Sociable Museums

Etiquetas: Museos 2.0, Museos en red, Sociable Museums, Web 2.0

Etiquetas: lamusediffuseTV, Lo que la gente dice..., Lo que los museos dicen..., Sociable Museums, videos, Web 2.0, What Museums Say..., What People Say...

Etiquetas: Art, Audioguides, e-learning, mobile, Museums, Sociable Museums, User's Experience

After several months of intense and exciting work, the project “Museums in Libya 2.0” is already available on the Internet.



lamusediffuse proposes the use of Social Web tools for the inclusion of non-dominant cultural expressions in the scopes of culture diffusion on the Internet. Accordingly with this objective, the project “Museums in Libya 2.0” is focused on two starting facts, the first is the lack of information about Libyan museums available in the website of the International Council of African Museums (AFRICOM) and the second is the apparent lack of museum websites in this country. As a consequence of this, the objective of our project has been overcoming both realities through the following actions,

• Overcoming the gaps of Web 1.0 by using a methodology based on Web 2.0 tools as a flexible, interactive and participative alternative option of information exchange,
• Proving Social Web academic usefulness and its tools as a valid and effective research tool,
• Palliating the lack of contents on Libyan museums on AFRICOM website by compiling, contrasting and structuring the information available on the Internet about the subject,
• Elaborating a reference map where gathering and locating the museums of Libya,
• Raising awareness about the online institutional forgetfulness situation of Libyan Museums at the present time in comparison with others in the rest of the world,
• Creating a methodological model for small museums and museums of developing countries or under conflict situations, reasonable in economic and maintenance terms,
• Encouraging museum professionals to Web 2.0 tools use as an economic, simple and effective solution to overcome any lack of computer science personnel or tools and digital technology,
• Emphasizing the importance and role of the Jamahiriya Museum of Tripoli and improving its online visibility for both international and local audiences,
• Finally, creating a reference document on the Libyan museums that will be published under a Creative Commons license of attribution and for noncommercial use,

You can find more details about this project on lamusediffuse's website.

From now on you can enjoy the wonderful Libyan museums strolling through the interactive map, where you will find information on each museum provided by our collaborators and Social Web users. Do not forget also consulting our wiki and updating it with new data. Besides, you can collaborate sharing your photos of Libyan museums including them in our group in Flickr, e-artcasting.

At this moment we leave you with the presentation we have made to present the project on next July 11 at the Medialab of Madrid (Spain,) within the Inclusiva.net encounter: New Art Dynamics in Web 2 mode. Besides, you can consult the references of the project in lamusediffuse's del.icio.us account. We hope meeting some of you there!

Etiquetas: Africa, Archaeology, Art, Heritage, lamusediffuse, Libya, Map, Museums, Professional, Small Museums, Sociable Museums, Sociable Technologies, Social Software, Web 2.0, Wikis

• superar las lagunas de Web 1.0 por medio del uso de una metodología basada en el uso de las herramientas de la web social (Web 2.0) como una opción alternativa flexible, interactiva y participativa de intercambio de información,
• probar la utilidad académica de la web social y de sus herramientas como instrumentos válidos y efectivos de investigación,
• paliar la falta de contenidos sobre los museos libios de la página web de AFRICOM compilando, contrastando y estructurando la información disponible en internet sobre el tema,
• elaborar un mapa de referencia donde reunir y localizar los museos de Libia,
• sensibilizar sobre el olvido institucional en internet que en la actualidad están sufriendo los museos libios en comparación con los de otras areas del mundo,
• crear un modelo metodológico para museos pequeños y museos de países en desarrollo o en situaciones de conflicto, que sea asequible en términos económicos y de mantenimiento técnico,
• animar a los profesionales de museos al uso de las herramientas Web 2.0 como una solución económica, sencilla y eficaz para superar la falta de personal informático o de herramientas y tecnología digital,
• subrayar la importancia y el papel del museo Jamahiriya de Trípoli y mejorar su visibilidad en internet para una audiencia internacional,
• finalmente, crear un documento de referencia sobre los museos libios que sea publicado bajo una licencia Creative Commons de atribución y para uso no comercial

Etiquetas: África, Arqueología, Arte, Libia, Mapa, Museos, Patrimonio, Pequeños Museos, Profesional, Sociable Museums, Software social, Tecnologías sociales, Web 2.0, Wikis

At e-artcasting we continue involved in a research to make Libyan museums visible online thanks to digital technologies and social software. Although Libya has fantastic museums, they are suffering from a pitiful lack of online visibility. This is something we want to palliate by using the possibilities of Web 2.0 tools and social collaboration.

Our project addresses two facts. The first one is the lack of information about museums in Libya available on the websites of related institutions, particularly on the AFRICOM’s one. The second fact is the apparent lack of museum websites in Libya. Thus, our final goal is achieving a reference document on Libyan Museums -focused on the specific example of the Jamahiriya Museum at Tripoli- and made it available online for researchers, professionals and people interested in Museums and Libyan Culture.

Till now and thanks to contributors like you we have been able to locate 12 museums on our map of Libya on the photo. However, we already have 24 museums listed in our Libyan Museums List belonging to our Museums in Libya wiki. Now, we want to populate and polish this information and create an interactive map with all your photos. To achieve it, we need your collaboration.

We would really appreciate if you check the Libyan Museums List to add any additional information you could know on any museum in the list or about anyone still not on it.

We also encourage you to share your photos on Libyan museums in our Flickr group, e-artcasting. We need you tagging photos on museums in Libya with, at least, this information,

• Continent where the museum is
• Country where the museum is
• City, Town, or specific location where the museum is
• Complete name of the museum
• the tag “Museum”
• the tag “Art” (in case of Art Museums)
  

Note that if there is any name composed by two or more words, like “Jamahiriya Museum,” you should write it between quotation marks. In addition to this, you can add all the tags at the same time by writing them, separated by commas, at the moment you drag them from your Organizer to e-artcasting pool. Please note that if not, we should revise them, one-by-one, which is very time-consuming.

If you have any video, article or any other kind of information; you can post them here at Ly-Hub, send it to our del.icio.us account with the tagg "for:e_artcasting" or contact us at contact@lamusediffuse.com

Please, help us to spread the word and do not hesitate to make us any question. We are looking forward your collaboration!

Etiquetas: Africa, Heritage, Libya, Museums, Professional, Sociable Museums, Sociable Technologies, Social Software, Web 2.0

You are Sociable Museums' most precious value. Thanks to your emails, comments and contributions Sociable Museums' mission is increasing its diverse outreach.

One of Sociable Museums most active activities is located at the Flickr group. Users are about to contribute 1,000 wonderful and rare photos on art museums from all over the world, so it is hight time for celebration. Today we start a new section named, "Your Photos on Museums" in which we will rescue on weekly basis a selection of your best contributions at our Flickr pool.

For our Grand Opening, this exquisite image of the Ile Ife National Museum (Nigeria) taken in April 1958 and posted by Rabinal, who also shared with us a fragment of The White traveller in Black Africa, by Colin Wills,

The Creation of the World (Yoruba version). The creation of the world took place at Ife. Orafame. The Supreme Being, the Creator, sent Orishala out from heaven to create the world. The way was long and hot, and Orishala rested in a grove of palms. He was thirsty, and he drank palm wine, and fell asleep, a serious dereliction in one with such a high task. Orafame was disappointed. He called another demigod named Oduwa, and sent him forth to carry out the mission. Oduwa did not pause by the way. He took earth, a hen, and a chameleon. The hen spread out the earth and scraped it into a mound, just as you will see her do today. The chameleon moved over the mound, testing it with his light weight, feeling gently with his little feet. His delicate,tremulous movements which you can see today, are a memory of that great task. From the mound grew the Earth. It was there that Orfame set down the first man and woman, and from there stemmed the Yoruba people. The mound still exists; I will show it to you presently, said my guide. Oduwa, naturally, is worshipped by millions of Yoruba. The chameleon is also sacred, and the hen, though eaten, is regarded with great respect and affection. But the strange thing is that Orishala also has his devotees. One might expect them to be the wine-bibbers of the community. On the contrary, they are the teetotallers. When Orishala awoke and found that somebody else had created the world while he slept, he bitterly lamented his failure, and swore never to touch palm wine again. He never did, and neither do any of his followers. His failing remains an example forever, a warning to men of their own frailties.

Image: Rabinal: Museum at Ife, posted on September 2006.

Etiquetas: Africa, Art, Flickr, National Museum of Ile Ife, Nigeria, Photos, Sociable Museums, User Generated Content, Web 2.0, Yoruba, Your Photos on Museums

Past March 12, 2007, The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced on its website, a “pioneering initiative to provide digital images to scholars at no charge.” This announcement has been immediately spread by the scholar blogosphere, as for example in the blog of The Chronicle of the Higher Education and The Attic.

This new service entitled "Images for Academic Publishing" (IAP) has been implemented in partnership with the nonprofit organization ARTstor. This service,

...will make images available via software on the ARTstor Web site. Initially, nearly 1,700 images representative of the broad range of the Metropolitan Museum's encyclopedic collection will be available through the more than 730 institutions that currently license ARTstor. Efforts to expand this accessibility are now underway and will be announced by ARTstor at a later date.

Although we consider this partnership among The Met and ARTstor a wonderful initiative and we really wish it would be imitated by other museums, we are especially concerned about the accessibility of this project.

This initiative is only applicable “for use in academic publications.” So, what would be considered an academic publication? Are publications outside universities and research centers -but signed by scholars- eligible? How is going to affect this to publishing companies? Are independent researchers considered scholars? About these issues you could read an interesting thread at Musematic.

Our second concern relates to the fact that, till the moment, only “the more than 730 institutions that currently license ARTstor” could have access to this service. In other words, this service is not for the overall academic community, it is just for certain institutions. Moreover, we could guess that although this service is strikingly announced as “no charge for scholars," becoming an ARTstor member required paying a fee, as eventually it was. But even willing to pay, not anyone could belong to the community because only institutions from, United States, Canada, Australia | New Zealand, and United Kingdom are eligible.

About this, and as a disclaimer, ARTstor explains on its website,

ARTstor participation will be limited, at least initially, to interested institutions in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Intellectual property and copyright law differs from country to country; most of the content in the ARTstor Digital Library will be available to international participants, but some copyrighted materials will not be available due to copyright concerns. In time, we expect to expand the availability of the ARTstor Digital Library internationally.

Eventually, we wonder what the best formula to provide non charged uses to nonprofit organizations is in an online context for art collections. At the end, internet uses of online collections are being regulated by each country’s legal frame and within the strict boundaries of economical power. So, access to online art collections still remain restricted to certain people and areas of the world while the utopia of Web 2.0 as a universal plaza remains still as a dream. This is however, a difficult problem that requires the will of establishing international suitable laws and more partnerships like The Met has done.

However, some other improvements could be easily done for a more accurate policy on who are the potential professional users of online art collections. We wish The Met will extented the IAP service to Museum Professional Associations, from the listed and not listed countries. Do we need to be "scholars" to need access to online collections? We can guess that the members of AFRICOM, AAM, AAMC, COVICOM, ICOM, Museum-Ed, or SMA (just to provide some professional associations examples) would really appreciate and get good benefit of this gesture.

Etiquetas: .us, Accessibility, Art, Copyrights, Met, Museum-Ed, Online Collections, Sociable Museums

El pasado 12 de marzo de 2007 el Metropolitan Museum of Art de Nueva York anunciaba en su página web una “inicitativa pionera para proporcionar imágenes digitales libres de coste a académicos”. Este anuncio ha sido inmediatamente difundido en la blogosfera académica, como por ejemplo en el blog del Chronicle of the Higher Education y en The Attic.

Este nuevo servicio denominado “Imágenes para Publicación Académica” (IAP en sus siglas en inglés) ha sido puesto en marcha en colaboración con la organización sin ánimo de lucro ARTstor. Este servicio:

… hará disponibles las imágenes por medio de un programa informático en la página web de ARTstor. Inicialmente, cerca de 1.700 imágenes representivas del extenso rango de la enciclopédica colección del Metropolitan Museum se harán disponibles a través de las más de 730 instituciones en la actualidad autorizadas por ARTstor hasta la fecha.

Según The Chronicle of the Higher Education, los académicos en Estados Unidos tienen que pagar caros permisos para hacer uso de las imágenes de los museos; un problema que, quizás, no afecta a investigadores en otros países. Sin embargo, las cuestiones aquí son varias.

Pese a que consideramos esta colaboración entre el Met y ARTstor una maravillosa inciativa -y deseamos sin lugar a dudas que sea imitada por otros museos- de este proyecto nos preocupa especialmente su accesibilidad.

Esta iniciativa es sólo aplicable para su uso “en publicaciones académicas¨. De modo que, ¿qué es lo que se considera una publicación académica? ¿Pueden optar a ello publicaciones ajenas a las universidades y centros de investigación, pero firmadas por académicos? Sobre estas cuestiones puedes leer una interesante conversación en Musematic.

Nuestra segunda preocupación hace referencia al hecho de que hasta el momento, sólo “las más de 730 instituciones en la actualidad autorizadas por ARTstor hasta la fecha” tendrán acceso a este servicio. En otras palabras, este servicio no es para el conjunto de la comunidad académica, sino para ciertas instituciones. Lo que es más, podíamos adivinar que aunque este servicio ha sido llamativamente anunciado como “sin cargo para académicos”, formar parte de ARTstor requería el pago de una cuota, com al final ha resultado ser. Pero incluso queriendo pagar no todo el mundo puede pertener a la comunidad pues sólo pueden hacerlo instituciones de los Estados Unidos de América, Canadá, Australia/Nueva Zelanda y el Reino Unido.

Sobre esto, y a modo de descargo, ARTstor explica en su página web:

La participación en ARTstor estará limitada, en principio y por el momento, a las insituciones interesadas de los Estados Unidos de América, Canadá y el Reino Unido. Las leyes de propiedad intelectual y copyright difieren de país a país; la mayoría del contenido de la Biblioteca Digital ARTstor estará disponible a participantes internacionales pero algunos materiales con copyright no lo estarán debido a asuntos de copyright. Con el tiempo, esperamos ampliar la disponibilidad internacional de la Biblioteca Digital ARTstor.

Finalmente nos preguntamos cuál es la mejor fórmula para proporcionar usos gratuitos a instituciones sin ánimo de lucro en el contexto de las colecciones de arte disponibles en internet. Al final, los usos de las colecciones en internet están siendo regulados por el marco legal de cada país y dentro de las estrictas delimitaciones del poder económico. De modo que el acceso a las colecciones en internet todavía permanece restringido a cierta gente y a cientas áreas del planeta, mientras la utopía de Web 2.0 como una plaza universal todavía sigue siendo un sueño. En cualquier caso, éste es un problema de difícil solución que requiere de la voluntad de establecer leyes internacionales apropiadas y más colaboraciones como la hecha por el Met.

No obstante, otras mejoras pueden ser fácilmente hechas en aras de una política más acertada sobre quiénes son los potenciales usuarios profesionales de las colecciones de arte en internet. Así, deseamos que el Met amplíe su servicio IAP a las asociaciones de profesionales de museos, tanto de los países que están en la lista, como de los que no. ¿Necesitamos ser “académicos” para necesitar acceso a las colecciones en internet? Podemos imaginar que los miembros de AFRICOM, AAM, AAMC, COVICOM, ICOM, Museum-Ed, o SMA (sólo por dar algunos ejemplos de asociaciones profesionales) apreciarían y aprovecharían enormemente este gesto.

Etiquetas: .us, Accesibilidad, Arte, Colecciones, Copyrights, COVICOM, ICOM, Met, Museum-Ed, Sociable Museums

Here a marvelous example of the impact art can have among people and how popular initiatives driven through Web 2.0 tools can be deeply intriguing and beneficial for museums’ outreach.

The Friends of Riverfront at Beloit, Wisconsin (USA) -a broad based group of volunteers sharing a passion for enhancing and celebrating community living along Beloit’s riverfront- has given a lesson of imagination, creativity and sensitivity. This group has accomplished with real people a recreation of the famous painting by George Seurat, “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte-1884.”

This replica of “Sunday Afternoon…” was nevertheless made on Saturday (though also afternoon) on July 1st, 2006 at the banks of the Rock River in Beloit to promote an August group’s activity called “Saturday in the Park with Friends.” The result was a complete success: a day of fun, community life, collaboration and creativity; in addition to an engaging ‘tableau vivant’ on the Seurat’s exceptional painting at the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The event not only demonstrated popular initiative’s potential in making appealing contents, but also some possible applications for Art Museums. Underlining the wide range of possibilities of Social Software, this project provides a wonderful example to the lots of art museums still reluctant to open the creation and interpretation of their contents to their audiences. What, if not, is a museum but humans' creations and interaction?

Accordingly to the collective and collaborative spirit of the project, some images of the event are available online thanks to Social Software. In this photographic set at Flickr you can also find comments, anecdotes and more information, such as an animation of the making off, which is also described at Oldonliner´s blog (one of the organizers of the event.) In addition to this, the experience has also been featured in an article significantly titled "Art is Alive Along the River," published at Beloit Daily News by Ann Montgomery.

In a former article, “Web2.0 Photographic Project by National Museums Liverpool” we told how Web2.0 not only can engage new audiences to art museums, but also can get their collections being revisited by contemporary visions. Now and thanks to the Friends of Riverfront we can enjoy another example of how incredibly engaging contemporary public can be interpreting art collections through web2.0 tools.

Finally, a wish: it would be wonderful if the Art Institute of Chicago included the Friends of Riverfront’s initiative as part of the complementary information about “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884.” Not in vain, this is one of the best feedbacks and homage a museum could ever have on its collection: people making alive their art works.

Image: Oldonliner: First Example on Seurat's Photo, 2006.

Etiquetas: .us, Art Institute of Chicago, Flickr, Photos, Seurat, Sociable Museums, Web 2.0

Etiquetas: .es, Copyrights, Forbidden, Guggenheim, Museums, Sociable Museums, Web 2.0

Etiquetas: .es, Copyrights, Guggenheim, Museos, Sociable Museums, Web 2.0

In our former blog (disappeared at the end of August because of the mysteries of technology) we were telling that the organization National Museums Liverpool (United Kingdom) had organized a Web2.0 photographic project to document Liverpool. The project was called “Stewart Bale 2.0” and it was based in the Stewart Bale Ltd. Photographic Collection owned by National Museums Liverpool.

The organization invited both amateur and professional photographs using Flickr, to recreate the photographs of its collection. The project is currently an online photography exhibition.

This initiative is a wonderful example of how Web2.0 (a new generation of internet services which make use of collaboration, shared participation and tagging to crate 'social software') not only can engage new audiences to art museums, but also can get their collections being revisited by contemporary visions.

As it can be seen, it is not necessary having a contemporary art collection to understand new audiences and their relation with technology. Fortunately, there is an increasing number of museums understanding it in this way.

Images: Stewart Bale: Pier Head, 1959 (original) (left); Pete Carr: Pier Head, 2006 (right)

Etiquetas: .uk, Art, Collections, Flickr, lamusediffuse, Museums, National Museums Liverpool, Photos, Sociable Museums, Social Software, Web 2.0

These last days I have been very busy trying to find information about museums in Libya to ellaborate a map of museums in that country.

Unfortunately, the International Council of African Museums (AFRICOM) is not including in its website information about Libyan Museums. However, they are wonderful institutions which specifically need of more visibility to be recognized as they should be in the international landscape. That is the reason why after an intense search in the Social Web, I have elaborated this map which gathers and places all museums we are aware of. Now, thanks to the Web 2.0 tools, it is my pleasure to share this map of Libyan Museums with all of you.

Do not forget to check e-artcasting Photoproject and add your comments and tags to the image.

Images: lamusediffuse: Map of Museums in Libya, 2006

Etiquetas: Africa, Flickr, Libya, Map, Museums, Photos, Sociable Museums, Social Software, Web 2.0

Estos últimos días he estado bastante ocupada tratando de localizar información sobre museos en Libia con la que poder elaborar un mapa de museos de ese país.

Desgraciadamente, el Consejo Internacional de Museos Africanos (AFRICOM) no incluye en su página web información sobre los museos libios. Sin embargo, se trata de magníficas instituciones, precisamente necesitadas de más visibilidad para ser reconocidos como deberían en el panorama internacional. Es por eso que tras una intensa búsqueda en la web social he confeccionado este mapa que reúne y sitúa todos los museos de los que he tenido constancia. Ahora, gracias a las herramientas Web 2.0, tengo el placer de compartir este mapa con todos vosotros.

No dejéis de consultar nuestro Proyecto Fotográfico en Flickr y añadir vuestros comentarios y etiquetas en la imagen.

Imagen: lamusediffuse: Mapa de museos en Libia 02, 2006

Etiquetas: África, Flickr, Fotos, Libia, Mapa, Museos, Sociable Museums, Software social, Web 2.0

Etiquetas: .fr, Art, Audioguides, e-learning, Gioconda, lamusediffuse, Louvre, Mona Lisa, Museums, Podcasts, Sociable Museums

¿Quién dijo que internet y los sistemas de aprendizaje electrónicos eran necesarios en los museos sólo de Arte Contemporáneo? Observa en la fotografía (si eres capaz) a "La Gioconda" en el Museo del Louvre, París. Si quieres ir a conocerla en persona seguro que agradecerás ayuda extra.

El Louvre ofrece visitas virtuales en su página web, pero la dedicada a La Gioconda es, si cabe, más frustrante que al natural. Aunque en la imagen virtual la celebérrima pintura aparece sin público, el programa informático no permite acercarse a la obra. Pese a ello, el que es probablemente el museo de arte más visitado del mundo sólo ofrece los sistemas de información tradicionales.

Además de consultar el texto y las imágenes de la página web (de muy buena calidad), la única alternativa de información adicional para el visitante proporcionada por el museo son las audioguías. Tras esperar una larga cola y previo pago de 5 euros y depósito de un documento de indetificación, el visitante podrá cargar con un incómodo modelo de lector portátil de cd durante visita. La otra opción es contratar un servicio de guía que, eso sí, dada la afluencia de público, el ruido y la dificultad real de movimiento, incluye un servicio de auriculares para poder oir sus explicaciones.

Tal vez la alternativa lógica a todo este engorro sería un servicio adicional de podcasts y/o vodcasts en la página web del museo, así los visitantes llegarían ya provistos de sus correspondientes explicaciones que poder disfrutar al mismo tiempo que aprecian las obras o, quien sabe, esperan en una cola.

Imágenes (véanse en la versión en inglés de este mismo artículo): Corneille, Petite: Mona Lisa,2005. Fotografía. (izda.) iPod® Nano Skin ‘Mona Lisa’ (dcha.)

Etiquetas: .fr, Arte, Audioguías, Gioconda, Louvre, Mona Lisa, Museos 2.0, Podcasts, Sociable Museums

Couple at De Young Museum of San Francisco (USA) using the audioguides-podcast service the museum offers. A cutting-edge image that however, closely relates the deepest tradition of American Art: see the similarities with the very famous Grant Wood's painting American Gothic.

More information about De Young Museum podcasts at our Wikispace.

Images: Hawk, Thomas: Couple, 2006. Photography (left); Wood, Grant: American Gothic, 1930. Oil on beaverboard, 74.3 x 62.4 cm. Col. Art Institute of Chicago (right)

Etiquetas: .us, Art Institute of Chicago, Audioguides, De Young, Podcasts, Sociable Museums

Pareja en el Museo De Young de San Francisco (USA) utilizando el servicio de audioguías-podcast que ofrece el museo. Una imagen vanguardista que sin embargo, alude directamente a la tradición más profunda del arte estadounidense: obsérvese el parecido con la famosísima pintura de Grant Wood, American Gothic.

Más información sobre los podcasts del Museo De Young en nuestro Espacio Wiki.

Imágenes: Hawk, Thomas: Couple, 2006. Fotografía (izda.); Wood, Grant: American Gothic, 1930. Óleo sobre tabla, 74.3 x 62.4 cm. Col. Art Institute of Chicago (dcha.)

Etiquetas: .us, Art Institute of Chicago, Audioguías, De Young, Podcasts, Sociable Museums

Etiquetas: .us, Museums 2.0, Podcasts, Sociable Museums, videos