The view from our meeting room. An amazing setting to think about the future of libraries and museums.

Having completed the first full day of the Salzburg Global Seminar – discussing the role of museums and libraries in an era of participatory culture – I’m now fully convinced about why such gatherings are so important to the future relevance and impact of our libraries and museums.  Comprising individuals from 24 countries and a variety of professional backgrounds, the group has spent its first days considering the evolving impact that participatory culture is having on our practice, and at times returning to the very first principles of what it means to be a library or museum.

For those of you who are interested in the excellent and continuing discussion happening in Salzburg, you should go to check out the excellent work by Michael Stephens on his blog “Tame the Web”. Michael has some great coverage of the proceedings and brings a valuable perspective from libraries to the conversation.

For my part, I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight three questions that, as a museum professional,  stood out to me as being important for us to fully flesh out as we consider what museums might become in the next decade.

1. How can museums aid in addressing the socio-economic consequences of a widening technology gap?

A number of participants spoke eloquently about the social and economic consequences that impact marginalized communities who lack the same easy-access to technology that many of us take for granted.  This lack of access means a lack of opportunity to engage with the cultural evolutions of content produced online and critical dialogs taking place on blogs, twitter and cultural websites. The prevalence of information access is contributing to a changing set of skills and digital media literacy that cannot be replaced by other means.  The ability to sift, process, remix, and reformulate thoughts and critical argument is – quite specifically – a new form of literacy that will increasingly determine the opportunities and inclusion afforded to the privileged.

This fact has been well documented in the literature, and for those of you eager to learn more, I would recommend reading Henry Jenkins’ work – particularly his white-paper on “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” (PDF).

New to me, was the realization that addressing the technology gap only delays the problem until the next disruptive technology arrives.  While we don’t yet know what that technology is, it’s a safe bet that the privileged among us will have access to it before many in our local communities do.

Since museums, and art museums in particular, posses such rich collections of artifacts, media, and artistic communication, are there ways that we can use those assets to address the underlying issues of media literacy? This opportunity further reinforces the value of museums’ existing efforts to build critical thinking skills into a wide range of programming efforts. Addressing the root skills at the heart of digital media literacy can work alongside efforts to provide comprehensive digital access to begin to positively impact and bridge that gap.

2. Do museums really want to take participatory culture seriously?

After thinking about and discussing the topic for quite some time now, it’s clear to me that the opportunities afforded to us by the changing expectations of participatory culture are resulting in a series of choices that museums will need to make regarding whether or not we will embrace participatory culture as an integral part of our museums.

To be intellectually genuine, it seems that there is scarcely any middle ground.  Either the museum will determine that there is inherent value to the opinions, expertise, and efforts of their invested communities or it will not. For museums that choose to embrace a conversational engagement with their audiences about the nature, origins, and personal interpretations of their collections, what remains to be seen is how the evolution of the authoritative voice of museum experts resolves its place in the discussion.

I, for one, believe that it’s entirely consistent to wholeheartedly pursue the creation of scholarly knowledge about our collections, and at the same time welcome the diversity of interpretation brought to the museum by the general public. As a number of the contributors to part I of this article pointed out though, truly owning up to this decision will have far reaching consequences for the sustainability of these efforts in the long term.  I’m not sure that most museums really recognize how profoundly this might impact their daily operations. Time will tell.

3. Is it possible for art museums to catalyze community conversation and action to addresses issues that matter to our local and global communities?

Lastly, I’m intrigued by the possibility that art museums can begin to leverage their deep collections and the changes in participatory media to promote meaningful conversations with communities about how to deal with a variety of social challenges.

The polarizing effects of politics have destroyed any opportunity for genuine civic discourse, and the educational system is so over burdened with curricular metrics that there is a dearth of opportunity for reasonable and well considered citizens to discuss the important issues of our time with empathy and respect. Artists have certainly been a bellwether for social discourse throughout our past. Is it possible that museums might emerge as a useful venue for this kind of discussion, and at the same time reinforce the relevance of the art in our collections to the daily lives of our constituents?

This is an area that I plan on reading and studying more about myself when I return to Indianapolis. In particular, I’ll be picking up Lois Silverman’s book entitled “The Social Work of Museums”. I’m certain that I could learn a lot from many of you as well, and look forward to thinking together about whether this is a valuable role for museums to play.

Let’s begin with a tour of the functionality. When you start the app, it loads some resources while displaying the title screen, and then you have the chance to view an introduction or skip ahead to the map screen.

Because the project centers around the White River near Indianapolis, we only assembled hydrological data for the area around Marion County for the application (I’ll go into more detail later). On the map screen, a prompt appears to inform you that tapping on the map will simulate a rain event. When the map is tapped, the app displays the series of streams, storm drains, and/or sanitary lines that would carry a raindrop from that location to the White River. It also displays the area (known as a drainage basin or watershed) from which other raindrops would follow the same path. Another prompt then appears to let you know that tapping on the raincloud icon allows for selection of storm intensity. As little as a quarter inch of rain can cause sewers to overflow into streams in this area, so when this option is selected, the path displayed will change to reflect this so you can see where you don’t want to go fishing. You can also toggle the display of the 100-year floodplain, which shows you where you can keep your feet dry during a big flood event. In addition to selecting a location on the map, pressing the compass icon locates your device via GPS, and typing in the address bar uses the Google Maps address look-up feature. Tapping on a question mark icon provides some information about pollutants that threaten the path upstream, as reported by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Pressing the “i” icon at the top opens the informational menu. From here, you can learn more about the app, check current weather alerts and conditions, find out how weather differs from climate, get some tips on how to improve water quality, and visit the project website.

Now we can get into some behind the scenes stuff. We wanted to try to reach a broad audience with Raindrop, so we decided to put the time that we had into developing a cross-platform mobile application. These are known as web apps, in contrast to native apps. If we only had an iPhone native app in the App Store, people using Android phones wouldn’t be able to use it, and vice-versa. To handle cross-platform compatibility, we decided to build Raindrop using a framework called jqMobile, which was in a very early stage when we started. It hasn’t quite had an official release yet (it’s in its third beta release at the moment), but has become increasingly robust with each version.

As for the map, you might wonder how we figured out the path that raindrops take to get to the river. Our collaborator at Williams Creek combined information based on digital elevation models, which can be used to derive the boundaries of natural watersheds, with data from the city that indicates where all of the storm drains and sanitary systems are and which areas drain into them.

We then wrote Python scripts to read the scientific data and generate KML geometry files and look-up tables. The application uses a spatial grid look-up to figure out which basin is tapped (so it’s not perfectly accurate, but not too slow either), and then loads the appropriate file with the graphics to display for the path and the basin. It also reads information from another table that has all the details about pollutants.

Along the way, we’ve combined this technology with graphical elements and design guidance provided by Mary’s team, and scientific guidance and content from Butler. The multi-disciplinary process has really embodied the nature of Mary’s City as A Living Laboratory concept. And just as the aim is to lead curious folks from Mary’s eye-catching mirrors and markers along the river to the website and the web app to learn more, hopefully those who discover the project online will follow the raindrop and find their way down to experience the river as well.

Florida State University research scientist, Michael Davidson, combined alcohol and microphotography to come up with the imagery you see below – a microscopic print of chablis.

What started as nerdy slides has turned into quite a little business called Bevshots Microart. The images are made by first crystallizing the drink of choice on a lab slide. Using a standard light microscope with an attached camera, the light source is polarized and passed through the crystal, which creates the bright array of colors. What I love about this is the relationship between a favorite drink versus a favorite image. I might be drawn to the aesthetics of one drink while my actual tastes appeal to something else. It’s also a fun gift idea for a relative who considers themselves a connoisseur of one type of alcohol. For this reason, my grandma Beverly might just receive the print below as she considers herself a connoisseur of vodka (no need to point out that her specialty is cheap vodka).

There’s even an iPhone app so you can explore the drinks while sipping them at your favorite bar.

With the ever changing and improving world of technology, Bevshots is just one example of the rising interest in digital art. A few weeks along, former IMA blogger Noelle Pulliam sent me an article on David Hockney’s instant iPad art. The artist began creating works on his iPad to send to friends and within weeks there was more than a nice little collection.

While the images, like the flowers above, are really nice, I can’t help but wonder if I would miss the texture that comes with paint on a canvas. There was also an immediate problem Hockney faced with how to display his work. The solution, as you can see in the video, was a series if iPads along an exhibition wall.

I’m sure there are many who would argue against the artistic value of iPad art and most certainly the artistic value of Bevshots. However, Hockney’s description of capturing an early morning sunrise more effectively with his iPad than he could with a pencil and paper is very intriguing.

While this method would certainly save a lot of time and cleanup hassle for artists like Hockney, digital art is also commonly practiced by many who are not making a career as artists. Kris Arnold pointed out his post, Making fake HDR images in Adobe Lightroom, that the new iPhones will produce stunning HDR images and I know several friends who are snapping very nice photos with their phones. Plus, there are all sorts of camera apps you can download to easily modify and stylize your photos. A professional photographer and friend of mine even joked the other day that she might start specializing in iPhone photography because she was so happy with a photo she captured using her phone.

Have any of you captured a really great photo on your phone or created your own iPad masterpiece? Upload your digital masterpieces to our Digital Art Flickr group.

Have you had a chance to see it? What do you think?

Planning the Future of Museum Mobile Experiences @ Tate

Many of you may know that the IMA has been really active in building mobile content for our main website, our special exhibitions, and 100 Acres.  One of the things I love about working at the IMA is that we always try to give a little love back to our museum buddies when we undertake new projects.  That’s why we’ve made all the software for these mobile experiences available for free to anyone who’d like to play around with them.

While I’m happy that many museums can pick these tools up and use them for their own content, it won’t be the right solution for everyone.  In fact, it only solves just part of the problem.

One of the things we talked a lot about this year at the conference was the need for a common standard for the mobile tours that so many museums are creating.  The danger with such a quickly changing technical playing field is that the choices we make today will certainly be different this time next year.  We risk losing the investment in content we are making today if we don’t anticipate and plan for the changes that we know are coming.

That’s why a group of us (museums, vendors, and other experts) met together after the conference was over to begin to plan and document a potential standard for the mobile content we’re creating.  We had some great conversation and have a good start on some common language that will be really useful as we move forward together.

To keep the fire burning a bit and to hopefully engage all of you – dear reader – in some useful conversation, I’ve put together what I think are:

5 Ingredients Required for a Successful Mobile Standard

1. Simplicity – Let’s face it, there are a lot of standards proposed in the world that are rarely used to solve real problems.  I’m a firm believer in fact that a standard is only “standard” in as much as people use it.  Keeping it simple is important to ensure that the standard can be easily understood in one sitting, can be easily implemented by museums and vendors, and can easily integrate with museums’ existing tools.
2. 80% Rule – Not that we’re underachievers, but shooting for a comprehensive standard is the quickest way to ensure failure.  With technology changing so quickly, seeking to cover only 80% of the most common types of content and tours might allow us to actually finish and put this standard to use (see rule #1)
3. Extensibility – If we are not going to shoot for 100% coverage in our standard, then it will be important that users have some easy way to add their own “secret sauce” to the mix without breaking the rules.  All the successful standards efforts I know of include some way to grow and adapt to changes. Think about the ways we’ve seen the HTML and CSS standards grow and change over time. As we get smarter and smarter about the ways we want to create mobile content, we’ll certainly need to adapt our initial version of a standard to be smarter too.
4. Smart People – Speaking of smart… team work and contributions from  really smart people will certainly be the make-or-break ingredient that determines whether we can succeed in creating this standard.  Would you please consider being involved with us? Don’t feel that you have to be a standards expert in order to contribute something valuable to the mix.  In fact, very few of us are standards experts, and we could really use your best ideas to make this thing work!  I’ll share some specific ways you can help at the end of this article.
5. Determination – Success in this area will require some real commitment on the part of museums and vendors to make it all work.  The standard will require some early adopters to take the plunge and use this standard in practice to sort out all the kinks.  The IMA is willing to do this, and I hope that a lot of you will be too. It may take us a little while to see the fruits of our labor, but it would seem silly to keep investing the amount of money and effort we are already pouring in without at least giving it our best attempt.

How can you get involved?

If you’re interested in learning more, you can track our progress on the Museum Mobile Wiki here: http://wiki.museummobile.info/standards.  You can also read the notes from our first meeting in London.  We’ll be updating and refining those notes as we go, so stay tuned for more information.  Please add comments or thoughts to those pages with any questions or ideas you might have.  You can also track the current version of the TourML XML Standard here: http://wiki.museummobile.info/museums-to-go/products-services/tourml.  Those schema documents will be changing soon to reflect the initial conversations from the London meeting.

Most of All

Come to the next edition of the Museum Mobile Summit to be held on October 27, 2010 in Austin, TX.  This meeting is free and we hope you will attend.  Please let me know if you plan to be there so we can have enough chairs!  The US version of this meeting will continue where the UK summit left off and will align nicely with the MCN Annual Conference that week as well!

Thanks! -Rob

I decided to keep this volley a bit less cluttered than my “space pirates” version. I had made some vector bug outlines a long time ago and this seemed like a good time to use one. I used ants silhouettes to style the word “nature”. I’ve always been a huge fan of the Praying Mantis. I changed the mood by making it much darker. It’s starting to look like a scary/sci-fi movie poster to me now. Stay tuned for @jmscottimd’s final volley in this round coming soon.

See the other two round 2 serves before mine:

Also, see all four volleys from round 1 here.

Also, be sure to check out Aaron’s latest graphic design battle shenanigans over at at the official site of Layers Tennis. An epic battle of the beards sure to make you say wow.

Seeing the progress of the park from these photos makes it appear that these images were taken a couple weeks before the park officially opened.

Since we are using Google Maps to create a mobile experience in the park, our application received an automatic update as well. If you browse to the IMA website on your mobile phone or use this link to go directly to the map: 100 Acres Map; You will see the updated imagery along with further information about each work and the nature around it.

The graph below shows that most people are really intrigued by the possibilities of accessing mobile content from their own devices, follow by slightly fewer respondents who felt like they’d prefer to rent a device that was guaranteed to work.  If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll know that we most recently released a tour for the 100 Acres park that anyone with a internet-capable smartphone can experience. (visit http://www.imamuseum.org/ on your mobile phone and look for 100 Acres)  Internally at the IMA we’re still looking for that “right” balance between devices that we maintain and a user’s own device.  We’d be interested in your feedback in the comments if you have a good thought or opinion.

In trying to fish about for the kinds of content most people were itching to get their hands on, I used the results to come up with a ranking of the types of content that people responded to the most.  I simply added the percentages of “Yeah, definately” and “Can’t get enough” together for a total positive response.  Removing museum staff responses from the mix yielded the same rank ordering. The rankings came out as follows.  I  think I’m most surprised by how poorly Games rated in this ranking, and had expected it to do much better.

1. Hear from Artists (90%)
2. Behind the Scenes (83%)
3. Hear from Experts (54%)
4. High-Res Images (51%)
5. Ways to Express Opinion (44%)
6. Things to Take Away (41%)
7. Games (27%)

Responses were pretty evenly split on which kinds of tours we should create next with preferences expressed for tours of the permanent collection and the gardens and grounds.  Again, the rankings did not change when museum staff were removed from the responses.

This statistic is pretty hilarious to me.  Apparently, museum tours are informative, but boring!  Funny enough, it seems like museum professionals are the most critical of their own tours.  The non-museum respondents had better overall opinions of museum tours than that of the museum staff.  Seems like maybe we’re being a bit too hard on ourselves as museum staff and should focus on delivering a flexible experience with deep content as described above.

Responses from those who DO work in museums

Responses from those who DO NOT work in museums

For completeness, here are the remaining two questions regarding a little bit about the survey respondents. Overall not a huge dataset, but I think a really meaningful representative set for this museum anyways!

Before this more than 2,000 year old artwork came into my Objects and Variable Art conservation lab, it was safely stored in two separate boxes—one box contained the ceramic vessel, the other contained the 9 pieces that were detached from it.  There’s a photograph in the historical files dating to the early part of the 20^th century showing how the vase was assembled when it was acquired in 1928.

My job was to carefully re-assemble these pieces and fill the missing areas to make the joints appear more seamless.  Finally, I inpainted my fills to make them less visible (if you get up really close to the case, you can see my work).

Aaron Steele, the IMA’s Digital Assets Specialist & Associate Photographer, photographed this object before and after my conservation treatment up in his photo studio.  Have a look:

Before treatment photographs

After treatment photographs

So back in March as the snow began to recede I would regularly peer out into the drab naked trees with great anticipation of watching them green up and return  to the former glory of last summer.  As luck would have it someone shared this link with me around the same time.  It’s the Timelapse group on vimeo and there are some breathtaking videos created via time lapse photography

Here is one example that blew my mind.

This all got me thinking.  What if I stuck a camera facing out of our window for a month and took a photo every half hour?   Well, sounded like there was only one way to find out.   So here is 1 month of spring as taken every half hour, condensed into 23 seconds.

Watch as the gardens go green.