Organizations

when talking to some of the developers at the Fluid Engage project team meeting today (i'm on the Advisory Committee), i realised that an introduction to the way that museums are organized, and what kinds of people do which kinds of jobs, would be helpful.

At one of the 'unconference groups' at MW2009 11 participants discussed the need for collaboration between museums, libraries and archives to achieve better digital services. Here is a short report of this session.

Participants:

22nd International Sculpture Conference: CALL FOR PAPERS

London, UK – April 2010

Some time ago – in 2005 – Archives & Museum Informatics launched a survey of museum web activities. We noted then that:

Each financial cycle museum Webmasters struggle
to justify their budget requests. Whenever statistical reports are
circulated someone asks, "How do we compare?" When exploring the
benefits of a new function, Web teams ask themselves "Is it worth the
investment?" Answers to these questions are hard to come by.

[see http://www.archimuse.com/research/mwbenchmarks/index.html for the full background]

This survey – the results of which are written up at http://www.archimuse.com/research/mwbenchmarks/report/mwbenchmarks2005.html  – was designed to help fill some of the voids in our knowledge. As a first stab at the problem we realise that it wasn't perfect. And things have changed since 2005!

We've been asked to update the survey for a client-group of museums, and thought we'd use the opportunity to ask for input from the community as well. If we're going to launch it again more broadly, we'd like it to be useful to you ...

So, please, take a look at the questions – available as a PDF from http://www.archimuse.com/research/mwbenchmarks/MW-Survey05.pdf – and post your thoughts on revisions or additional questions here. 

here's the rationale -- and history -- behind my interest in the cc+ framework. something that i think museums should be looking seriously at. it was spurred by an exchange on the MCG list and still bears a bit of that context in its tone.

The second part of the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) report on information technology in Not for Profits is now available. Nonprofit IT Staffing: Budgets, Salaries, Training and Planning reports the results of a USA national survey.

Findings of the second Nonprofit IT Staffing Report include:

dead.art(-missing!)LINKreSources

To post a link and thus to relate two or more contents is a basic method to create a freely accessible and modular network of personal associations on the World Wide Web. The act of linking, which has come to be one of the most common cultural practices on the Internet and which is a simplified version of the copy/paste-technique, creates new contexts on Web-based platforms, personal homepages, blogs and last but not least (art-)databases.

Yet, what if a link turns into the representative of the artefact, the context and the exhibition at once?

[PUBLIC] curating is an ongoing research-project by the Vienna-based organisation CONT3XT.NET, collecting methods, resources and theories concerning the changing conditions of the curation of (New) Media Art. The organisation CONT3XT.NET investigates the (perception of) communication in our society by means of experimental formation, starting from the concept of the context and its transfer into digitally networked interrelation.

"The DigiCULT Report presents the results of the strategic study "Technological Landscapes for Tomorrow's Cultural Economy - DigiCULT" completed at the beginning of 2002. The report covers the topics: national policies & initiatives, organisational change, exploitation, and technologies for cultural heritage institutions. It addresses the key issues that were selected on the basis of input from over 180 experts and provides recommendations for policy and decision makers in the cultural heritage sector."

Organizational issues in museums and the web research include:

• How do museums organize themselves to use the web?
• How does using the web change museum practices and priorities?
• What does the web savvy museum look like?

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