Smithsonian 2.0

It's safe to say the internet has been around for awhile. It seems almost cliche to talk about how revolutionary this tool has been, how it has changed lives, the world. I have had an internet connection in my home(s) for the past 13 years. There are teenagers who probably don't legitimately remember a time without e-mail, MSN Messenger and illegal downloading. MySpace is old news, Facebook is getting tired, the New York Times is almost bankrupt. Internet behaviour has already changed - welcome to Web 2.0. Or are we onto something new already? Either way, the internet is hardly new, and our world has been adapting for quite some time.

So why did I feel like I had jumped back in time while reading the Washington Post's Jan 26th article, Smithsonian Clicks-n-Drags Itself Forward? Great quotes like Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough's "With digitization and with the Web, we can see it all. We can see it all!" almost made me laugh out loud. Maybe museums do deserve the stodgy, old, static reputation they have earned over the years. It's almost sad that it took the revered institution this long to realize the power the web can have. The Smithsonian holds 137 million artifacts (and yes, you read that correctly). As with most museums, only about 1 % are on display, and that's only in the D.C, area. Fortunately, they are now realizing the great role the internet can play in reaching a wide audience, of all classes, in all cities.

The good news is that because it's the Smithsonian, they can afford to get the best. At a recent VIP weekend, Wired's Chris Anderson (he of the Long Tail) gave a talk - where he proclaimed that curators needed to "get over themselves." He argues that the Web has made them obsolete. He argues that the best curators are the people out in the Web who are passionate about their specialized hobbies. If the Smithsonian put their objects on the web, they could put out a call to attract these people - a theory that is very similar to Jeff Howe's Crowdsourcing. "There aren't enough of you", he argues, and I can only imagine the reaction among the curators in the audience.

The main message was that the Smithsonian had to join the 21st century, as much as this task may boggle the mind. I can't even imagine the day when the world's largest museum complex will get even one million objects digitized and available to the public. But they have reached the first step - the recognition of the internet's power as a public resource - and hopefully they'll be well on their way to keeping museums relevant into the next century.

In which I look at a museum blog

Eric Espig, one of the creators of F Blog, had sent out an e-mail on a Museum listserv asking for comments on his work. He and his partner, both museum studies graduates, were organizing an exhibit called Cold War Berlin: Life at the Breaking Point for the Diefenbunker in Ottawa, to open May 2009. And they are documenting the entire installation.

The first question is, why? Why go to all the trouble to create a blog and post about the everyday issues that come up while installing a museum exhibit? My first thought would be that they were first and foremost posting this information for themselves, as a keepsake of a large project they had put months of work into - maybe their first large self-designed exhibit. Reading through the posts, however, makes it clear that this blog contains great advice on the practicalities of physically transforming a space into an historical exhibit. It shows the background work that most visitors don't even think about. It shows that those wanting to work in museums must have a lot of extra knowledge, and special skills, that they may not have thought about before.

Did you know that most masking tape will only stay sticky for 7-8 days? Or that you should use a low V.O.C. acrylic paint in a museum environment? These two bloggers let the public know the best tips to create a maquette, how to write a curatorial essay, and where to get cheap exhibit cases (and what tools you'll need to disassemble them). They show how they created their title panel in Photoshop, how they changed their design for maximum visitor flow and how they created stencils for the walls.

Blogs like this can showcase one's skill and even passion in creating something for the public. Comments from blog visitors could add different ideas and advice to the new museum worker. And of course, all publicity is good publicity. The power of the internet has proven itself once again, and thankfully young museum fanatics are taking full advantage.

In which I share some news

An interesting article was brought to my attention through a Dan Cohen blog post the other day, though the story itself is from December 2008.

It is easy to forget that not every country, or government at least, is thrilled when new historical projects are dreamt up. In Russia, a human rights group called Memorial had been creating a digital repository concerning Stalin's reign of Terror. They had been collecting photographs of gulags, oral histories, artifacts and had been planning a 'Virtual Museum of the Gulag'. Unfortunately, masked men raided their office in broad daylight and stole over 20 years worth of work.

Memorial had been attempting to collect information from many small Russian museums, almost 300 of them, and wanted to help disseminate their important historical message in a more national way. No wonder scholars were outraged when they heard that the government was trying to stop their research.

Stalin is still a very controversial topic on Russia, and this story really raises awareness of how powerful even a virtual museum, or any type of information repository, can be seen as messengers of history. Museums are the key to public memory, and it's almost unbelievable that such a direct action would be taken to stop Memorial's work with Russia's non-elite population.

Read the original story from the Times UK.

In which I consider audiences

I was in Washington, D.C. for part of my Christmas vacation and, as usual, visits to the Smithsonian museums were our chosen activity. Washington excels at featuring interesting, important (and FREE!) museums set in beautiful, public spaces - I would suggest a visit to anyone interested. My father and I first visited the National Portrait Gallery, which we hadn't visited before. One large permanent exhibit they have is America's Presidents, and as we wandered, the text panel for a portrait of George Washington caught my eye:

"As the general who led us to victory in the American Revolution and as our first president, George Washington was often painted and sculpted. Everyone, it seemed, wanted the hero's portrait. But it is this portrait that stands for all time as the image that best represents what Washington meant to us when we were a new nation and continues to mean to us in the twenty-first century... This was the man who told us what this new kind of leader-an elected president-could be and whose maturity and resolve gave us confidence in our future. " [from the NPG website] There was also extensive use of 'we' - "We can see.." "We can say.." "We are lucky..."

I pointed this out to my father, who retorted, "Well, what do you expect? It's the US. Of course they're self-centred."

But it began to bug me. I couldn't remember being in a museum or gallery where the text panel used such familiar language, where it assumed that the person reading it would not only be American but would believe in such glowing praise of one historical figure - and in such poetic language! It really got me thinking - should text panels contain an omniscient, third person narrative or speak to an intended audience? How does a visitor, or tourist, relate then to the historical information when it is presented so one-dimensionally? Who decides who this intended audience should be?

A city like Washington, D.C. is visited by many non-American tourists - such as myself - and despite the fact I was in a National Gallery in the national capital, I was still surprised that the writers would focus solely on a receptive, national audience. I am not naive enough to believe that a text panel can ever be truly opinion-free - there is historical interpretation at all levels - but should it speak so personally, instead of trying to give facts? The website claims that "this exhibition lies at the heart of the Portrait Gallery’s mission to tell the American story through the individuals who have shaped it." But tell the story to whom?

In contrast, we also visited the National Museum of the American Indian, whose website states its goals : "To protect and foster their cultures by reaffirming traditions and beliefs, encouraging contemporary artistic expression, and empowering the Indian voice." The intended audience, for the most part, seemed to be non-Native people. Being a large, national institution situated in downtown Washington, this doesn't seem surprising. Even the website statement says "their cultures", showing that many of the people (not all, of course) behind the project were non-Native. Is this just because Native populations are in the minority? In that case, is the Portrait Gallery correct in writing with a majority audience in mind? What about the rest of us?

Do different museums have different audiences? To me, museums seem like one of the largest tourist draws in large cities, so narrowing to an intended audience seems detrimental. Even if a certain gallery has a narrow focus, such as American Presidents, is it right to lose the third-person, impersonal narrative that academic historians thrive on? Does it lose credibility? Or is it just a product of public history, trying to personally and emotionally interact with visitors and perhaps pluck a heartstring or two? But isn't part of public history gaining the interest of a wide audience, no matter the subject?

I am aware that many museums do have in mind the goal of educating a certain audience, for example when Native populations use the money gained from casinos on their land to finance an educational museum, mostly for their own people. Various national museums come to mind as well, which is why I was not surprised the National Portrait Gallery would be so glowing in their text panels re: important American figures. I believe, however, that the best way to portray their historical information would be in a less personal manner so as to include all possible audiences. Museums are there to educate as many as possible, not to make people feel excluded because they are not part of that group, nation, etc. I feel non-Americans looking for a more in-depth, more scholarly, and less personal history will be disappointed.