Cairie--
I would definitely recommend making the photos available to the public for
comment. This does a number of valuable things for you:
1. Increases awareness of your museum and collections, as people start
talking about what photos they've found there.
2. Builds some ownership among your audience when they see their input is
being respected and used.
3. Potentially builds a greater base of knowledge about your collections
than you/the museum could ever find through static research.
4. Ideally, when this goes well it can increase the number of donations to
your museum. As people see how well you manage and utilize what you have
they will be more confident in giving.
5. Could lead to oral history opportunities.
Here's the grain of salt though. Be sure to make this user input available to
viewers, but make it clear if the info has not been verified by the museum.
Along these lines be sure to set the comments to an "approval-first" mode. In
this case, a staffer will review what has been submitted then has too "approve"
the comment before it appears on the page. You could have text on the web page
that this is a pilot program, an experiment that you'd like to do with the
museum community. Collaboration is great!
Hope this helps.
Adam Mikos
