Julianna Yau’s blog

This was a great presentation by Brian Porter and Tony Hushion from the ROM

Photos and notes:

-started with video of eye-level view from land animals/insects
-Animal Borne Image Samples
-new museum workers don’t typically have a museum background (more about storytelling)
-polarized opinion of the crystal building at the ROM
-people visiting to see the architecture of the building

The new ROM – who do we aspire to be?
-natural science and art & culture
-urban renewal
-physical location – the Gardiner, the AGO
-reliable and stable institution physically
-separation in governance (judiciary and day-to-day admin)

-attendance is ahead of forecast; people can only be curious about new architecture for so long
-March Break was most successful on record
-construction impacted business because many people thought they were closed (incl. students)
-tons of upcoming programming (only 2 slides photographed)

Shanghai Kaleidoscope show
-all about the technology
-photo of quote on slide
-the “next culture”

Shanghai Historical Photos exhibit
-digital image to showcase Shanghai 100yrs ago
-juxtaposition of two shows

-both exhibitions dependent on technology
-photographs in historical photo exhibit based on their ability to digitalize work

New Media Resources
-Information Technology Services
–Web/database/network/systems
—still need a strong support in the physical
—need strong IT support and support for the infrastructure (e.g. setup of hardware)
—IT people can work with the content people
-Media Productions
–Video/television/multimedia & exhibition/gallery AV
-Publications
–Co-publishing/academic/catalogues
-Digital Image Centre
–Photography/scanning/copying/image licensing
–3D imaging unit
–digitalization of assets is key
–can’t move to the next level without digitalization
-Information Centre
–Rights and Reproductions co-ordinator
–Digital Media Assets co-ordinator

-ROM uses Final Cut Pro for most of their editing
-they have podcasts
-website
–really focused on using it for transactions and registration
–not a rich content site (yet)
–mostly marketing site
-ROM on FB
-ArtShare FB app

What is the concept of the mindful museum?
-museum as a masoleum
-museum as a machine
-museum as a metaphor (i.e. the Agora)
-museum as a mall – drained and devoted to pleasure; an attraction (like Disney; no longer about education)
-photo of quote re mindful museum quote
–”being primarily about the objects it contains”
–Louvre – 25 minutes from door to objects
–”mindful museum puts art in your face”
–CBC website podcast –> CBC Ideas –> 1 yr ago, Adam Copnik on the mindful museum (closest I could find was “Canada: Nation or Notion?“… that’s a direct link to the mp3, and I haven’t previewed it yet… also see this blog post)

-photo of projection from show
-because of success of the show getting people to look around, continue to use the space to put art infront of people as soon as they enter
-Sony donated flat screen monitors to ROM
-traditional vs digital donor walls
-digital donor wall – interactive; stories about the donors
–background image is from archival images of building; meant to be blurry and background image
–speaker mounted on ceiling, sound directed to viewer (instead of broadcasting to the entire room)
–not just about donors; also about the history of the ROM

-Digital gallery for education
–manipulate objects on projection
–provide digital options for younger audience who is already using technology at home
–in-house creation and management of content vs outsourcing
–often spend almost as much time with 3rd party as having to do it yourself
–ROM did it in-house

-podast – Constructing the Baronsaurus
-shows recreating a dinosaur at high-speed
-also uploaded to YouTube

-4 flatscreen monitors with touch-screen technology
–interactive display in front of dinosaurs
–didn’t want dioramas
–skeletons only
–images licensed from BBC (Walking with Dinosaurs)
–mindful of the audience

-Dipali (sp??)
-South Asian history and culture
-women in S.A. art
-same thing happening with First Peoples Paul Kane paintings show
–worked with John Basai – filmmaker
–kiosk, browser-based, with info on work
–more info for visitors

-new textiles gallery
-curator had specific ideas of how she wanted to use technology
-texture of textiles
-how they are created
-how a loom works
-video of how suit made

Canadian Mining Hall of Fame
-minerals and ores
-satellite exhibits
-how to take photos and bring that to life?
-used model of donor wall
-part of mining/minerals gallery

-elabelling – current RFP for delivery solution
-necessary for densely stoked display cases

-flatscreens everywhere!!

Schad Gallery of Biodiversity
-snippets that demonstrate life (ref: video at beginning)
-combo of media
-include media studio for ongoing program
–video producer and programmer to create programming for schools etc
-presents social networking web opportunity

Iconic Objects
-new marketing campaign
-must-see iconic pieces (regardless of what their current feature show is)
-short video sequences
-mindful museum – about the objects

Lessons Learned
-enhanced accessibility – audio tours
–transcripts of all podcasts
-evening and weekend IT support
-remote monitoring & updating
-hire for specific skill sets
-donor intervention – how much?
-avoid technology for the sake of technology
-allow time for R&D
-test, test, test

What can small museums do?
-seek curatorial support (test the waters)
-talk to visitors (measure the “groundswell”)
-do a POST assessment:
–people (visitors – enhancing their experience)
–objectives (goals?)
–strategy (providing context, more engagemen?)
–technology (solution)
-involve prospective donors
-develop digital assets

-new book: Bold Visions
-not about passive entertainment
-artifacts are not given a theatre setting

Questions
-how was video produced?
–camera technology

-at what point in development does interactive strategy come into things?
–wanted it to happen early, but due to project evolving, some of that got cut and was reintroduced at the end

-what about changing content?
–plan is that the content will be rotated
–funding exists to do this

-what happens when exhibition closes?
–dinosaur exhibit is permanent, but expect content to be updated

-collaboration & availability; produce in collaboration with other museums? make it available to them?
–not typically a practise to collaborate because of IP issues, but open to the idea where it makes sense
–developing portable content

-digital donor wall
–help with interface (Overdrive)
–content was in-house

-when does the technology become too much? interfering with experience with actual item? filter? adding so many layers?
–audience wants the context being provided through the technology
–objects don’t always speak for themselves
–technology is only one means of expression
–ROM also about education

-Charlene Li + Josh Bernoff
-Forester Research
-Groundswell book

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John Darlymple from the Textiles Museum of Canada had a great presentation, Connecting Cloth, Culture + Art, on what they have been doing for the last 10 years.

Notes (and Flickr images)

-museums piggypack on technology developed by corporations
-the role of how the money is made
-focusing on the public and the programming; start with the inward looking, but the focus is on the outside
-three themes: reconsidering the role of collection management; keeping/setting pace with technology; how important a really conceptually strong program is for online presence

1997
-concept of shooting digitally was different
-digital cameras were inferior to 35mm cameras
-slides and indexes
-slides were scanned and saved onto CDs
-everything was still very physical
-did have website, built by a volunteer’s son
-very amateurish website
-just getting online, didn’t care what it was
-Museums Assistant Program
-collection management driven

phase 2
-grant from Virtual Museum of Canada
-trying to create a virtual museum –> recreating real world
-John felt this was the wrong decision because the internet is not the real world, but the internet can provide options which aren’t available in the real world
-gallery is decontextualized setting
-Cloth & Clay website –> archived on the Textiles Museum website
-online identity can be bigger than physical presence
-sites were static HTML because that’s all they know
-John attended course where it was taught by a web designer and a curator, but there was no link between the two
Cloth & Clay did as much as they could with static HTML
-requirement for digitalization of work —> Collections Manager
-requirement for better collections management and images

phase 3
-create online destination
-entrypoint to collection
-relevant themes
-told government they needed to digitalize collection and have a database of the images
-creating something online that we can’t do in physical space –> moving objects around; didn’t use quicktime
-also allowed people to zoom into images
-Zoomify
-plugins –> something that’s open and that people would already have
-challenge to store and backup images (highres source images) and space online –> changed much since then
-slides taken by many different people (volunteers, proffessional photographers) and scanned at different resolutions
-need to take the different shots; need to not reshoot images every time; not just file format but relevancy of images
-has style guide for how to shoot images of textiles!
-government funding insisted on digital images
-shot images from a camera on the roof
-MimsyXG vs archaic Access DB
–different levels of consistency of data input, tagging
–need to investigate how to transfer data –> rebuild vs import
–just access isn’t enough –> NEED consistency of data
–needed a fundamental shift of definition/concept of collection management
-60% of collection photographed
-not just adding all sorts of little notes on db info (resulted in inconsistency with use of fields; nothing was publication-ready)
-kept fields simple –> much to document, not many curators to sign-off; wanted to do everything in French (don’t -operate in French, but wanted to be able to offer the information in French online); built thesaurus for terms and used that for standard English data input and translated to French
-Textile Museum: collection; contemporary art & exhibition program (most dynamic part of their programming); educational programming (other programs had educational aspects, but they also have a specific ed program)
-use web to exhibit work for longer than the few weeks they can keep stuff on display due to the fragility of the work
-Digital Threads
-asked artists to create digital art – artists asked were not digital artists; had to work closely with them to make this work
-theme grouping of work, rather than chronological
-Joanna Berzowska
-didn’t want it to be a database experience
-serve researcher, but should be usable for general museum going audience and teachers
-clearest terminology and titles for users

(no, I don’t know what happened to the phase 4 notes…I’m guessing they’re the tail end of the phase 3 notes)

phase 5
launching a new website soon
In Touch (hoping to change name)
deliver online project
create hands-on learning experience
move things, feel the weight, etc
computer animation –> molecular reaction of textile
–> like SL?
take apart a textile online and reconstitute work
physics-based technology
increase level of immersion for users –> cultural journey
mgmgrand.com –> type of immersion textile museum is looking for
–time-out in the immersion experience to get more detail

questions
-level of skillset – challenge?
–had to identify target audience
–design site for target audience and user behaviour

-finding the right partner for these projects, esp for people who are not big on social media

-connection between online presence and marketing
–rely on emarketing
–online museum brings people to the physical museum

-concept of draft publishing versus polished publishing; Sebastian from Australia (forget the gallery…)
–more interactive publishing when things are draft; wikis, etc
–having everything polished only is not necessarily the best option, and they are welcome to feedback

-YorkU –> Kate Fletcher (?) –> takes digital and almost hologram

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