Museums and the social web

The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery recently sent out emails to folks who tagged their photos to the NPG pool. Here's what they plan to do: We intend to promote NPG's Flickr area on our website (www.npg.si.edu) and invite the public to submit their photos. We also plan to launch a museum blog in the coming weeks that would also feature a link to the Flickr area. We might also feature selected Flickr photos on both sites on a regular basis. These would be fully credited of course.So, something like a running contest for recognition by the museum. I dig the http://dcist.com/'s Photo of the Day interactivity, so it may take off for museums as well.

The http://www.flickr.com/groups/va_museum and other London museums make some use of flickr.

Have you read http://www.museumblogging.com/2007/07/percolations-museums-and-social.html three part blog entry called Percolations: Museums and Social Networking Sites? There are lots of examples there, including flickr, myspace, and facebook. And you've probably already heard of http://e-artcasting.blogspot.com/ (a research project about social technologies in art museums), but on the slim chance that you haven't...

A couple more that might interest you: The Brooklyn Museum's http://twitter.com/brooklynmuseum. The http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/ has an interactive exhibit and allows visitors to the website to tag the exhibit entries. I found both of those via http://museumblogthesis.blogspot.com/, which has lots more.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is also making use of a http://www.flickr.com/groups/saam/. We also are starting to publish these photos on our http://eyelevel.si.edu/2007/12/picture-this-bo.html. And, interestingly, this blog post (and the artwork highlighted by the flickr photo) inspired a reader to make their own artwork and http://www.descendingashtray.com/archives/535.

The Exploratorium in San Francisco has a http://www.exploratorium.edu/worlds/secondlife/index.html

Hey, that's me! I'm on the steve steering committee and a frequent Museums and the Web presenter. MeFiMail me if you want to arrange a phone call or something. For the most part, larger museums are cautious and slow moving beasts and are much happier creating their own worlds that they can moderate as if curating an exhibition. We're still learning how to work with the unfiltered feedback that this alleged 2.0 represents. Small museums generally don't have the staff to dedicate to things like this. I sometimes dream about quitting my job and spending all my time helping smaller institutions leverage social sites like these and taking over the Art Historical Canon. There's a huge untapped potential there.

This may be a little too obvious, but some museums are starting to have presences on facebook. For example, I'm a "fan" of my hometown art museum. I did a quick search and it looks like 84 museums have set up pages. Not sure what all they're doing with them, but some of it must be interesting!

larger museums are cautious and slow moving beasts Ain't that the truth! I'm trying to chip away at some of the hesitation and fear surrounding these applications. I sometimes dream about quitting my job and spending all my time helping smaller institutions leverage social sites like these... Exactly what I'm aiming for. THis really does represent a huge resource to the small, creative museum willing to take a few risks. 2.0 won't be this 'edgy' for very long, and a huge advantage will go those museums - like the Brooklym Museum - who are willing to explore the potential of social sites, figure out the pitfalls, and build connections among people who other museums are completely missing with traditional print-based and meatspace approaches. Thanks to all for the responses, and keep 'em coming! This is very helpful (and fun).