Born Digital Museums – Wrap up of MW2011 unconference session

Photo by Craig on Flickr.com.

At yesterday’s unconference sessions at Museums and the Web, I proposed a discussion about what digital museums could look like. What would a born digital museum in the 21^st century be if we look beyond Second Life? Magdalena, Martin, Chloë, Jamie, Fiona, Timothy, Linda, Nanna and Fiona shared some great ideas, which I’m happy to share with everybody.

The Open University Challenge

In 1965 the Open University (UK) started being planned to challenge many of the presumptions of traditional universities. When it opened in 1969 many people did not believe the model of a ‘virtual’, easily accessible and inclusive would prove viable. In 2011, the Open University is still around and educating over a quarter million students a year, with its concept exported to many other countries.

A “born digital museum”, in many ways, faces the same challenges as the Open University did once. Why is the Open University successful? And, can we apply these lessons to a museum, to make it succeed as a museum without a physical location? Read the rest of this entry »

How the Google Art Project might revolutionize the physical museum experience

There were people who said the iPhone and iPad would fail. There’s even a wonderful article about how the Internet will fail from 1995. If the invention of the writing press had preceded the invention of the wheel, I’m sure we would still be reading naysayers elaborate bashing of easy transportation. Today I’m reading a lot of stuff about the Google Art Project not delivering.

Sure, not everything Google touches turns to gold (remember Google Wave?). However, like any future Apple iThing it’s silly to underestimate the impact a Google product will have on a sector. Their marketing budget, distribution channels and development budgets are simply no match for any well-intentioned alternative.

Let’s do a thought experiment and presume the Google Art Project will revolutionize the museum experience the way the iPad will change the publishing industry. Below are six complaints about the Google Art Project I’ve heard most often. What will happen if these become standard practice in our physical museums (which, as I hope to have proven by now, they very well might).

1. Navigation: The navigation in Google Art Project apparently sucks. In fact, it’s much like finding your way through an endless number of strangely connected galleries, but with the option of going to your desired gallery immediately. Beat that, big 19^th century building. Google Art Project will have your audience want to choose highly individual routes through your museum, jumping from room A to room Z back to K to see what they want to see. Just like on the computer. Read the rest of this entry »