Institutional Collaborations across the Digital Divide: The Vogel 50x50 Web Site as a Model for Digital Collection Presentation
Chair:
David Brewer, Lead Systems Developer, Second Story
Participants:
John Gordy, Web Manager, National Gallery of Art;
Christina DePaolo, New Media Manager, Seattle Art Museum; Christina Olsen, Director of Education and Public Programs, Portland Art Museum
Curators, registrars, and librarians typically work within particular IT and database frameworks in developing digital representations of their collections and are bound by technical and logistical constraints for presenting collections digitally. One model of digital convergence, conspicuous in recent museum Web technology discussions, entails bringing together disparate back-end systems—databases, server architectures, and hosting environments—into a front-end interface that allows visitors to access multi-institution data without regard to back-end disparities. Another model of digital convergence, and one which may ultimately be most effective for collaborative efforts across diverse institutions, looks at creating a coherent back-end database and hosting environment, and a flexibly designed front-end interface, with advanced CMS tools for data input tying it all together.
The recently launched Vogel 50x50 website—the corollary of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel's Fifty Works for Fifty States gift—is an example of the latter mode of digital collection development. This roundtable discussion brings together representatives from the National Gallery of Art, institutions that are contributing to the Vogel 50x50 Web site via the CMS, and Second Story Interactive Studios, the site developer, to discuss what conditions are required to make such a project viable and outline the rewards of this method of digital collaboration.
Sponsored by the Pacific Northwest SIG
Download conference presentation:
Brewer, Gordy, and DePaolo,
The Vogel 50x50 Web Site as a Model for Digital Collection Presentation (3 MB PDF
Questions from the Business World: Are You Evaluating Visitor Engagement? How Will Metrics Define Success?
Chair: Jack Ludden, Head of the Web Group and New Media Development, The J. Paul Getty Trust
Participants:
Anthony Deighton, Senior Vice President of Products, QlikTech International; Jason Ryan, Vice President, Head of User Experience, icrossing UK
Defining and articulating ROI (Return on Investment) is critical to success. But what criteria are cultural institutions using to define ROI and how are we evaluating our visitors' level of satisfaction? One approach is to use a modified BSC (Balanced Scorecard). This model helps identify whether a product should be built. Another solution is to construct an evaluation that incorporates Forrester's 4 I's model of engagement: involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence.
While many for-profit companies use a BSC model to gather critical data and evaluate the "viability" of success, in our digital/cultural world it is imperative that we also assess how the visitor engages with our content. Our users are more than passive visitors, they are participants, and organize content on their own terms—through social networks, RSS readers, start pages, desktop applications, mobile devices, etc.
Identifying the right criteria to use for an evaluation is crucial. We need to move beyond the traditional evaluation methods that rely on broadcast media-related marketing measures and site-specific web analytics and instead, find more meaningful data about user engagement. In the cultural and academic world, our goals can be more challenging to measure. (Did someone learn? Was our audience inspired?) By using structured evaluation practices and engagement metrics, we can better define our ROI.
This panel will explore how to translate your technical/online/multimedia project's goals and expectations into meaningful parameters that will help define your "ROI" and better understand how to engage your online visitors.
Link to presentation on SlideShare:
Ryan, Stories and Numbers: A Framework for Measuring Engagement
Doing More with Less: Resources for Museum Professionals
Chair: Anne-Marie Millner, Manager, Professional Development and Digital Resource Management, Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN)
Participants: Nick Poole, Chief Executive, Collections Trust; Ingrid Mason, National Project Manager, Collections Australia Network; Paul Marty, Associate Professor, College of Information, Florida State University
Museums professionals the world over struggle with the creation, management, and preservation of digital content. Have you ever wondered if someone in another museum is struggling with (or has already solved) the same problem that you are having? What technical tools are available? How have other museums done this? How do you find the resources and people to help?
The panel will explore the ways in which organizations in Canada (CHIN), the United Kingdom (Collections Trust), Australia (Collections Australia Network) and the USA (MCN) help their stakeholders find answers to shared questions.
CHIN's Professional Exchange, for instance, provides resources to enable the creation and management of digital heritage content. The Collections Trust provides access to best practices, training, and skills development opportunities, and Collections Australia Network provides online resources which help museums to get their message out in the electronic media.
MCN is currently studying queries posed to MCN-L, the results of which will be used to develop a knowledge base for a dynamic new online resource for museum IT professionals.
This panel session will provide an overview of what MCN, CHIN, Collections Trust and the Collections Australia Network are currently doing to help their members solve common problems. Session participants will learn what existing international resources are already available to meet their needs, and will be asked to provide feedback and suggestions to assist in the development of the new MCN online knowledge resource!
Download conference presentations:
Mason, Collections Australia Network: A Community of Practice (2.5 MB PDF)
Milner, CHIN Resources for Museum Professionals panel discussion (3.0 MB PDF)
Data Storage and What to Do About It
Chair: Dwight Bailey, Director of Museum Technology, Harn Museum of Art
Participants: Michael Webb, Director, Information Technology and Audio Visual Services, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; Yvel Guelce, Director of IT Operations, Indianapolis Museum of Art
Many museums are experiencing explosive growth in data and storage requirements due to increased use of technology, coupled with a variety of digital initiatives such as digitizing museum collections, podcasts, videos/videocasts, virtualizing objects and environments, and a variety of research producing mixed digital media products. While these digital initiatives are welcome, exciting, and a necessary evolutionary step for cultural institutions, often storage solutions are reactionary, resulting in a constant struggle to provide, manage, maintain, and plan for adequate storage through the data lifecycle.
This session proposes methods to help institutions understand how and where data is generated, determine growth rates and data retention and retrieval requirements, and present strategies and technologies for managing data lifecycles and implementing effective storage solutions. Presenters will address these topics by demonstrating their institutional approach to storage challenges and the solutions they implemented. The goals of this session are to help cultural institutions evaluate the scope of considerations needed for planning, managing, or implementing effective storage solutions, leave attendees with a framework for improving storage at their institutions, and provide a glimpse of how these challenges are currently being met at other institutions.
Link to conference presentation on Prezi:
Bailey, Webb, and Guelce, Data Storage and What to Do About It
Ramping Up while Scaling Down: Strategic Innovation in Challenging Times
President's Roundtable
Chair: Sam Quigley, VP for Collections Management, Imaging & Information Technology / Museum CIO, Art Institute of Chicago
Participants: Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy, Smithsonian Institution; James Maza, Chief Technology Officer, The Walters Art Museum; Robert Stein, Chief Information Officer / Director of MIS, The Indianapolis Museum of Art
In this roundtable, museum information leaders will discuss how they are managing to keep worthy new initiatives alive even in these challenging times. Acknowledging the painful fiscal realities that constrain us all, the session will focus instead on how we can respond to the present environment in ways that don't amount only to wailing and retrenchment (justified and necessary as those respectively may be at times), but also by continuing to envision, plan, and execute forward-looking information strategies which serve our institutional missions. After opening remarks from current MCN President Rob Lancefield, who organized this session, former MCN President Sam Quigley will moderate the discussion.
