Dear all, need help and feedback. Thank you annamaria Poma Swank pomaswank at rinascimento-digitale.it
Art museums and "culture of new media" *First* : our project refers to museums websites, their function and their configuration and their mission....With websites we have been putting museums in cyberspace. But, in our opinion, without clear understanding of what we were or are doing.... (CMS is another story) We create museums without walls, but we have also museums within walls: what is the relationship if any between the two?....we have approved definitions by competent associations about bricks and mortar Museums: accreditation is done according to such definition plus requirements...in other words we have a general model to refer to!!!!. But we do not have is a model for a museum website, a set of rules, a clear definition or a consensus for "the accreditation" of the digital or virtual musuem i.e. a museum websites. (only technical Standards) Peter Welsh wrote an interesting article about Re-configuring museums . His intent is: to offer @a framework, or armature, around which more complex understanding of museum practice might be built." He adds " that in museology we should orient our conversation about museums in ways that respect what has been while we imagine what could be." Well my question is why we do not do this with museum websites (MUSEUM WEBLIOLOGY)....first with a distinguo and second creating a model against which we can compare present and future museums websites practice. The literature is rich of study on museums websites, with particular stress on user studies...statistics are always in place on the use, on the where, when and why the websites come about. Discussions on technology advancement and the frenzy to use them....do no address the real question: what is it this virtual reality we created and create? is an extension of the museum? has the some characteristics of the museum, its mission, its organization, the some aesthetics means, etc. ? I believe that the function of the two is related yes but distinct. For example the museums websites represent the some objects in ways that museums could not do..., have educational possibilities that museums do not have.....ways to presents objects in various ways the museums could not do....and so forth....but again what is missing is the link between the two things.... Management of website is different from manangement of museums, curators of websites need special qualifications and instruments that the museums curators do not need and viceversa. The marketing feature is not so critical for museum websites as it is for museums...or eventually has a different meaning...the same for users/visitors...there are and will be people who will never have the opportunity to visit a certain museum, does not matter how good or bad is its relative website...and other people who will always want to experience the "aura" of the museum and its collection *Second:* After we finished my report on CMS, we got intrigued by the actual museology studies or as many now say "museum studies" and their transformation. Studies that focus on the the *re-configuring of museums*(Welsh 2005), on the traditional museum, Faucult museums theory, the postmodern, the post museums, and morever museum an globalization. Trends seems twofold: an interest on the *museums without* as driving force for the change od museums within. (actually I believe that somebody should take the task to organize all the overwelming amount of sources and may be come up wirh a biliography raisonee). We should know better that there are many the factors that change any human enterprise. And we believe that in this case technology is not the magic tool for change: technology should be an instrument of reflexion on museums mission, history, function and so forth. The many surveys on museums to measure the success of their websites are interesting, but only if they are related to the particular museum in question. What is a success for a one, could be a pitfall for another. The same for users. The relation of the Uffizi museum in Florence with its visitors, could not be the same that the relation between visitors and New Zealand aborigenal musuems. Each museum live in a context and in its own particular historical, social, politicol etc. background. >We do not suggest that we cannot reach aggreement and create standards, but we need to justify the standards based on practices of museums, their history, their mission, etc. So the question if techonology change the museum, or viceversa can be solved and we might find the interdipendence of the two that are not mutually exclusive, but are not either the same. An article " Museums and the culture of new media: an empirical model of New Zealand museum websites" by David D. M. Mason ; Conal McCarthy : they discuss 7 categories as main points of an idilazed museum model, but in my opinion they still mix the website and the museums offerings. However the authors underline the lack of detailed research on the intersection of museums and new media and they actually end calling for further resarch not about technology, but on the "culture of new media" I would like to take this challange and go on where they left. For this reason I would propose a porject articulated in two parts (enphasis on art museums): 1. A very inclusive review of the literature (museology, technology, users, etc.) since the 1997 to make a pointof the status of research worldwide (who is doing what, who is saing this or that, who are the protagonist of the museums scenario and softorth) 2.A survey of a group of Museums (may be randomly selected from the list of IMLS) as for: their history, how they come about, their development, their mission,etc.; their staff (directors and curators particularly, but also registrars and whoever is in each organization part ot the management of the museum); their activities, their goals, their audience; their fundraising activities.; their exhibition and acquisition policies;their education (if any) efforts; budget, fundraising, etc.: in other words the whole history of the museums from the founding up to the computer revolution. When we have the complete picture of each museums history and growth whe shoud make an enquire about what the intersection *of museums and new media .* The second part of the study will be conducted through: *a)* research on site (visits, archival material, biographies, writings etc.) ; * b)* a questionnaire on the if when, why, who, how, what about the use of technologies and results. I strongly hope that a group of scholars in the field of museology and computer professionals would join us in this task. This is a draft, kind of my feelings and my thinking: not the final proposal of the project: your feedback is very much appreciated. (project time span anticipated: one to two years)
