JHFNotesUnit3

A few things that struck me:

--difference between the dumbness of "the crowd" and the collective wisdom of its individual members

--the difference between "the museum" and individual museums (with respect to institutional intentions, etc.)

--the huge contrast between the perfunctory quality of some user features (lack of use, people just testing them out) and the deeper engagement evident in other cases

General questions:

--What are the things people need from cultural institutions? Museums, libraries, universities

--What are the things they need from digital versions of these institutions? Different or the same?

--What will be the real, ongoing mode of engagement with cultural institutions, after it all settles down?

--What mechanisms have you identified in your own projects for initiating and then for sustaining that engagement?

--What mechanisms seem successful, or unsuccessful, in projects/sites you've used?

What are the mechanisms for establishing cultural authority at public institutional/cultural web sites?

Cultural authority:

Let's turn our attention away from "the museum" as a monolithic cultural concept, and towards specific museums

What's the cultural role of museums?

Why does the public want museums? what does it want from them? how does that change in the digital arena?

What does the public want from a museum web site?

(pervasive culture?)

What's the role of the specific boundaries of the museum as an entity? as a set of intentions?

--with respect to their own institutional existence

--with respect to the cultural property they house

--with respect to their location in a specific community

Brooklyn Museum

"Community" link:

--blogs, photo and video submissions, podcasts,

--discrepancy between literacy level/register of the exhibit prose and the comments

--"we want people to feel ownership of this museum."

British Library

--very activity-oriented: "things you can do"

--"your library"; ownership? personal investment, personal relationship?

--bureaucratic personality

LOC commons on Flickr

--searching interacts with items, not with topics or domains of the library