The blogs tend to concentrate on the “tubes” and the IMA’s presence in the virtual world, so I’d like to take a moment and focus everyone’s attention back on the brick & mortar museum. I have been conducting a little research on the IMA, comparing it to some sister institutions – Detroit, Minneapolis, Cleveland, and St. Louis – and how our security department stacks up to others in operational costs and “bang for the buck.” During this research I have come to reaffirm, at least in my own mind, how unique the IMA is and how great our responsibility is to protect it.

I’ll try not to belabor the point with too many statistics, but in sheer square footage – 669,000 and change in the main building – the IMA ranks in the top ten out of about 230 other art museums. That’s a lot of square footage our security officers have to patrol each day, 24/7/365. And in that space is an art collection of roughly 54,000 pieces of art from all over the world and from all time periods.

Now, numerous other institutions have bigger buildings or more artwork, so let me add a few other amenities that the IMA has: a reference library, studio/education space, retail and dining areas, the 500-seat Deer-Zink events pavilion, and The Toby, a 600-seat theater to augment our warm-weather outdoor amphitheater.

IMA's campus and LOVE

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Filed under: Protection Services

It’s difficult to acquire a work of art for the IMA that is being offered for sale in an auction, because any addition to the museum’s collection has to be reviewed by a committee and the Board of Directors whose meetings may not coincide with the scheduled auction.  When Loch Long by Robert Duncanson came up for auction in 1997, I knew this would make a wonderful addition to the IMA African American collection. But I had to find a way to bid on the painting but not purchase the work without prior approval from the committee and the Board.  Before I could even consider proceeding, the director’s approval was required. This was not difficult, because building the African American collection was a museum priority and Duncanson was a very important artist and the only African American artist associated with the Hudson River School of landscape painters.  No museum collection of African American art would be complete without one of his landscapes.

Loch Long by Robert Duncanson

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Filed under: Art

The second annual American Idol-style Summer Nights Film Poll is back. This is your chance to tell us what you want to see on the big screen! Last year you voted, we listened, and you watched movies under the stars at the IMA: This is Spinal Tap, Glory, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Mummy, The Big Lebowski, Strangers on a Train, Devil in a Blue Dress, Dr. Strangelove, Sholay and Ghostbusters.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Summer Nights 2008

Now it’s time to mark your calendars for season #34 of Summer Nights, June 5-August 28. As one of the few art museums in the country with an amphitheater, the IMA offers a unique movie-going experience. All you need is a blanket, some friends and a picnic basket full of goodies. And, by popular demand, another special midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is in the works.

VOTE NOW! Below are four categories of films. Vote for your favorite film in each of the categories as often as you like. Polls close at noon on February 25, and results, including the full Summer Nights schedule, will be announced in March on the IMA Blog.

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Filed under: Film, Polls, Public Programs

For those of you who are regular blog readers, you’ll probably remember a post from earlier this year where we talked a little bit about user personas and how we use them at the IMA to try and improve the ways we produce web content.  In that post, we asked for help in taking a survey that would refresh the information we have about our online audience.  I promised that we’d share results with you on how things went and what we’re learning.  Never one to shirk on a promise, here are some of the results on that survey…  some pretty interesting bits in here!

You can find a lot more graphs from the survey results in the rest of this post, but I thought it would be interested to just pull out a few interesting stats for you up front.

Stats Quick-Hit:

• 480 People took the survey between 12/22/2009 and 2/9/2009 (our web traffic during that time included 113,000 unique visitors and 450,000 pages served)
• Almost 90% of people who took the survey were satisfied or very satisfied with their experience on imamuseum.org
• The average visitor is Female (67%) and between 25-34 year old.
• More than 55% of website visitors use Facebook! Guess keeping the IMA’s facebook page flush with content is a good idea!
• Sadly 51% of survey-takers Never Comment on Blogs (c’mon… poke us a little, we don’t bite!)
• Survey-takers were overwhelmingly Caucasian. Our real attendance through the doors of the museum is different than this, so it seems like we need to do a better job of reaching some different audiences.

We’ll be contacting the lucky winner of the iPod touch this week and sending out the love to them!  Thanks to everyone for helping us with the survey!  We’ll be back in touch as we put together a new set of user personas to use for some upcoming web work.

In the mean time, enjoy sifting through our data for us.  If you see anything interesting here, be sure to be one of those 49% who do comment on blogs, and Let Us Know!  We’re happy to answer any questions you ask!

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Filed under: Marketing, Technology

European Design Symposium – With a brand new price of just $100 for the public and $50 for students, this deal is just too good not to recommend. I’m going just to hear Rolf Fehlbaum talk about chairs. Check this blurb of the official blurb…

“Join designers, critics, scholars, manufacturers, dealers and students for a lively examination of the present and future of European decorative and industrial design,”

Anyway, Friday and Saturday, March 6 & 7, don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn from European design masters such as Alberto Alessi and Michele De Lucchi. It should rule.

Bacolicio.us – By way of the newest New Media member, Kate, comes this pork modification. While this pharmacist is generally meat-free, bacon on a website is pretty funny.

Sketching with Ketchup – By way of Matt comes this demo that uses meat sandwich accessories and sugar infused tomato squeezings.

European Design Facebook Contest – Week one’s winner has been selected. Up is the new picture!

Filed under: Art, Current Events, Design, Education, New Media, Technology