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I heard about an interesting subset of this movement from a panel I
was on at AAM two or three years ago. A company called "Think" (not
"thinc", which was also represented on the panel) talked about the
application of "folksonomy" to museum collections. Folksonomy is a
really ugly neologism, but a very interesting idea, best represented
on sites like Flikr etc. Here's a site with some descriptive
information about the concept as it applies to museum: http://
www.archimuse.com/research/steve.html
As I understood what my co-panelist was presenting, a given museum
would put images of its collection online and allow users to add tags
that would make the collection searchable. The genius and
controversial aspect of this is that the tags could be anything, even
incorrect information, and they wouldn't be edited by the curatorial
staff. For example, a picture by degas of a dancer in a green
background might accumulate tags such as "degas" "dancer" "green" and
even "monet." An online user who wanted to revisit an picture they
remembered from a visit might be much more likely to look for a kind
of green picture of a dancer in it than they would be likely to look
for that wonderful degas or the oil on canvas painting from the 19th
c or other information that would be more typically included on a
museum record by a curator. They might even think that the picture
was by monet. So they would be able to find the picture (which is
after all part of the point) even through that inaccurate tag. When
the record came up, it would display the accurate information as well
as the folksonomy tags.
I can readily imagine that curators would resist this, and I don't
know the degree to which museum people have applied folksonomy to
their online image databases. That's what I get for missing the
Museums and the Web conference every year!
Eric Siegel
Executive VP
Programs and Planning
NY Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11368
[log in to unmask]
718 699 0005 x 317
www.nyscience.org
On Nov 10, 2006, at 7:22 AM, Wendy Coones wrote:
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
> **********************************************************************
> *******
>
> from the art museum world, the Mass MoCA created a digital gallery
> called "Your Show Here" where visitors could choose from a database
> of images to curate their own contemporary art show. there is a
> healthy movement within the new media artist and curator scene
> towards opening up "meaning making" to the interested public, as
> influenced by a www democratization of knowledge. seems like the
> wiki-world (the open encyclopedia) is also part of this.
>
> wendy coones
> scientific staff
> center for image science
> danube universoty krems, austria
>
>>>> Hanna Sathiapal <[log in to unmask]> 10.11.2006 11:57 >>>
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
> **********************************************************************
> *******
>
> What a pity to have missed the discussion about museum-users as
> participants. Thank you Ian for sharing your blog from 1998. In the
> meantime, what are your experiences with projects on visitor
> participation in content creation?
>
> In the context of an exhibition on how an encylopaedia is produced I
> am thinking of a part with a selection of curiosity-cabinet-like
> objects that visitors can use to build exhibition. By arranging,
> contextualizing and categorizing objects, knowledge construction is
> shown as an open-ended and social process. Does anyone know of any
> similar approaches and corresponding experiences?
>
> The curator's objection is that people likely to visit an exhibition
> on encyclopaedias in the national library would'nt want to play with
> objects.
>
> Any thoughts about this?
>
> Thank you and best,
>
> Hanna Sathiapal
>
>
> fingertip hands-on stationen
> birchlenstrasse 10, ch-8600 dübendorf
> +41 43 355 92 70, www.fingertip.ch
>
> Am 10.11.2006 um 00:47 schrieb Ian Russell:
>
>> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
>> Centers
>> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
>> institutions.
>> *********************************************************************
>> *
>> *******
>>
>> At 19:12 09/11/2006, Nina Simon wrote:
>>
>>> Dear museum smarties,
>>>
>>> Like many of you, I was energized, inspired, simultaneously over-
>>> and
>>> under-whelmed by ASTC this year. I was particularly motivated by
>>> some
>>> discussions about ways to more meaningfully bring visitors into the
>>> museum as users--active participants in content creation.
>>>
>>> So, I've started a blog, Museum 2.0 (http://
>>> www.museumtwo.blogspot.com),
>>> to explore some of these ideas. The web is amazing for its
>>> ability to
>>> evolve and adapt, and web 2.0 applications give users high-value,
>>> personalized content based on their social participation in them.
>>> Why
>>> can't museums do the same? Can this model of visitor/user
>>> engagement
>>> work in our halls and programs? How far can/will/should we go?
>>
>> I've just had a strange experience!
>>
>> Reading Nina Simon's message, I recalled chairing an online
>> discussion about the same great question, back in 1998 as an
>> official, 'virtual' part of that year's Museums and the Web
>> conference in Toronto http://www.archimuse.com/mw98/abstracts/
>> russell.html under the title, 'Symmetrical Transactions'.
>>
>> I searched Google to see if any vestiges of that discussion still
>> remained in cyberspace. I discovered that it's all still there,
>> fossilised in a long-forgotten, unlinked corner of my OWN website.
>> http://www.interactives.co.uk/graffiti/
>>
>> It felt peculiar to read again through this stimulating discussion
>> lasting less than a month over eight years ago.
>>
>>
>> [log in to unmask] * http://www.interactives.co.uk
>> *
>> Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour.
>> Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.
>> *
>> Ian Russell
>> *********************************************************************
>> *
>> *
>> More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
>> Association of Science-Technology Centers may be found at http://
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>
> fingertip hands-on stationen
> birchlenstrasse 10, ch-8600 dübendorf
> +41 43 355 92 70, www.fingertip.ch
>
>
>
>
> **********************************************************************
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> More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
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