthusiastic about heading along to the AMNH again or for the first time (or heading along to any museums at all!). I can imagine it must be overwhelming for the staff and management somewhat - although I do wonder if they somehow wrangled it in their favour, to lend their name and facade to the film.
However! As the last quote highlights, folks are getting mismatched ideas between movie museum and real museum - of course people are going to be expecting the dioramas (&c) they see in the film - if i'd not been anywhere near the AMNH (as I haven't), i'd expect a reasonable amount of similarity - after all, the sets were magnificent. It's a real pity that the popularity of the museum has been such a boon for its popularity, but is in some ways also sabotaging its reputation, via the creation/enhancement of people's expectations.
I hope that the streak of popularity continues throughout the year and well beyond for the AMNH, but I also hope that it's because they have a strong enough presence (maybe even 'brand', if you like) and exhibitions/public programs interesting and enthusiastic enough to keep people entertained and coming back, regardless whether they've seen A Night at the Museum or not.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Visitor experience and technology in the Getty Center.
I was recently pointed toward the podcast of Dave Cronin's presentation at this year's Ideas Conference (the slides and podcast can be found here), Art for the public: supporting a visitor-directed museum experience. Cronin works for Cooper, a consulting company brought in to develop and implement new technologies to enhance visitor experience to the Getty Center art museum in LA; the podcast was essentially a presentation of this as a case study, and was a very interesting listen.
They redeveloped the computer 'kiosk' system, replaced audioguides with handhelds, and integrated it all with the Getty Center's website. They fed a lot of visitor experience data into the development of this, which is a fantastic way to make sure the technologies you're putting in are going to work for the visitors, rather than dumping technologies in and trying to make the visitors use and enjoy it. What I liked about their approach to developing this stuff was that it wasn't all just about education/information about what was in galleries, but also about wayfinding and orientation in the museum. I like that mix of practical and educational info.
I also found the way they examined the visitors interesting - they looked at the varying levels of art knowledge people have, the things they might be interested in when viewing a piece (i.e materials or artist, or subject etc), the different ways people learn in museums, as well as attitudes to the use of technology in museums. It's a nice broad approach that informs the development of the technology they were looking to install - and it's valuable visitor information for the museum to use in the future. Out of their visitor research the group came up with "Personas" - or "Archetypal user models based on behavior patterns observed during research" - which Cronin states are design models and not statistical realities. I like the idea of this - rather than a strict statistical demographic group, it's more informed by statistics and research and actual visitor observation to get down to sorts of individuals - which, while painted with broad brushes, are probably more useful than large demographically based groups. As well as including visitors, they had a docent persona - what a great idea! I think a lot of museum administrators try so hard to provide for their visitors that they tend to forget their employees are important to consider when planning exhibitions/new technologies/programs/activities etc.
The stuff that Cooper ended up producing sounds terrific - full of information (of varying forms) - and accessible in the 3 different ways. I had a look at the slides, and the appearance of them is quite good, too (for something that could've been too complicated to present) - the handheld looks particularly awesome! After using something like that in Te Papa in Wellington (they were testing the technology), it's awesome to see it being integrated into museums as a valid guide tool. The Getty's been terrifically lucky in who they chose as consultants, because I think Cooper are really clued in as far as where you can go with this sort of technology for visitors in museums now. I would love to see my museum go anywhere even NEAR having these sorts of things on offer for visitors - we don't even have proper guide booklets, let alone tours or audioguides! Wishful thinking.. Anyhow - if you're interested in hearing about research and development with regard to museum visitors, I highly recommend giving this a listen!
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Article repost and comment - Museums find an unlikely ally: The cellphone
Museums find an unlikely ally: The cellphone By Dan Goodin, The Associated Press.
Article and comment after the jump...
SAN FRANCISCO — Art lovers, history buffs and science devotees, take note: To get the most out of your next museum visit, make sure you have your cellphone with you.
By Paul Sakuma, AP / http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2006-03-19-cell-museum-tours_x.htm?POE=TECISVA
Not to gab on, of course, but to listen to audio tours that weave music, narration and recordings from historical archives designed to bring more context to the exhibitions. For many visitors, it comes as a welcome alternative to the decades-old system of museums renting out expensive handheld devices.
Museums across the country, once averse to noisy cellphones, are suddenly encouraging their use. In the past year, about a dozen art institutions — including museums in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Calif., Tacoma, Wash., Minneapolis and Greenwich, Conn. — have begun offering cellphone tours, mostly for free. Dozens more are in the process of implementing the service.
One reason for the surge is the emergence of companies such as Guide by Cell of San Francisco, Ashburn, Va.-based Spatial Adventures and Minneapolis-based Museum411, which run computer servers and phone systems so museums don't have to.
"I generally don't buy the audio tours when I go to a museum unless it's a Monet or somebody really impressive," said Chris Mengarelli, 53, who recently used her phone to tour the exhibit Visual Politics: The Art of Engagement, at the San Jose Museum of Art.
"It was much more convenient than having to rent a head set and worrying about what kind of germs are being transmitted."
Museums have been making audio tours available over cellphones since at least 2002, when Southern Utah University opened an exhibit of historical photos documenting 100 years of local theater. Matt Nickerson, a professor of library science, wrote the script and taped old actors recalling their performances in Shakespearean plays. He recruited an actor and engineer to record and mix the audio tour at a radio station.
"It turned out to be much simpler than I thought," he said.
Using the museum services is as easy as dialing a number and selecting the code that corresponds to the artwork a visitor is viewing. While each museum's system is different, visitors generally can stay on the same call throughout the tour and switch from one exhibit to the next by entering different numbers into their phones, similar to the way callers navigate a voice mail system.
At least one tour, offered at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, responded to voice commands, but museum officials there discontinued the feature because chatter and ambient noise often interfered.
Companies such as Spatial Adventures plan to offer text, pictures and video in the next year or so to take advantage of new capabilities being offered by cellphone carriers such as Verizon and Sprint.
For now, most museums offer cellphone audio for free, although users must deduct the time spent listening from their monthly allotment of minutes. They also must pay any roaming charges or other costs that may apply to their cellphone plan. Those costs differ widely depending on the carrier.
Many museums are able to give away the service because companies such as Guide by Cell, living off investor financing, offer free pilots of the service as they try to jump-start the trend. About half of Guide by Cell's customers are paying for the service, while all of Museum411's clients pay.
"When we have to pay, or someone has to pay, we may have to change things," said Suzanne Isken, director of education at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which started using Guide by Cell audio for one of its exhibits in January.
The chief benefit of cellphones is their ubiquity. With almost 204 million Americans carrying a cellphone, according to wireless industry group CTIA, museums no longer have to maintain fleets of handheld devices.
Isken recently decided to not to offer an audio tour using the dedicated devices for an upcoming exhibit on the work of artist Robert Rauschenberg. She estimates that her museum would have spent $20,000 just to pay the staff that checks out, cleans and recharges the dedicated devices, which are provided by a company called Antenna Audio.
"We were concerned that we wouldn't be able to make back our investment," Isken said, explaining that under financial arrangements with Antenna, 20,000 visitors would need to buy the $6 service for the museum to break even.
cellphones also make it easy for visitors who have decided to skip the audio tour to spontaneously change their minds.
"You don't have to go back to the desk and rent something," said Robin Dowden, director of new media initiatives at the Walker Art Center.
Not all museums are embracing the trend. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is studying cellphone audio tours but has decided to hold off for now. Instead, it offers audio files that visitors can download from the museum website and play on their iPods or other portable music players while viewing exhibits.
"Just because you have a phone in your hand and can call up a message about every piece in a gallery doesn't mean those messages are going to be engaging," said Peter Samis, associate curator of education at the museum.
"Museums themselves are relative novices at this and don't have any experience producing this type of content in-house," he said. "There's a steeper learning curve than many proselytizers of the technology are willing to acknowledge."
Mengarelli, who toured "Visual Politics," confessed to finding some portions of the audio tour "distracting." She also complained that her arm got tired holding a cellphone to her ear for 30 minutes.
Still, the San Jose Museum of Art's experiment with cellphone audio has already changed the way some visitors take in art.
Ben Patel, a 29-year-old hotel worker who arrived just before closing time one day last week, quickly snapped pictures of the images on his digital camera, so he could view them later on his computer while listening to the narration on his phone.
"It's a good idea," he said. "I'm short on time and the museum will be shut before I can view all of them."
When I was in Wellington at Te Papa, I tried out the PDA virtual "tour guide" for the "Made in New Zealand Exhibit" - it wasn't perfect, but it was an interesting concept that went a little further than a generic audio tour. I really like the idea of making audio guides more accessible to visitors though, because they (if done well) can really enhance the experience in a particular exhibition. I think a lot of museums are put off by the huge costs involved in creating/providing/maintaining audio tours, however, and it's pretty rare to see them. This proposed service would be a lot more accessible for visitors, and sounds to be a lower cost than hand-held units; overall a terrific idea and it's something i'd love to see happen in Australian museums. A while back I heard about MOMA's audio tours, which come in multiple formats (hand-held and downloadable, mainly) and I think it's the perfect way to approach it. Podcasts appeal to me particularly, because I think it's something that could be done (reasonably) easily and low-cost in-house in museums. I'd like to work to put something together for one of the permanent displays here at the Queensland Museum, most likely the "Discover Queensland" display - it's a broad, all-encompassing display that presents the state well but could be enhanced with an audio tour with some more background and history. Once the school holidays are over, i'll talk to my manager (who was one of the main people involved) and possibly our "new media" person and see if it's something they'd be interested in.