Again – raw notes from a session……
MW 2008 Closing Plenary 4/12/208
Clifford Lynch – Coalition for Networked Information www.cni.org
Digital databases of objects, etc. – great opportunity there to reach out to visitors, scholars, etc. To get beyond the restrictions of available exhibition space.
Have to be honest – sometimes these virtual ways of getting at an object are better than the actual ways – when the object is monumental and cannot see the whole – when the gallery is too crowded
This is not to say that the real is not important – but these surrogates – nay, complements are very important. There is great power in that – we are able to see things we cannot see when we engage physical collections esp in the way normal people access them – the non-privileged access.
Provocative areas of compromise – better stewardship, protecting collections, issues with repatriation.
Digital surrogates are great insurance – if something is stolen, looted, destroyed then it is still available.
There comes a time that you have to give a high priority to a really good collection of digital surrogates and their propagation around the world in various safe havens as a good insurance strategy – good stewardship
Mashups and such are important – but we do need to be realistic about them
Look at the new way we can compare different versions of a Shakespearean play – new things become possible – finding new information, new meaning is now possible where it would not have been before.
Imagine doing the same sort of thing to your own collection – then comparing with other such collections – finding new meanings, new information
Open access – how broadly do we believe there is some base human right to access this – and most importantly how serious are we about breaking down barriers that hold back such access –
Through collections – that’s where we are beginning to converge with libraries and archives.
Exhibitions – the fascinating prospect of being able to extend exhibits in virtual form – the potential of creating virtual exhibits that you could not do physically – the potential displacement of curation – where meaning is constructed by others – other curators, visitors, etc. – as well as the curator.
Most virtual exhibits only take you a little way – then leave you there. We don’t have really good connections with collections – nomenclature and naming authority differences, all sorts of barriers.
Pivot points that present all sorts of opportunities
what does a scholarly monograph turn into in the digital world? Some books should never have been books – they are far more suited now to the digital world. You can do so much more in a networked environment than you can in print.
Relationships between exhibitions as represented in digital form, with catalogues, and scholarship produced in conjunction with an exhibition in digital form – and how that links out to the outside world. Have to look at the viability of the traditional exhibition catalogue and where is it best suited for?
Interactivity - should be looked at critically – because some of it is interactive for the sake of being…interactive.
Visitors creating their own tours – very much like the old pick your own ending
then there is interaction that leaves trails – like leaving comments, reactions stories behind that establish a bond around a cultural institution. Well-received – and useful tools, but not sure in the long run that they make that much of a difference.
Social Networking Fatigue phenomenon – as these communities get busier, advertisers come in, spammers….people get socialized to death. How much do you really have time for – what’s the emotional, social, etc. return for you? How much time do you have to put towards it?
Museums may find social network sites useful – but when they fail it is important to remember that it is not the museum’s fault – just people have moved on.
Tagging – can be used as a diagnostic – to understand that you do need cross-references – that the visitors vocabulary is not the museum’s vocabulary. Tagging also allows the user to discuss the information in ways that they want – and in ways the curators do not intend. Much of this is easily absorbed – but other parts are deeply idiosyncratic, interpretive and don’t translate well from one interpretive frame to the next – but they still remain important to people. And is tagging a quick-win phenomena – how do we manage the evolution of a tagged collection over a long period of time? Will need a great deal of maintenance as do other systems of taxonomy. Is tagging very much of the hour? Will it decay after time passes? How will they remain fresh? Need to be mindful that what we are seeing today for tagging is the early win and not the maintenance side which will need some consideration as well.
There’s a form of interaction where people want to interact with the materials – the collection – and they may want to interact in a variety of ways depending on who they are – correct errors, annotate, answer questions, etc….raises deep questions about authority, responsibility, audience, institutional strategy and priorities. For most museums, their mission prizes public engagement. Interactions with image material – it’s wonderful what happens – people want to tell you who those people are, who the dog belonged to, what that machine is, etc……there are some institutions doing this in a deliberate way – giving them to the public and having the public identify, react to, create meaning around. The phenomenon of the orphan photo. Who are these people – where are they from, what did they do. These questions were largely unanswerable until the advent of the web.
Were does authority reside – do you dilute it if you open it to all – and remember that all the crazies and folks with axes to grind are out there waiting to help as well. And what does this do to the authority of the institution? How do you balance this – and where do you priorities lie – is it truly public engagement if this is what public engagement means? Museums may need to revisit their priorities. It may be useful for museums to enter into dialogue with library and archives – and with their fellow cultural institutions.
Question – what does an institution in Australia owe to an audience in Atlanta – esp. if their funding is a local funding. Online is global – funding may be local. ILL is a good example of this – technology has made it easy to locate items and thus a greater demand is there – and this may bedetrimental. Also – these global users don’t just ask a question, get an answer and then go away – they come back for the next question – they stay. This can be good. And bad.
Changed conversation with the audience – important to continue to redefine the conversation.
