In a gathering that could ostensibly have been about how technology and social media have changed the landscape of museum practice, I was so thrilled to find that almost all of our discussion focused on how museums and libraries can make significant and lasting changes in our local communities. Working in a museum, I’ve taken that as my context, but many of these issues have important corollaries in libraries as well.

Perhaps the most useful change in my own thinking is an understanding that the era of participatory culture is not a new thing, but rather – enhanced by recent trends in technology – one that has its roots in the very reasons why museums exist in the first place.  While technology, social media, and mobile adoption influence the ways that we engage museum audiences and the expectations they bring into the museum, an attitude that invites participation has the potential to transform individual and community experiences that enhance the public value of the work we do.

Why is your community better off because it has a museum?

I’m challenged by the courage and convictions of colleagues I met in Salzburg, who take a commitment to their local community very seriously. Whether helping neighbors recover from devastating storms in the Philippines, reaching out to the homeless and poor communities in Sao Paulo, or bringing libraries to rural Kenya on the backs of camels, I found myself inspired to think about how a museum in Indianapolis can learn from such tangible demonstrations of public value.

In his book “Making Museums Matter,” Stephen Weil talked about a mandate for museums to demonstrate real value within our communities:

“Why is your community better off because it has a museum? [The answer] must necessarily be something more than, because otherwise it wouldn’t. Museums matter only to the extent that they are perceived to provide the communities they serve something of value beyond their own mere existence.”

The Occupy Museums protests demonstrate a growing frustration with the way museums see their role in today's society

This topic surfaced repeatedly during the conversations about participatory culture in Salzburg. The consensus among the group coalesced in an assertion that museums have an inherent mission to deliver public value driven by a universal right to cultural access.

It is clear to me that although museums have long enjoyed a privileged place in the public’s confidence, societal and economic changes, as well as the public’s expectation of museums, have significantly augmented the landscape of public value.  New questions about what constitutes public value and who sees the benefits of that value need to be considered seriously by those museums that want to see real impact from their effort. Lest we think that the value of museums is secure, the nascent ”occupy museums” movement reminds us that a growing frustration exists with the way museums think about their role in society.

The real test for public value is not what the museum says it is, but rather the value attributed to us by our communities and stakeholders. Simply declaring that the museum is valuable isn’t a substitute for actually demonstrating that value on a consistent basis.

At the heart of the issue is the museum community’s willingness to take a harsh look in the mirror and ask hard questions about whether or not we actually do a good job of bringing value to our constituents. In my opinion, a more wholehearted embrace of participatory culture may be the tonic we need to really delve into the ways that museums can change their current practice.  To realize the benefits of participatory culture will require an openness to welcome new opinions about the museum.

Serhan Ada, from Istanbul Bilgi University had a wonderful way of framing the difference. He notes that, “Participation occurs when someone welcomed as a guest feels as though they have become a host.” Are visitors to your museum truly guests in this sense? Perhaps the benefits of participatory culture are most easily witnessed with such a shared sense of ownership.

Access is about more than just digitization

When museums talk about access, we typically mean one of two kinds of accessibility: 1) The digital availability of collection objects with correct metadata and quality digital imaging, and 2) a set of provisions to accessing collections for those with physical or cognitive disabilities. Throughout the conversation in Salzburg, I was repeatedly struck by the fact that my own ideas about access are too small.

As we developed the concept more completely, it was clear to me that a truly accessible museum will provide appropriate and comprehensive support to the physical, intellectual, and attitudinal facets of a museum visit that allows guests to engage most successfully. Of these facets, the attitudinal changes in museums seem to be the most challenging. As we discussed in the previous blog posts, are museums really ready to embrace and value the inclusion of all audiences?

In Brazil, Gabriela Aidar works with the Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo in the museum’s department of social inclusion. Rather than focusing only on those audiences the museum is already successful at reaching, Gabriela decided to pursue so-called “non-audiences” who are typically marginalized by museums and therefore miss out on the rich cultural offerings contained there. During her presentation in Salzburg, Gabriela highlighted a number of quotes that really piqued my thinking. First, from Annamari Laaksonen of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies:

“Participation in cultural activities, together with access to them, forms the backbone of human rights pertaining to culture. Access is a precondition for participation and participation is indispensable to ensure the exercising of human rights.”
Laaksonen, Annamari, Revista Observatório Itaú Cultural, n.11 (jan./apr.2011). São Paulo, SP: Itaú Cultural, 2011, pg. 50.

“… any organization that is not working to break down barriers to access is actively maintaining them. Neutrality is not possible.”(p. 34)

“If social inclusion means anything, it means actively seeking out and removing barriers, of acknowledging that people who have been left out for generations need additional support in a whole variety of ways to enable them to exercise their rights to participate in many of the facilities that the better off and better educated take for granted.”(p. 37)
O’Neill, Mark, “The good enough visitor”. In: Sandell, Richard (ed.) Museums, society, inequality. London & New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 37.

These points have really challenged my own thinking about how museums seek and pursue our local audiences. I think it’s true that there are whole segments of individuals that don’t feel the same right to access the museum as those of us among the “better off and better educated.” There’s frequent coverage in the press about the consequences of a widening “technology gap,” but is there also a corresponding “culture gap” that carries many of the same consequences? Much of the beauty and power of museums lies in their ability to level the playing fields of society and to offer a place for discourse and exchange with diverse audiences. Sadly, much of this potential beauty is latent and waiting to be activated by museums with a vision to change the status quo.

The changing role of Authority

All this talk about participatory culture eventually ends up begging an important question about how the changes we are witnessing will eventually impact the role and authority of museums. The care and creation of knowledge has always been an important part of the mission of museums, and continues to be so.  However, with today’s ubiquitous access to information that is afforded by the web, museums are keenly aware that we are not the only producers of content related to our own collections, and many times not even the best source of content. Perhaps this has always been true, but technical advances are only highlighting a reality that has long been hidden.  In any case, museums are struggling to understand their relationship to an ecosystem of information that sometimes defies categorization and authority.

While discrete sources of information seem to be ever expanding, it’s reasonable to assert that unique and high-quality sources are becoming relatively more scarce. In an information landscape that privileges the popular over the credible, low-circulation-high-quality results can be easily lost.  Couple this idea with what’s been written about the state of digital media literacy and critical thinking skills among the general public and you quickly see the problem.  While it’s never been easier to discover a diverse variety of information about virtually any topic, discriminating quality between those sources is becoming more and more difficult.

This is – in my opinion – is where content specialists in museums can play an important part. Reference librarians are specifically trained in how to support researchers and scholars who dig through a litany of resources to find the information they need.  These skills transfer directly into a similar role for information-seeking on the internet.  The principles and practice remain the same, even though some of the tools may be different.  Museums would be well served to include their library staff as consultants to efforts of web design and information delivery both online and in the galleries, as they are perhaps better equipped than most staff to make sense of such a diversity of source material.

Secondly, as the true content experts in the museum, curators have an incredibly significant role to play in connecting both scholars and the general audience with the important concepts, facts, and narratives that drive the mission of the museum. With their knowledge of primary sources and their expertise with the museum’s collection, curators can be an incredible facilitator for the audience, especially when well supported by an enthusiastic staff of educators.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem terribly different than the standard operating procedure for museums. The difference, however, lies in an attitudinal shift among museum staff concerning an approach to authority as it relates to participatory culture. An authoritarian approach requires the museum to assert its authority by definition and then leaves us scratching our heads when the crowd of followers starts to thin. Conversely, an authoritative approach demonstrates the expertise of the museum’s staff in a participatory context that recognizes the museum’s role in facilitating access to cultural objects and information. The difference between authoritarian and authoritative is subtle, but crucial. In the latter case, authority is ascribed to the museum by the audience, and not the other way around. You may notice that this is similar to the earlier assertions about public value. In both cases, the audience is the central determiner of value, but the museum is responsible for building an appreciation for cultural access and preservation.

 Final thoughts

The shifts in our culture that result from a technology and information surge are pervasive and persistent. A rise in participatory expectations among communities around the world offers a variety of opportunities and challenges for museums to deal with. I’m hopeful that the conversations spurred by the Salzburg Global Seminar and the online conversations concerning these issues will prove as challenging for you as they have for me. Museums and libraries are home to the best stories the world has to offer, how we determine to manage, share, and cultivate those stories will determine the relevance and value we bring to the public in years to come.

The truly dedicated IMA blog reader will know that Richard has been interested in putting information about art in Wikipedia for some time, and will also remember that the IMA has been interested in doing the same: from participating in the project Wikipedia Loves Art, to Max having lunch with local Wikipedians, to a number of folks from the IMA participating in the Wikimedia-sponsored event at Museums and the Web this year.

So, as a way to maximize collaborations, and kick off the final project for Richard’s Collections Care and Management course, we’ve arranged to have two rock stars of the Wikipedia world come lecture at the IMA next Tuesday night at 6pm.  The lectures will be free and open to the public.

Liam Wyatt, of Sydney, Australia, and Adrianne Wadewitz, of Bloomington, Indiana will discuss the importance of collaboration between Wikipedia and museums, libraries, and universities.

Here’s a little background on our IUPUI project: Last year Richard co-taught my Collections Care and Management course with Jenny Mikulay as we pioneered an effort to document the public art on the campus of IUPUI.  From that class we developed Wikipedia Saves Public Art (WSPA); you can read Richard and Jenny’s blog for more information.  The project has received a lot of positive attention, from within the Wikimedia Foundation and in academia. We’re most proud of this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: Scholars Use Wikipedia to Save Public Art From the Dustbins of History.

This year our Collections Care and Management course is working with the resources developed though WSPA to document, research, and publish information about the public artworks in and around the Indiana Statehouse.

While this lecture will serve as the kick off for our project, it is also being developed in collaboration with Andrea Copeland, a professor in the IU School of Library and Information Science.  Andrea’s Public Library Management course has been writing two articles in Wikipedia as part of their class:
•    Public Library Advocacy
•    History of Public Library Advocacy

We are excited to bring together two speakers who have made a name for themselves by advocating for a stronger relationship between Wikipedia and the cultural sector:

Liam has worked closely with the Wikimedia Foundation to promote Wikipedia collaborations with Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums (GLAMs). Recently, he’s been traveling the globe to help museums and libraries collaborate effectively with Wikipedia, most notably as the first ever Wikipedian-in-Residence at the British Museum, a project that was highlighted by a recent article in the New York Times.

Adrianne is a Wikipedia Campus Ambassador at Indiana University, Bloomington who is currently writing her dissertation on 18th-century children’s literature. She holds the distinction of contributing to over 30 Featured Articles, making her an authority on creating high quality Wikipedia articles. For years, Adrianne has used Wikipedia in her teaching and is an advocate for its use in academia.

Please note that following Liam and Adrianne’s talks there will be a workshop for using Wikipedia. Space is very limited! If you’re currently working in Wikipedia or interested in participating in the workshop, please email Lori Phillips at lorphill@iupui.edu.

Wikipedia & the Cultural Sector
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
6:00–8:45 pm
DeBoest Lecture Hall

6–7:30 pm Lectures
7:45–8:45 pm Workshop

MSTD A414 / A514: Museums and Technology (3 cr.) This course surveys the growing use of technology in museums. It examines applications for information management in collections, conservation science, and archives. It examines critically the use of technology in the service of education both in exhibit contexts and in the variety of educational programs and web-based dissemination of knowledge.

(I would normally put an image here, but I don’t have a good one.  Instead I’m going to plug our latest video, a trailer for our next major exhibition Sacred Spain: Art & Belief in the Spanish World).

Back to the real point of this post.

I’m working on the syllabus as we speak.  For some time, I’ve been mulling over the basic shell of the class and now is the time for action.  I’ve had plenty of ideas revolving around case studies, online publications, blogs, videos, and much much more.  But mostly, I’ve been struggling finding an acceptable balance between theory and execution.  I have respect for both sides, but I would definitely characterize myself as an implementer.  In plenty of blog posts I’ve mentioned launching or publishing incomplete projects (or rather, works in progress) and tried to communicate that mistakes happen, and it will be okay.  So I think one of my challenges will be finding the right balance between the two and communicating that effectively.

Without giving too much away, I do want to share some of the approaches I will be using in this class -

• Readings – online articles, publications, blog posts, tweets, you name it…
• Digital Case Studies – Online exhibitions, Web sites, blogs, Flickr, Twitter, videos, and more
• Usability Analysis – How well do some museum produced digital projects work?
• Live manifestation of class work (whatever that means) – something along the lines of what Nina Simon did for her Social Technology class.
• Guest appearances – Kind of like Arrested Development, but featuring experts from the field of Museums and Technology and content specialists from the IMA
• A Real Project – Students will create digital content proposals for a major upcoming IMA initiative.  If selected, students will get to work directly on that project, publish it and receive full credit for their concept.
• Internship! – That’s right, one lucky student gets to intern at IMA’s Nugget Factory (New Media).  Kind of like a reality show.

So, I’ve really not given anything away.  But if you think there is one site, article, video or project out there I MUST cover, please let me know. And, Museum Studies students, museum colleagues, blog readers, tweeters, and more – anything you’d like to add?

I got my bachelors from Pratt in Fashion Design, but I always knew I wanted to be more involved with the arts community as a whole and I’ve never had the cut throat mentality to be successful in that world. So, I moved back from Brooklyn (I miss it and yet, and I REALLY don’t!) I just started in the Graduate Museum Studies program at IUPUI and I have never been happier. I miss public transportation, but I love seeing real trees. So, course requirements led to my seeking out this internship. I went about getting it in a somewhat unorthodox way… and it goes to show what you can get just for asking.

I had a class with Dr. Modupe Labode called Museum Methods, and we came to the IMA to meet with Despi and Daniel and learn about all of the innovative and cool work they are doing in the IMA’s New Media Department. I was really impressed with their creativity. I think what they are doing here is sort of leading the way in something that will be commonplace in every museum and gallery in less than 10 years. So, I emailed Despi and asked if I could meet with her and possibly talk about an internship. I think they were shocked I was more than willing to work for free, but this is such an exploding area of museum work, I feel like my experience will be invaluable.

So, we worked out a schedule, Despi did some paperwork, and I started last week for the New Media Nuggets. I’m enjoying getting to know everyone, this place is pretty relaxed and you immediately get the sense that people enjoy being here. The Dans even took me with them to lunch today, with Zach, another intern who started today. He will be working more on the technical, production side of things with the Dans. I am going to be working on a mélange of projects that Despi conceives for me, including working on website content for upcoming shows, and some fun new developments for the blog. You will see more of that unfolding soon and I would appreciate lots of feedback so that we can know what you are thinking- so click on that little comment button!

In closing, just in case you’re wondering, I don’t mind if you call me Demily. As long as we all agree Zach is Daiquiri.

I think it should be a Nugget Factory goal to someday inspire the same fervent fandom that generated the film project Fanboys.

I was reading through stuff on the Wired blog yesterday (I must admit to being a little behind on catching up with non-IMA blogs lately) and couldn’t help but giggle about this project and feel a little envious. According to Wired, Ernie Cline, the film’s screenwriter, created the story that, “centers on a group of wannabe Jedis who travel cross-country and break into Skywalker Ranch to sneak a peek at a rough cut of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace before its release.” Brilliant, I say, as a Star Wars fan, though I am sure I wouldn’t last long in a themed game of Trivial Pursuit. But as the article points out, Star Wars fan films aren’t anything new, there are tons of them. So what made this one any different? Cline got a big break and his project boasts the support of some Hollywood heavy hitters.

So what does all this have to do with IMA? Well, nothing….yet. However, the Nugget Factory frequently discusses ideas like this one. Nearly always ridiculous, and seemingly impossible to achieve, we brainstorm about the perfect project that would allow us to indulge in our own fan-idol relationships. (Perhaps this topic would be a good one for the next Nugget Factory audio experience. ) Recently, 50% of the Nugget Factory chatted about the inherent coolness of an Angelina Jolie-filled project (sans Brad Pitt) while 25% of the Nugget Factory desperately wants Iggy Pop to blog about his art interests (It’s me…Iggy, if you are reading this, PLEEEEEEASE consider blogging!). And there are many other celebrities populating our guest blogger wish-list.

It seems that there are layers to this notion of fandom. Indulging in your own interests, getting others excited about whatever you are obsessing over (like me and Facebook!), and admiring those who created the interest in the first place, and in the case of Ernie Cline, sometimes you can turn the tables and become the subject of fan admiration yourself. So, this is where the Nugget Factory needs to be! Maybe this time next year we’ll be hosting a NF fan video competition, where people have hunted down just the right sweater vest, pair of shorts, layered look or sunglasses to parody us. But I think we would be just as happy if the phone rings and it is Iggy Pop or Angelina Jolie. You know which one I would vote for.

But feel free to use this forum to suggest your own ideas for fan-indulgent projects.