Museums and the Web

Going, Going..... Gone

2005-12-04T19:24:00.000Z

Thanks for the emails asking what has happened to the blog over the last week or so. A problem has come to light with the name of the blog; unfortunately there isn't time at the moment to go through the process of creating a new blog, new address, promoting the url, creating the mailing list databases. This stuff takes time we haven't got at the moment so this will be the last post, thanks for the support.

Museums and the Web conference (no relation to this blog)

Museums Objects Design Exhibitions

2005-11-23T20:42:00.000Z

Introducing...
Mode is a new space on the web dedicated to exploring museums, objects, design and exhibitions. A work in progress, it is intended that mode will act as a space for open dialogue, evolving at the hands of its authors and contributors.

Tender for an Editor for MICHAEL-UK

2005-11-22T21:08:00.000Z

The UK Museums, Libraries and Archives Council is currently advertising an invitation to tender for an Editor for MICHAEL-UK.

Online activities, accessibility v. usability and EU co-ordination

2005-11-21T20:48:00.000Z

Current reports of note:

Pew Internet - Search Engine Usage - Search engine use shoots up in the past year and edges towards email as the primary internet application.

Jakob Nielsen - Accessibility Is Not Enough - a strict focus on accessibility as a scorecard item doesn't help users with disabilities. To help these users accomplish critical tasks, you must adopt a usability perspective.

Minerva - Dynamic Action Plan for the EU co-ordination of digitisation of cultural and scientific content - Minister for Culture, David Lammy, launched in Bristol on 15th November 2005, a new action plan to make Europe's cultural heritage more accessible through the Internet.

Thames Pilot

2005-11-20T16:40:00.000Z

24 Hour Museum website of the week - Thames Pilot.

Broadband Britain Summit - How to achieve digital excellence in a connected UK society

2005-11-17T17:48:00.000Z

21 November 2005, QEII Conference Centre, Westminster, London
- The Broadband Britain Summit will debate how achieving digital excellence can improve the cohesion of UK society, the wealth of its economy and the quality of life for its citizens. To reserve your place and participate in the debate please contact InterForum on events@interforum.org stating in the subject heading 'Summit (EGM)'.

Victoria and Albert Museum podcast

2005-11-16T21:11:00.000Z

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is publishing the first podcast to be published by a museum or gallery in the UK.

In the first broadcast of the V&A’s podcast users can listen to curators, conservators and researchers telling stories about works in the Paintings Galleries.

An interesting addition with the V&A's podcast is the ability to download formatted images to use with advanced mp3 players that use images.

The Port Moody Station Museum Blog

2005-11-16T20:46:00.000Z

The Port Moody Station Museum Blog has been online since April 2005.

Port Moody Station in Canada is in its centenary year, visit their main website here.

Online cultural portals

2005-11-16T20:09:00.000Z

Culture.mondo has compiled a report on the extent of international provision of culture online 'Cultural Portals: Gateways to a Global Commons'.

Full Story:
Culture Mondo! International Culture online revealed in new report

Culture.mondo is the international network for cultural portals, enabling cultural portal authorities to learn about the current state and new trends of cultural portals. Biographies of the steering group.

'Classics for Cats' at the British Museum

2005-11-16T19:59:00.000Z

The British Museum Store's latest e-newsletter contains details of christmas present ideas including their CD 'Classics for Cats'; the tracklisting includes Rossini's 'Comic Duet for Two Cats', Confrey's 'Kitten on the Keys' and Greig's 'The Little Bird'.

Subscribe to the British Museum Store's e-newsletter.

Temporary Digitisation Assistant, St Alban's Museum Service

2005-11-10T09:29:00.000Z

St Albans Museum Service are advertising for a temporary digitisation assistant.

The Digitisation Assistant will work alongside the Museums Photographer and Collections Manager to scan, manipulate and catalogue selected images to a high standard.

For full details and an application form visit http://www.stalbans.gov.uk.

Deadline 21st November 2005

UK e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS) for websites

2005-11-08T18:32:00.000Z

Just flagging up for future reference, UK e-Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS) for websites.

Teen internet demographics

2005-11-08T18:26:00.000Z

Pew Internet's latest report looks at the behaviour of american teenagers online, with particular reference to their involvement in content creation. Headline findings include:

Half of Online Teens Download Music, One in Three Download Video; One in Five Have a Blog; One in Five Remix Others' Digital Material into Their Own Creations.

Pew Internet's reports are an essential resource, for those of you not already receiving them, sign up now.

2006 Best of the web nominations open now

2005-11-07T21:00:00.000Z

Nominations are open now for Best of the Web awards at the 2006 Museums and the Web conference [no relation!].

The categories are:On-line Exhibition, E-Services or E-Commerce, Innovative or Experimental Application, Museum Professional's Site, Research Site, Education, Best Overall Museum Site.

The winners will be announced at MW2006 in Albuquerque, on Friday, March 24, 2006.

Last year's overall winner was Making the Modern World from London's Science Museum.

Business blogging

2005-11-07T20:51:00.000Z

We're disappointed that so few museums and galleries worldwide are taking advantage of the opportunities blogging presents. Scott Stevenson will be presenting an abstract on podcasting and blogging at the 2006 Museum and the Web conference [no relation to this blog].

'Who's afraid of the big, bad blog', a recent article in the Financial Times looked at the lessons for all businesses looking to exploit this arena.

Nightwatch - fox loose in the National Portrait Gallery

2005-11-07T20:35:00.000Z

Not sure why you have to go to the Channel 4 website to view this fantastic video installation. 'Nightwatch' is currently on show at the National Portrait Gallery in London, but we couldn't find any information on their site (internal search engine wasn't working so it might be there).

Belgian artist Francis Alys let the fox roam free after hours in the National Portrait Gallery and filmed it, the results are fascinating. The video is for broadband viewers only (around 50 MB), but well worth the effort if you can.

Museums Computer Group meetings 2006

2005-11-07T20:29:00.000Z

Early notice of 2006 meeting dates for the Museums Computer Group [UK]:

Spring Meeting at the Yorkshire Museum, York on 6th April 2006.

UK Museums on the Web Conference at the University of Leicester 6th July, 2006.

AGM and Autumn Meeting in November 2006 at the Natural History Museum, London.

Museums, galleries and digitisation

2005-11-01T21:31:00.000Z

A new report from the Scottish Museums Council (SMC) entitled 'Museums,
Galleries and Digitisation: Current best practice and recommendations on measuring impact' has identified a simple checklist that museums and galleries can use to ensure
that their digitisation of collections is as effective as possible.

Summary and full versions of the report are available to download from the SMC web site, and the summary report is also available as a hard copy. The full version includes more information about the methodology, detailed case studies, and an extensive analysis of the findings.

You can download both reports for free.

Driving Directions to Museum

2005-10-23T14:32:00.000+01:00

More and more museums are including directions for visitors driving by car to their venues. But why do they always seem to provide directions from the motorways, when many of the visitors will be coming from within their town/city?

The UK's National Gallery provides car parking instructions only, while the British Museum ignores the issue completely. Venues in central London can reasonably claim they shouldn't be encouraging visitors to arrive by car.

Commendably, Bradford's National Museum of Photography, Film & Television includes a link to multimap, suggesting that visitors could use the website to plan their journey.

Best practise, though, can be found in the commercial sector, where many companies are including such storefinder details within their own directions page. Marks and Spencer allow visitors to input their postcode to receive door to door instructions.

Museums and galleries interested in providing the same level of service should approach Multimap business services.

Email newsletter compatibility

2005-10-23T14:31:00.000+01:00

Silverpop's '2005 Broken Link Study' takes an invaluable look at email newsletter compatibility. The study is freely available from Silverpop as a pdf upon request.

Silverpop evaluated HTML email newsletters in eight different email clients: AOL 8.0+, AOL 9.0, EarthLink, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook 2003, Outlook Express 6, Yahoo!

Key findings include :

• 40 percent of the emails reviewed contained missing
graphics, compared to 42 percent in the 2002 study.
• Gmail, Outlook 2003 and AOL 9.0 accounted for the majority of HTML errors.
• Link breakage is also common, with AOL 9.0 and 8.0 accounting for the majority of broken links.

Essential reading for all.

Kohl Children's Museum

2005-10-23T14:29:00.000+01:00

Another new museum website the Kohl Children's Museum in Chicago, haven't got the time to review it at the moment.

Highlands and Islands Arts Ltd seek Heritage Web Manager

2005-10-20T20:03:00.000+01:00

The Arts Development Agency for the Highlands and Islands of Scotland is seeking to appoint a Heritage Web Manager. The appointment is for eighteen months, salary: £23,034 pa.

More information and an application form is also available at www.hi-arts.co.uk/heritage.htm

Diane Arbus - Revelations - chat to curator online

2005-10-11T18:21:00.000+01:00

Copyright © 1971 The Estate of Diane Arbus, LLC " />
London's Victoria and Albert Museum's latest major exhibition is 'Diane Arbus - Revelations'.

It is clear that some thought and effort has gone into the microsite. A very strong image dominates the homepage, immediately grabbing the attention of the site visitor and clearly identifying the content of the exhibition. Layout has been structured clearly with simple navigation on the left of the image and title, sponsor and dates on the right of the image.

Importantly, a telephone contact number is given strong prominence in a large font. The design also allows users with a screen resolution as low as 800 x 600 to view all the content at the same time. Exhibition overview, artist information, events programme, visitor information are all available and easy to find.

Brilliantly, there will be two online chat sessions giving users the opportunity to talk to curators from the exhibition. The first is on Friday 21 October from 2pm, the second on Thursday 8 December from 5pm.

Annoyances? The lime green font is hopelessly inappropriate for web use, rendering links and headings very difficult to read. Some of the text is unnecessarily presented in graphic format, such as the exhibition dates. The silly page transition effect just looks amateurish.

The Collection: Art and Archaeology in Lincolnshire

2005-10-11T18:16:00.000+01:00

The Collection: Art and Archaeology in Lincolnshire is a new museum which opened on 1 October this year.

The most striking thing about the site is the commitment to accessibility: Government standard access keys, any page on the site can be read to you using the ReadSpeaker system, you can even telephone to have the pages translated for you. Alt tags are excellent throughout.

The only criticism would be the use of the redirect url http://www.thecollection.lincoln.museum/, hiding the true urls of the pages, preventing appropriate page titles being displayed.

The impetus for the adherence to accessibility is the fact that the museum is administered by a local authority, Lincolnshire County Council, who are obliged by law to adhere to strong guidelines.

It is often difficult for museum websites to retain their individual identity when they reside within local authority websites. We would always advise keeping both separate, however this issue is dealt with reasonably well here.

Issues arise from the use of the Accessibility home key, which takes the user to the council homepage rather than the museum homepage and the fact that the internal search engine produces results for the whole council website rather than simply for the museum.

Untold London

2005-10-11T18:07:00.000+01:00

Untold London is a new website from the Museum of London.

The expansiveness of the listings covering 'events and exhibitions across London that explore culturally diverse history' undermines the 'untold london' title of the website, it seems that these stories and histories are being told all over London by all kinds of fantastic organisations.

Great use is made of the database system, allowing users to specify events by timeframe and subject, see this search for 'events and exhibitions relating to the Caribbean in the next week'.

The collections section is relatively straightforward, archives currently has four articles concerning past exhibitions, hopefully it will be updated in the future.

Untold London is a collaboration between a number of organisations with experience in the London history and heritage sector and is based at the Museum of London.

24 Hour Museum are 'consultants' to the project, providing technology and backup data. The clear and concise design of the site is very similar to that of 24 Hour Museum and its city guides and excels in usability and accessibility in the way we have come to expect from this group. Indeed, it is hard to see what new material this website contains that couldn't otherwise be accessed from within 24 Hour Museum.

Credits on the About Us page

Rachel Whiteread's Embankment installation at Tate Modern

2005-10-10T17:19:00.000+01:00

We were hoping that the unveiling of Rachel Whiteread's 'Embankment' installation in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall might be an excuse for Tate Online to produce another excellent timelapse film, as they did with the installation of 'Untitled (Rooms)' and 'Untitled (Stairs)' in 2001.

Instead we'll just have to make do with a biography, lengthy description and a link to Whiteread objects in the collection.

Its a nice, neat way to cover a single large-scale exhibit.

The Unilever-sponsored series of major installations in the Turbine Hall and have traditionally been very popular with photographers. It would be great to see Tate Online link to the inevitable Flickr photoset that will emerge, see those associated with previous installation Olafur Eliasson's 'The Weather Project'

The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage

2005-10-10T17:15:00.000+01:00

The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage opens today in Cleveland, USA. First impressions of their new website cause two distinct reactions.

Accessibility is very poor, flash is used for all elements of the site, text is small and broken up and cannot be enlarged. Images have neither alt tags or captions. Again, because its a flash movie, individual pages cannot be bookmarked by users or indexed by search engines.

It's a real shame the museum and the developers (Blue Robot I think) decided to go with flash as the content and layout of the site is excellent.

The press are well catered for with an archive of press releases and downloadable media kit. Important sections such as directions, contact, jobs and volunteering opportunities are clearly signposted in the navigation at all times.

Online calendars (no link - flash movie!) provide excellent information on the public education program.

At present there is the bare minimum of information concerning the contents of the permanent collection and exhibitions. Hopefully this will develop over time.

E-accessibility conference

2005-10-09T20:40:00.000+01:00

From Egov Monitor:

21 October 2005, London
- One of the official events marking the UK Presidency of the EU, this pan-European conference plans to bring together decision-makers, industry and stakeholder groups to discuss the European Commission's forthcoming Communication on e-accessibility.
Link

Welcome to the 21st century

2005-10-01T14:11:00.000+01:00

Earlier this month we looked at the MOMA audio tours allowing website visitors to download the gallery tours in mp3 format before visiting the gallery. All the tours are available to download in full, for free.

The National Gallery in London have now followed suit by, erm.., putting a small sample file online of new tours from the Director and the conservation team. To access the full audio tour you will have to hire equipment from the information desk at the gallery.

Museums Computer Group AGM

2005-09-25T08:50:00.000+01:00

The UK Museums Computer Group's Autumn Meeting and AGM will be held at World Museum Liverpool on 3 November 2005.

Speakers include Loyd Grossman, chair of National Museums Liverpool and 24 Hour Museum, Phil Stenton of Hewlett Packard and various staff members from National Museums Liverpool.

Registration will commence on 26 September.

Invitation to Tender: Manchester City Art Galleries

2005-09-25T08:06:00.000+01:00

Manchester City Galleries is looking to redevelop its website in order to reflect changing identity and priorities.

Manchester Art Gallery is one of the North West's premier visual arts venues, with a reputation for high quality, friendly and engaging services.

We want our new website to reflect and build on our reputation through the use of high quality visual design, great usability and engaging content.

We will be looking to work with developers with the skills and passion to create a website that:

· makes creative use of our outstanding visual resources

· promotes our identity and organisational priorities

· enables wider online access to the collections

· provides the kind of accessible, friendly welcome that visitors receive in person when they visit our venue

The redevelopment of the website will take place in phases, with this first phase seeing the implementation of a new website content management system, integrating the website content management system with the existing Ke EMu collections management system and putting in place a sound foundation for more advanced web applications in future phases of the project.

The website must be focused on attracting our key audiences of families and schools, whilst incorporating the needs of a wide range of users, including new visitors, students and researchers, business and corporate visitors and tourists.

The closing time and date for applications is midday 11 October 2005.

Interview date for shortlisted applicants is 19 October 2005.

For full details please email Liz Mitchell
or call 0161 235 8817

digits fugit! Preserving Knowledge into the Future

2005-09-25T07:49:00.000+01:00

The Museums Computers Network is holding its 33rd annual meeting in Boston 2 - 5 November later this year.

Workshops include 'The Nuts and Bolts of Building a Digital Collection for the Whole Museum', 'Cataloging Cultural Objects Bootcamp', 'Managing a Digitization Project' and 'Content Management Strategies and Systems'.

There are plenty of sessions including 'Using JPEG2000 in Museums in 2005', 'Metadata Standards & Controlled Vocabularies: An International Perspective', 'Innovative Access to Collections on the Web: Connecting the Physical Museum Visit with the Online Collection through Personalization, Handhelds, RFID, and Accoustiguide', 'Metadata Standards for Collaborative Digitization Projects', 'The Digital Museum in the Life of the User', 'STEVE: a tool for exploring folksonomy in the museum'.

Postcodes Project

2005-09-19T22:14:00.000+01:00

The Museum of London have launched an excellent new website - the Postcodes Project.

The Postcodes Project is a new resource aimed at adults with an interest in local history. It showcases a wide variety of objects from the Museum's collections, highlighting one for each London postcode area. In addition there are numerous links to local museums, libraries, archives and adult education centres to encourage people to get more involved in local heritage.

The layout of the postcode pages is excellent with plenty of links, both internal and external, laid out clearly and attractively (e.g. E4). Users can submit their own stories to accompany each section.

Strong accessibility guidelines have been adhered to throughout, with usability benefiting rather than being sacrificed.

Users can tour the objects thematically, 'Caring for life - and death', 'Fashions old & new', 'Food & drink', 'Politics & policing', etc.. YOu can also tour by object or by period.

This is one of the best new projects of the year and it will be interesting to see how the interactive elements, the user-submitted stories, develop over time.

Credits

Cincinnati email survey

2005-09-19T22:07:00.000+01:00

The Cincinnati Museum Center have used their email database to provide research towards a possible future exhibition in 2007. Subscribers to their e-newsletter are asked a series of questions relating to their potential interest in James Presley Ball, a 19th-century African American photographer and abolitionist.

Questions include 'What is your level of interest in the J.P. Ball exhibit?', 'What is the likelihood that you will attend this exhibit?' and 'What would be your level of interest in purchasing an illustrated catalog on the J.P. Ball exhibit?'

A final question is 'For future exhibit planning, please state one topic about which you would most like Cincinnati Museum Center to create a new exhibit'.

Museums and the Web 2006 conference call for papers

2005-09-17T18:17:00.000+01:00

30 September is the deadline for submitting proposals for the Museums and the Web 2006 conference. (This blog shares no relationship with the annual conference and its organisers).

The conference will be held in Albuquerque and you are invited to present a Paper; teach others in a Pre-Conference Workshop or in-conference Mini-Workshop; engage your colleagues in a Professional Forum; or Demonstrate your site.

Review the Call for Participation (PDF) and make your proposal online.

Past papers from all Museums and the Web conferences are available on-line, an invaluable resource.

Andy Warhol and diet pills

2005-09-17T17:54:00.000+01:00

Why don't museums have online guestbooks? The Warhol Museum show why with their guestbook.

Online Talks

2005-09-13T18:50:00.000+01:00

Two pioneers of online museum webcasting, Tate Online and the Dana Centre, renew their programmes this week.

On Thursday 15 September at 1900 BST the Dana Centre webcasts 'Is it you or I who should be in the asylum?' looking at the social dilemmas and contradictions inherent in our approach to mental illness. You can e-mail in your questions and comments in advance or during the event itself by contacting talk@danacentre.org.uk.

On Friday 16 and Saturday 17 September the Tate's live season starts with a symposium 'Open Systems: Rethinking Art c.1970'. There are various sessions, the first starts at 1430 BST and full details of all times are available here.

Rodin Sketchbook

2005-09-12T13:49:00.000+01:00

Yesterday's image of 'The Thinker' from San Francisco's Legion of Honor Museum got us looking for Rodin features online this morning.

Philadelphia's Rodin Museum owns The Mastbaum Album, a sketchbook which provides the most complete record of Rodin's early draftmanship. As part of the museum's 75th anniversary this year, they created an online interactive allowing everyone to see the whole of the sketchbook in detail.

There are 72 sketches in all and the interactive works intuitively and simply. The flash-only design is unfortunate and unnecesary, betraying its joint development as a kiosk interactive for the museum itself. Credits.

Musée Rodin in Paris has the usual nausea-inducing 360 degree quicktime panoramas and an extensive English language collections section.

Museum Websites in the Life of the Visitor

2005-09-11T22:57:00.000+01:00

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are conducting a website visitor survey in partnership with Florida State University to explore the role museum websites play in the lives of museum visitors:

"We are attempting to answer such questions as: Why do people visit museum websites before going to museums? How do museum websites influence one's decision to visit a museum? How do museum visitors integrate online museum resources into their daily lives? Answering these questions will help improve interactions between museums and museum websites, for both museum professionals and museum visitors."

The survey is accessible from the homepage of the thinker.org website.

Forgotten Empire: the world of Ancient Persia

2005-09-11T16:49:00.000+01:00

The British Museum's latest blockbuster exhibition is 'Forgotten Empire: the world of Ancient Persia'.

The exhibition itself has received excellent reviews: 'stunning', The Observer. The website is designed in the British Museum's usual idiosyncratic style.

British Museum exhibition microsites (and their parent website itself) appear more suited to printed marketing material than the online world. Large images dominate, text can't be resized and is often presented in graphics. You can certainly forget about such mundane considerations as unique page titles, meta keywords or descriptions. Give up if your screen resolution is set to anything less than 1024 x 768 pixels.

Buried amongst the ticket information, events listings and restaurant details is a link to a selection of objects featured in the exhibition.

When you click on an individual item, such as this Gold rhyton, don't miss the show toolbar icon in the bottom left corner of the images, clicking on this allows you to zoom in on a high quality image of the object.

The Fighting Temeraire - The Greatest Painting in Britain?

2005-09-05T15:43:00.000+01:00

‘The Fighting Temeraire’ by JMW Turner has been voted ‘The Greatest Painting in Britain’ following a poll by BBC Today programme and the National Gallery.

The National Gallery has an online indepth study of the painting as part of its Battle of Trafalgar coverage – Heroine of Trafalgar.

Carousel and the Tate

2005-09-05T11:51:00.000+01:00

Carousel is the latest innovation resulting from the partnership between the Tate and BT. It provides a new way for the general visitor to search online collections. Visitors are presented with a visual interface showing nine random artworks, with one of the artworks changing every couple of seconds.

If you select an image, the images generated by Carousel will follow similar themes, hopefully providing the visitor with an easy way to find new works that will interest them.

This is a genuinely novel approach that would appear to have lots of potential when fully developed.

MoMa Audio

2005-09-01T18:02:00.000+01:00

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has added a series of downloadable mp3 audio tours to its website.

The tours cover four different areas. Modern Voices offers commentaries on selected artworks by curators, artists, critics, and conservators. Modern Kids is aimed specifically at children, Visual Descriptions caters for visitors with visual impairments providing extended visual descriptions of works. Special Exhibitions provides commentaries on the current special exhibitions in the museum.

All talks are free to download. The guides have been produced by Acoustiguide and are sponsored by Bloomberg.