Robert-Goldwater-Library

"So What's Your Blog About?"

We're often asked that question. And it's a good one. It's one we've had to answer ever since the blog débuted in October 2005. And while the answers have morphed over time, the basic outlines have remained the same. Here are a few typical questions with our best stabs at an answer for each.

So what's your blog about?

Quote of the Day

"I'm sure if John Cotton Dana were alive today, he'd have a blog."

Mary Sue Sweeney Price, Director, Newark Museum, at the panel discussion "Civic Life in Newark: The Legacy of John Cotton Dana," July 13, 2006, held on the opening of the exhibit A Tribute to John Cotton Dana, Commemorating the Sesquicentennial of His Birth, curated by William Dane and Bruce E. Ford and on view at the Newark Public Library from July 5 through September 2.

[Photo source]
{with apologies}

Museums and the Web 2006 Conference

From March 22nd to 25th Albuquerque, New Mexico, will host the 2006 Museums and the Web conference. The conference "addresses the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture and heritage on-line." According to the conference web site,

Taking an international perspective, senior speakers with extensive experience in Web development review and analyze the issues and impacts of networked cultural and natural heritage. Together, we look ahead to the transformation of communities and organizations.

MW2006 features plenary sessions, parallel sessions, museum project demonstrations, commercial exhibits, mini-workshops, professional fora, a usability lab, a design 'Crit Room,' and the Best of the Web awards. Prior to the conference, there are full-day and half-day pre-conference workshops and a day of pre-conference tours. (See the description of Presentation Formats for more details.)

While the conference is hosting its own blog, blogger Tyler Green points on in his Modern Art Notes blog to a livelier discussion on the Walker Art Center's New Media Initiatives blog.

The conference includes a workshop on museums and blogs, Blogs and Blogging for Museums, featuring (what a surprise!) three speakers from the Walker Art Center. Of perhaps more-than-passing interest is a paper entitled All Weblogs Are Not Created Equal: Analyzing What Works (full text), delivered by Daniel Mosquin. Social museum web applications (aka Web 2.0) will be covered in a mini-workshop entitled Community Sites and Emerging Sociable Technology.

 

There's Something About Museum Blogs...

via Off Center, the Walker Art Center blog:

So meta: A museum blogger on museum blogging…

by Paul Schmelzer at 6:17 pm 2005-08-03 
Filed under:

• Meta

Do a Technorati search for “museum blog” and you won’t find much. There’s the Beer Can Museum blog, the Army’s Airborne &  Special Operations Museum blog, and even one for the Museum of Leftwing Lunacy. But aside from Ron Kavanaugh’s Bronx Mus(eum)ings, and a few others, there’s not much precedent, especially in the arts. So the Walker’s blogging initiative may be leading the pack, especially in contemporary art, but where we’re leading it is anybody’s guess. My hope is that staff from various departments–curators in all disciplines, library and archives staff, education people, designers and editors–will use it as a place to do two things: stockpile and share research (interesting links, ideas we’re noodling, interview snippets that didn’t make it into the catalogue or Walker magazine, etc.), and offer both personal insights into our work and behind-the-scenes glimpses of our processes.

But, what do you want to see? I asked a few art bloggers their wishes for the Walker blog or museum blogs in general. Tyler Green, a Bloomberg critic and the author of Modern Art Notes at ArtsJournal.com, says “museo-blogs are a clear trend,” citing the fact that Kriston Capps from Grammar.police will be blogging for the Smithsonian, and pointing out good institutional blogs like Eyebeam’s reBlog and the Pulitemporary. “I don’t think anyone knows what’ll work,” he says. “But I think a lot of people will have fun figuring it out. I think museums like the Walker (which is different from the Pulitemporary) need to involve their curators.”

Caryn Coleman, who blogs at Art.Blogging.LA, says she doesn’t read museum blogs because they tend to regurgitate (my word, not hers) promotional copy and plug events. She’d like to see:

…something more personal, something that’s not going be on the official website. Perhaps press/reviews regarding exhibitions from publications, reviews of staff, of programming and/or performance, curatorial insights, anecdotes about installation, execution, general thoughts, images, artist interviews that are included in current exhibitions, etc. Anything that supplements and rounds out the programming and, perhaps, includes the viewer. Blogs can make the possibilities of what an institution can do endless and with ease.

Some of those changes will be coming soon: assistant Visual Arts curator Doryun Chong and installation technician Phil Docken will begin blogging in a few weeks on the complex installation and the wide-ranging concepts (from Chinese medicine to post-colonial theory to astrology) related to our upcoming Huang Yong Ping retrospective. Beyond that, what would you like to see here? Leave a comment. I can’t say we’ll deliver, but it’ll certainly get us thinking…

[Update: The Visual Arts blog is now up and running. Click here.]

Google Print Update ("Google Book Search")

image source

If you are looking for illuminating posts on copyright check out our new favorite blog (via NEWSgrist):

if:book - A Project of The Institute for the Future of the Book

google print is no more (11/17/05)

Not the program, of course, just the name. From now on it is to be known as Google Book Search. "Print" obviously struck a little too close to home with publishers and authors. On the company blog, they explain the shift in emphasis:

No, we don't think that this new name will change what some folks think about this program. But we do believe it will help a lot of people understand better what we're doing. We want to make all the world's books discoverable and searchable online, and we hope this new name will help keep everyone focused on that important goal.

image source

If you are looking for illuminating posts on copyright check out our new favorite blog (via NEWSgrist):

if:book - A Project of The Institute for the Future of the Book

google print is no more (11/17/05)

Not the program, of course, just the name. From now on it is to be known as Google Book Search. "Print" obviously struck a little too close to home with publishers and authors. On the company blog, they explain the shift in emphasis:

No, we don't think that this new name will change what some folks think about this program. But we do believe it will help a lot of people understand better what we're doing. We want to make all the world's books discoverable and searchable online, and we hope this new name will help keep everyone focused on that important goal.