Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

For years, I'd give talks about community participation in museums and cultural institutions, and I'd always get the inevitable question: "but what value does this really have when it comes to dollars and cents?" We're hearing on a daily basis that the museum has a new role in peoples' lives and in the identity of the county.

Audience 47

Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2013

There's a constant dialogue in participatory work about how to make peoples' contributions meaningful. I've written about different structures for participatory processes (especially in museums), and recently, I've been interested in how we can apply these structures to the design of public space.

Design 49

Design Participatory Children Museum 49

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 20, 2009

I'm working on a section of my book about sharing social objects and am writing about the most common way that visitors share their object experiences in museums: through photographs. Revenue Streams: Museums want to maintain control of sales of "officially sanctioned" images of objects via catalogues and postcards.

Museum 54

Museum Photo Policy Open 54

Museum 2.0

MARCH 15, 2010

People often ask me which museums are my favorite. It's not the extent to which they are participatory. I visit lots of perfectly nice, perfectly forgettable museums. In some cases, that's based on subject matter, as at the Museum of Jurassic Technology or the American Visionary Art Museum. It's a Starbucks.

Support 41

Support Museum St. Louis NSF 41

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

For years, I've been fascinated and a bit perplexed by the Elsewhere Collaborative , a thrift store turned artists' studio/living museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. By calling ourselves a museum, we respond to those cultural institutions that have separated practice from production, exhibition from process, and work from play.

Collaboration 36

Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

Museum 2.0

MAY 26, 2009

On a recent trip to DC, an old friend showed me around a new exhibit at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide. The paper is perforated with one section for the promise, which visitors keep, and another section for a signature, which visitors leave at the museum.

Pledge 23

Pledge Museum Digital Indianapolis 23

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 15, 2008

The presumed answer is "yes" your museum needs a blog, a pony, or a set of comfy couches. Does your museum need a custom online social network? Many museums have been experimenting in these spaces by creating institutional profiles, museum affinity groups, and connecting with visitors and other museum professionals individually.

Social Network 20

Social Network Museum Case Study Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

Last week marked four years for the Museum 2.0 People--especially young folks looking to break into the museum business--often ask me how I got here. Ed Rodley recently wrote a blog post about museum jobs entitled "Getting Hired: It's Who You Know and Who Knows You." hour at the Museum. I made $26/hour at NASA and $7.25/hour

Museum 52

Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

I just returned from the American Association of Museums (AAM) annual meeting in Philadelphia. I led two sessions, one on visitor co-created museum experiences, and the other on design inspirations from outside museums. what is the value of the exhibition experience to non-participants, that is, regular museum visitors?

Slides 20

Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

It was exhilarating to see them inspired to create their own meanings in response: lovers whispering together in alcoves, people of all ages writing and drawing on walls and post-its, children painting, everyone sitting rapt before screens. This post focuses on one aspect of the exhibition: its participatory and interactive elements.

Participatory 51

Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

This month we’ve been thinking about “What is a museum?” (I'm I’ve been visiting museums my whole life. Does that make me the best judge of museums? People are the defining characteristics of museums. I’ve worked with and at plenty of museums that can sometimes feel empty. I'm not alone there.

Museum 36

Museum Place Ohio Life 36

Museum 2.0

MARCH 24, 2010

This is the third in a four-part series about writing The Participatory Museum. When I decided to write a book about visitor participation in cultural institutions, I knew I'd do it in a way that reflected the values behind the book itself--transparency, inclusion, and meaningful community participation.

Participatory 33

Participatory Museum Process Experiment 33

Museum 2.0

MAY 16, 2007

into the museum is the potential to encourage more positive in-museum interactions among strangers. I want in-person museum experiences to be more like experiences on social sites like Flickr, where strangers connect and form relationships around content. A lot of what interests me about bringing 2.0

Museum 20

Museum Myspace Facilitation Social Network 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 6, 2011

Community processes are both exciting and time-consuming. In many cases, once the final project is launched, it's hard to detect the participatory touch. The exhibition or program is of high quality, and from the visitor perspective, it may look like museum as usual. Not every participatory process has to scream "look at me!"

Participatory 48

Participatory Process Museum Children 48

Museum 2.0

JUNE 2, 2010

This year, the American Association of Museums annual conference was in Los Angeles (my hometown). I hosted two sessions, one on design for participation and the other on mission-driven museum technology development. He started with museums as a "place to go"--to see things, consume experiences. In this case, a heck of a lot.

Slides 22

Slides Museum Los Angeles San Jose 22

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Here's the basic idea: while you are at the museum, you save digitizable content--either content you make (photos of yourself) or content you collect (museum-supplied text or media of interest). The personal webpage has many adherents, and some institutions, like The Tech Museum in San Jose, have been offering them for almost a decade.

Personal 34

Personal Museum Pledge San Jose 34

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

As many of you know, I’m writing a book about participatory design for museums. The book is intended to be a practical guide to participatory museum experiences focused on design strategies, case studies, and activities. The WHY of participatory design is really important. And there’s a third reason.

Participatory 26

Participatory Design Museum Wiki 26

Museum 2.0

JUNE 29, 2010

We share an abiding interest in exploring the community-enhancing roles of libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs), especially in terms of the practice of hospitality and service within the institution. Nina's research keeps finding that the right kind of constraints work to produce a better participatory museum experience.

Place 30

Place Discussion Library Museum 30