Archive for the ‘social tagging’ Category

Use BklynMuse!

Monday, March 29th, 2010

I think this is a very exciting time for museums who are willing to be experimental. Yesterday I whiled away an hour in the Brooklyn Museum‘s galleries, trying out a new version of BklynMuse, to access their online collection, on their newly upgraded mobile website.

Here’s how it works: once you’ve joined their public wi-fi network, you stand in front of an object, type in its number on your phone and, presto! you can pull up the image, “like” it, a la Facebook, leave your own comment, see other visitors’ comments and learn more about it from experts.

You can also play Gallery Tag, where you collect points for every item you tag, and extra points for doing this on more than one floor.

I wanted to try out BklynMuse  because I was curious to see how disruptive the social media activity would be to my experience. Normally when I go to a museum it’s to see a specific show, or just wander with a friend through the galleries. I couldn’t really imagine wanting to interact on my phone.

There’s a piece that I’ve always loved in the Arts of the Pacific Islands gallery, so I went there first. Here he is, a little figure from the Nicobar Islands.

To me he looks like kind of a crazy, happy guy, and maybe he’s surfing.

I typed in his number and, to my surprise, this is where it got to be fun. Thanks to BklynMuse I saw right away that five other people have also “liked” the Nicobar Island man so I know I’m not the only one. I happily left a comment, and am eager to see what future visitors think of him,  and how that might give me fresh ways of looking at him.

I tried the tagging game too, and racked up 25 points, which put me in 3rd place! BklynMuse just launched this week so very few people are using it yet. Gallery Tag reminded me of a home made version of FourSquare.

What’s unique about BklynMuse is that it’s entirely visitor driven. It’s not a tour or guide to the collection designed by Brooklyn Museum. It’s a vehicle for visitors who are motivated to feed their curiosity about particular artworks; it encourages them to voice their reactions to the works, and validates what they have to say by publishing their comments.

Tagging too can have its serious purpose; even as a kid just playing a game, you have to look at the object you’ve chosen, look at the tags that are offered, think about which is most appropriate, and if there isn’t one, create a new one to use. It’s empowering in its way!

We’ve been members of the Brooklyn Museum since we moved here from Manhattan 20 years ago. I took my son to more Arty Facts sessions than I can recall. In 1997 I produced a big, beautiful 24 screen video wall program for the exhibition Monet and the Mediterranean, in their old, cavernous lobby. That was large cutting edge technology for its day, and the Museum used it to make the space more friendly for visitors waiting on line to see the show.

Today they’re carrying on that tradition of being out in front in using technology, with imaginative, experimental efforts in social media and mobile,  to make the Museum friendly to new audiences. As a visitor I really feel that they’re trying to give me a wonderful experience and I’m willing to try it. In the process, I learn from them and they learn from me.

Posted in art, Brooklyn Museum, iphone, mobile, museums, sharing, social media, social tagging, web 2.0 | No Comments »

Best Practices for Blogging

Monday, April 13th, 2009

I recently prepared a set of recommendations for the Brooklyn Historical Society’s bloggers, who have quietly been growing their blog since July 2008. They knew they needed clear guidance on how to set goals, undertake the work and measure their success. I’ve uploaded the Best Practices document, so feel free to download it and use it to support your own efforts. If you have any additions or recommendations, please share them.

Posted in blogs, Brooklyn Historical Society, history, sharing, social tagging, web 2.0 | No Comments »

Museums and the Web 2008 Conference – Tagging

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

On Social Tagging by Native Communities

Tagging can help museums understand how visitors perceive the objects in their collections. While the goal of many tagging projects is to provide better access for the public to online collections, Shelley Mannion, at the University of Lugano, is using it to learn how native communities respond to their own art. Mannion’s findings have implications for how museums can help these communities strengthen their connections to their own culture. She described her research in a lucid presentation, “Seeing Tibetan Art Through Social Tags.”

Seeing Tibetan Art tagging screen

Working with the open source tagging tool available at http.steve.museum, she asked young Tibetans in Zurich and a control group of Swiss Germans to participate in her research project by tagging six images – five traditional works and one contemporary one. She also interviewed the Tibetans in order to understand how they felt about tagging these works.

What she discovered was that often the young Tibetans didn’t have a lot of knowledge about their own culture, and they felt bad about that, which made them somewhat reluctant to tag the images. Tagging by both the Tibetans and the Swiss Germans showed misunderstandings about the images – what Jennifer Trant calls “teachable moments.” “Tag vocabulary is a window into what people notice. It’s interesting as much for the aggregate, (what many people notice) as for the outlier (what’s noticed by only one).” J.Trant’s blog, March 7, 2008.

Through tagging, visitors “teach” curators what they know about the works, what interests them, what they see and don’t see. Since tagging can expose where the gaps in people’s knowledge are, curators also learn what they need to be “teaching.”

Also, tagging can help to identify individuals in the native community who can translate the concepts of one culture into another. These “translators” can help the museum create materials to support the community’s engagement with objects from their own culture. Mannion’s presentation concludes with some advice to bear in mind when designing tagging systems for communities: Think about what would motivate them to participate, and what type of interface would facilitate their participation – something game-like, perhaps.

Mannion’s research, funded by The Rubin Foundation, is ongoing. The tagging project website Seeing Tibet Through Social Tags is inviting Tibetans and non-Tibetans living in New York to participate in the tagging research project. So, log on and tag. It will make you think.

Posted in museums, mw2008, social tagging, teens, web 2.0 | No Comments »