can museum allow online users to become participants?

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network effects enabled by a new generation of collaborative online applications. Ironically, the more bits of data that are added to these applications, the more useful they become as organizers and filters of Web content. Where once we were reliant on proprietary searches and directories to find information, now we can access and add to an unprecedented body of ―collective intelligence‖ built by millions of users one tag, one link and one entry at a time.4 Web 2.0 and Museums Of the various tools and concepts encompassed by Web 2.0, a few stand out as having particular relevance for museums. One such tool is folksonomy, the application of user-supplied subject terms—known as ―tags‖—to describe everything from webpages to works of art.5 Proponents of folksonomy argue that allowing users to describe online content in terms that make sense to them, rather than relying solely on organizing principles imposed by others, will make that content more retrievable, useful and meaningful to the audience. Its most enthusiastic supporters add a countercultural flavor to the debate, as voiced by technology commentator David Weinberger: ―Folksonomies stick it to The Man. . . . Even when the experts do a good job—as they usually do, because they‘re experts—it is still an implicit statement that someone else‘s way of thinking is better than yours.‖6 Naturally, the ―experts,‖ trained in systematic descriptive methods that have been honed and developed over centuries, have a different opinion. In their view, folksonomy opens the door to idiosyncratic, inconsistent, irrelevant or simply incorrect subject terms, undermining the usefulness of any index that is created.7 A collaborative research project, known as steve, has set out to study the potential of folksonomy for art collections in hopes that it will increase public access to works of art and improve the experience by encouraging personalization and multiple points of view.8 Using the Web to build relationships with and among users is another area in which museums have been experimenting for years. Web 2.0 tools give museums additional opportunities to build online communities, both on their own websites and on third-party sites. Many museums are experimenting with weblogs, chats, social networking and other outreach tools. Because most successful social networks emerge in an organic, collaborative process, museums have found that it takes more than just a token institutional commitment to create a lively online community.9 While a few attempts have been successful, others are either underutilized or unsustainable for a variety of reasons. Wikis take the concept of user involvement a step further, by allowing users to actually contribute to or edit content on a website. The most famous example is Wikipedia, the community-edited online encyclopedia with nearly eight million entries as of this writing.10 Reaction to Wikipedia is mixed; some argue that its model of open and anonymous authorship, together with well-publicized instances of deliberate falsification, prevent it from being trustworthy as an authority. Even so, its breadth of material, up-to-the-minute responsiveness and sheer audacity as an enterprise continue to attract users and stimulate ongoing debate.11 Wikis like it have been used for a number of other collaborative ventures, from community portals to scholarly research. 2
Relationships of Trust At the heart of any discussion about museums and Web 2.0 lies the issue of authority. According to a 2001 American Association of Museums (AAM) survey on public trust of various sources of information, ―museums are the most trusted source of information, ahead of books and television news.‖ Respondents particularly valued museums as providers of ―independent and objective information.‖12 How is that trust affected if users are allowed to have a greater voice on our websites and even in our galleries? What is the proper relationship between professional experts and amateur enthusiasts? Traditionally, museum curators have been seen as ―stewards of cultural heritage,‖ providing not only primary research about material objects, but in recent times being expected to transmit a ―clear and faithful understanding‖ of their meaning to museum visitors.13 Some, even within museums, criticize this model as unnecessarily exclusive. According to one group of authors writing about science museums, learning is more likely when museums work with visitors to develop an approach that ―has realistic overlap with the audience‘s behavior, attitude and expectations.‖14 To do this we must allow visitors to be active participants from the beginning of the interpretive process, not just passive recipients at the end of it. In 1997, when AAM published the seminal Wired Museum, a debate was raging about the impact of public access to high quality digital images of collection objects. Would visitors no longer feel the need to visit museums? Would original artifacts lose their ―aura‖? Would the role of curators be usurped if visitors could closely examine objects and sort them in various ways?15 Today those concerns seem quaint, like the prediction that videotapes would lead to the demise of movie theaters. But museums and others are more worried than ever about how online digital content could be appropriated for questionable purposes in an era when savvy Internet users routinely mix and match images, music, videos and even databases to create everything from political spoofs to dynamic maps of UFO sightings. While some content owners recoil and sue for copyright protection, others allow or even promote the creative re-use of their content— witness how George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, has cultivated a whole new generation of fans by allowing and in some cases encouraging amateur spinoffs that have appeared online in recent years.16 Wired Museum contributor and informatics professor Howard Besser certainly hit the nail on the head when he predicted (with some regret) that the public would come to ―view culture less as something to © Mike Franklin consume and more as something to interact with.‖17 The reaction of museums to the freewheeling Web 2.0 atmosphere is no different than that of most other content providers. On its face it appears to be an unprecedented opportunity to show that museums are serious about community involvement and ensure that we remain relevant to 3
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Page 5 and 6: Museums play a crucial role in this
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