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Museums are quickly adapting to Web 2.0, and engaging with a new on-line audience. Social media projects are being developed and used by museum staff, and curators are starting to explore this new space. When the Powerhouse Museum's curatorial department created their first blog, they had no idea what they were in for, or what challenges they would face. They also had little idea of how curators as a whole are participating in social media activities. This paper will use the Powerhouse Museum's 'Object of the Week' blog and a major international survey of curators to investigate how social media activities are impacting on curatorial practice.

Information 2.0 and Beyond: Where are we, where are we going? Plenary presenataion at MW2011

Here is a post to inform you of two conferences that will take place at the end of November and beginning of December, one in London, one in Paris. Both are organised by the Wikimedia Foundation in partnership with arts institutions who will be presenting and discussing their experiences on knowledge sharing and partnerships with Wikimedia in that regard. As structured organisations with a deep sense of hierarchy and copyright protection of their pieces and collections,  arts organisations tend to present themselves as essentially resisting these notions, although avid readers of Museum 2.0, Museum 3.0, and French speaking readers of Mixeum are fully aware that the picture of museums today on these issues is a fragmented one. 

Success with digital media for museums, education and cultural organisations isn't about scrambling to sign up to the latest fads, those teasmades of technology, and more about attitudes of organisations and the individuals within them. What are the handles we can grab hold of to begin or better develop our journeys into digital media use in the world of exhibition, performances or engagement of new audiences? It tries to make a few points, some more successfully than others, no doubt. Key amongst them:- how to institutions do better what is now so easy for everyman to do?- is there anything to be learned from the world of startups where coming up with a compelling problem that needs solved? What are the problems museums manage to solve? Do they need to think in that way at all?- what potential is there for cultural organisations to open themselves up to new audiences by tackling the same content and ideas in alternative ways and on different platforms?

Museums are increasingly using technology to reach an audience outside their walls. And I, of course, am a complete evangelist for new media and for institutions adapting as fast as possible to changes new technologies are bringing to our world. But when the time came to talk to the museum heads about using social media tools to expand their audiences and enrich the museum-going experience, I found myself oddly reticent.

Storytelling: digital technology allows us to tell tales in innovative new ways. As the tools available to publishers grow more sophisticated, it's up to us to experiment and see what sticks. [...]Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses. When enlisted by charismatic leaders and turned into manifestos, dogmas and social policy, they've been the foundations for religions and political systems. When a storyteller has held an audience captive around a campfire, a cinema screen or on the page of a bestseller, they've reinforced local and universal norms about where we've been and where we're going. And when they've been shared in the corner shop, at the pub or over dinner they've helped us define who we are and how we fit in. Human experience is a series of never-ending, overlapping stories bumping into one another in expected and unexpected ways.[...]

The annual UKMW conferences, convened by the Museums Computer Group, have long been the place for high quality presentations and discussions on the matters that are shaping museums online today. As the UK heritage sector continues to live through difficult times, this year's conference is an opportunity to reflect on the new landscape museums are now in, learn from inspiring speakers and network with your peers.

"If you are a marketer, Facebook is important - the number of active users of the site exceeds the population of the United States, and it's growth is going to do nothing but increase. Check out the Facebook statistics page for a slew of numbers that are all…big. Because of the growth of Facebook as a critical marketing channel, a hot topic around the office right now is "Facebook measurement." It's a tricky topic that reminds me of the early days of web analytics: there's some basic stuff that's easy to measure, and it's basically helpful, but there's a lot more that can't be measured or can't be measured well, and that's where the real value is."

"Are there any museums using online wikis enabling the public to contribute content? " Discussion on Linked-in

"Organizations that are embarking on social media are going to be at different levels of maturity. That's okay. What's most important is that you recognize where on the spectrum you sit, so you can plan your efforts accordingly, and focus on how to get to the next level. Here are a few models you can consider:" Passive: Responsive: Engaged: Creating:

Hinweis aus der Forumsksdiskussion Museum 3.0: http://museum30.ning.com/forum/topics/projects-linking-source I'm working on several projects linking the historic collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum with Indigenous source communities in Canada. Ironically,, I'm finding that the Indigenous groups are way more savvy about social media than this academic...So, we are posting images of objects on Flickr for people to think about before they come to Oxford to see them, have started a Facebook (invited) group for participants, and are thinking about other ways to use new media to create new relationships between museums and overseas source communities.

Museums & Mobile annual Survey 2011: The Survey Results are In!

This year MuseumNext will focus on 'What's Next' and will use this call for papers to create a programme that is structured around eight key themes. These will be directed by the proposals submitted from our community to highlight the direction in which museums and technology are heading.

Get accurate information about your community using different search criteria that will help you to make strategic and error-free decisions. Take advantage of knowing exactly who shapes your community: where your followers are from, which language they speak, their activity on Twitter, etc.

The 2012 Museums & Mobile Survey finding are now available! Please jump right in and feel free to dig deep into the information we collected in this years' survey.

Potential museum visitors access information about the organization and decide if they want to visit by using web-based sites such as a museum's website, social media platforms, and peer-review sites over more "traditional" forms of advertising. In fact, when comparing how folks get their information about leisure activities, it's not even close: web and mobile platforms (including social media) are disproportionately influencing your museum's visitation and attendance.

One of the most common questions we get is about the use of computers in museum settings.  Are they necessary?  Should museums be putting them in to attract broader audiences?  Do visitors expect them?  Or do visitors come to museums for other reasons?

This list comprises exhibits, art works, animals, mascots & historical or cultural characters that tweet about the museums or other organisations they 'live' in. Please note that not all of these Twitter accounts are necessarily officially run by the relevant organisations - the names of the organisations have merely been given to place the tweeting exhibits in context!

This conference focuses on the interaction between museums and communities. In times of mobility and change, history museums play an important role in societal questions of social cohesion, identity and belonging. In search of their roots, people turn to heritage. History is popular as never before and it surfaces in all contemporary media. At the same time, the communication era offers new possibilities to form communities, based on common interests and preferences or popular and corporate culture. Museums in general, as part of the public sphere, are an important tool in this dynamic process of heritage formation and the performance of community.  

RS combines research tools with social networking applications such as forums, wikis and blogs. The research tools are launched from a custom toolbar embedded into the collaboration application itself and therefore they are easily incorporated into a project's workflow . Essentially these research tool 'plug-ins' provide an additional layer of functionality so that data and digital assets can be searched and edited while engaging in more informal collaboration and communication activity. Conversely, it is the collaboration activity that creates opportunities for more formal data recording.