New Strategic Plan for Powerhouse

The Powerhouse have just released a new Strategic Plan. It's only a few pages so take a look when you get the chance. The document is landscape so if you enlarge it to read it on screen make sure you slide the tab across the bottom all the way across.

For me there are some very interesting comparisons with things we either used to do (Advisory panel -Strategy5B), currently do (programs and event aligned to festivals, milestones and anniversaries - Strategy 1C), have tried to do (research program - Strategy 3E) or would like to do (dissolve boundaries between exhibitions, programs, publications and web content -Strategy 1D & E).

For me though the stand out is the work on succession planning and the adoption of the '10% plan' (Strategy 4A) for content development where staff have one day a fortnight to work collaboratively on their own creative projects ...oh yeah!

Caz

8th Australasian Emu User Group Meeting

This years EMu User group meeting was hosted by Sydney's Australian Museum. Some of the Papers are well worth a read and have just been published on the KE website here http://www.kesoftware.com/content/view/1153/437/lang,en/

Some fantastic things are happening online, with EMu as the driving force behind some revamped Collections Web pages at Museum Vic and Te Papa.

Matthew Churchward & Ely Wallis discussed the development phase of Museum Victoria's soon-to-be-released History and Tech Collections website. Analysis of their web stats revealed that most people land on their web pages via a search engine that took them directly to an object's catalogue record page. So they took the approach of designing the object page as the starting point and allowing visitors to navigate from there. The result is a detailed (and very nice looking!) catalogue record page rather than a top-down approach to web design - some sneak previews are included in the presentation.

Another great paper worth a read is Adrian Kingston's demo of Te Papa's new website which is driven from EMu Narratives, Catalogue, Parties and Thesaurus Modules. The Thesaurus Module enables web users to simply click on the familiar hotlinks to browse to other objects, or gain more information about a person or topic by clicking on the word.

Have a look around here http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/ and notice the basic level of catalogue entry they provide is even less than our skeleton records. In 2005 when Te Papa released their first catalgoue records online, they published a highly edited and detailed set of 3000 records (just as we did!), but soon realised that a wider sample of records with less detail was a more useful approach to providing greater levels of public access and getting their content out into the world. All food for thought before the Arts Centre's Website is redeveloped....

Rowena

The Future of Museums

Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame originally uploaded to Flickr on July 10, 2006by ricardo.martins

You may have heard that Radio National have just aired two very interesting interviews about the future of museums. You can access the transcript for Part 1 here if you don't want to annoy your colleagues or you can listen to the audio file. Part 2 aired this morning and can be heard as an audio today or as a transcript after midday tomorrow (if you are a quick reader the transcripts are quicker to access than the audio).

Even if you don't follow most of the links in my posts I think that these ones are worth it. Part 2 in particular is worth a look for Michael Cassin on the importance of using everyday language to communicate the 'magic' of collections; Margaret Birtley on national standards for the digitisation of collections and Seb Chan (Powerhouse) on making social media and community engagement relevant to museums.

Don't forget to check out the links at the end of each Radio National page too!

Caz

Common Ground

Photograph from the collections of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Flickr Commons

Look at this great Flickr Commons project. Common Ground is a real-time global meet-up of the instiutions featured on The Commons and their users. The project centres around a user-curated slideshow which will be assembled using collection images voted for by the public (follow the instructions on the link above and have a go yourself!). Each institution will be projecting the slideshow on the exterior of their buildings for viewing by the widest possible audience (imagine Hamer Hall at night covered in luminous collection images - what a profile-raiser!) Users will also be encouraged to follow Flickr discussion to find out about times and places they can meet up in person.

If you look at the images many of them are not that exciting on their own. What they have in common is that they are out of copyright, under-utilised and possibly under-researched by the isntitutions that own them. Positioning them on The Commons has given these images a whole new lease on life and given the public an exciting new way to interact with and appreciate them.

Have a think about what collections we have that could benefit from this kind of profile and get back to me!

Caz

Australia's Culture Portal

Glasses worn by Barry Humphries as Dame Edna, the Arts Centre's Performing Arts Collection

Do you guys know about this site? It was created by the federal government some years ago but it is quite a good one stop shop for leads on all kinds of performing arts including rock music, dance, circus, opera, theatre and comedy. The Arts Centre's collections are linked to some pages too which is always pleasing!

Some of the links are better than other (quite a few to Wikipedia) but it is definately worth keeping in mind. You can also search by audience (children, families and young people!) which can be handy.

Have a great weekend
Caz

Another crowd generated exhibition

Sometimes it's amazing what is going on right under your own nose! Do you all now about the Indoor Laneways Project? It's an online collaborative arts project created and moderated by Dan West in Education, Families & Young People as one of the Arts Centre's Youth Initiatives. Its aim is to encourage regional and metropolitan students to create and manipulate digital sound and artwork.

A curated selection of the works created will be on display in the Blackbox for two weeks during September so look out for it.

Caz

Exhibition inspiration

How would you feel about letting someone else do some of the curating? Here are a couple of different approaches to curating exhibitions that you might not have considered.

The first is Powerhouse's The Odditoreum which began life as an idea for a small school holiday program but resulted in a popular exhibition, book and limited edition print. The project had many constraints including a budget of only $7000 (excluding staff time) and was conceived as a 'low-tech' way of engaging visitors with the permanent collection.

The show was 'curated' by children's book author Shaun Tan. Tan chose 10 objects from a long list he was sent by the Public Programs Producer who had compiled and refined the list in consultation with curators, registrars and conservators. He then wrote fictitious labels of approx. 100 words for each object. Visitors were also invited to write their own labels. The 'real' label information was also included by only at the end of the exhibition.

The show was a hit and is a good reminder that you don't always have to spend a million bucks to pull off a good idea. It is also a good 'real-life' example of a the type of engagement people are also seeking online.

The other idea comes from the Brooklyn Museum and is called Click!: A Crowd Curated Exhibition. This exhibition was inspired by the notion of 'the wisdom of crowds' as espoused by business and financial columnist James Surowieki. Rather than try and explain it just click on the link for a short, sharp explanation.

Does anyone else know of any interesting exhibition concepts? Why not let us all know about them by leaving a comment below!

Caz