NC Digest 14 June, 2010

• Wave Hits B2B Media Part 3, Semantic Future – Semantic Web
  Wave # 1: Search. Wave # 2: Social Media So, it is time to jump on the next wave, Open Data, Semantic Web, LinkedData, whatever we want to call it… Social media has created masses of new information that flows in real time to and from our mobile devices. That is great, but it is also a problem. Our poor befuddled brains need a bit of help figuring out which bits of that fire hose will help us. We don’t have an information overload problem, we have a filtering problem. Semantic technology is key to that filtering. But great writers and editors are also needed! [[Not a single use of Curator! Doubleplusgood]] 1.Top Tier Experts. 2. Dedicated Offshore. 3. Crowdsourced On Demand Work. 4. Semantic Aggregation Technology. 5. Open Data.
• Putting an Exhibit online vs. Creating an Online Exhibit « the empty room
  The mobility of social media interaction disperses the public awareness of living histories and recognizes the role of the individual as a contributing element to the museums developmental process. “Moving elements in a city, and in particular the people and their activities, are as important as its stationary parts. We are not simply observers of this spectacle, but are ourselves a part of it, on the stage with other participants."
• How Museum Curators and Directors Reject Donations | By Daniel Grant – WSJ.com
  At other times, a gift that the museum doesn't want at all may be accepted "as a commodity," specifically designated for sale after a three-year period (to qualify as a tax-deductible donation by the Internal Revenue Service). A "commodity," he stated, is an "in-house term" for an object that is not registered as a piece of art ("like office furniture") but segregated in its own storage area awaiting an opportunity to be sold. These sales "raise a modest amount of money" for the institution. [[You can't do this in the UK.]]
• Museums and the DRM « Dan Cull Weblog
  One of the essential components of the museum approach to disability detailed within these publications is the exploration of the Social model of disability, as a counterpoint to the medical model that permeates society. The other incredibly significant aspect of these publications is the framing of social activism as a museological method… However, when we consider museums approaches to disabled people, we do not see the issue of representation or inclusion in decision making protocols, instead we see a continuation of approaches of paternalism demonstrated by a focus exclusively on ‘access’: ramps, wheelchair accessible text rails, brail signage, etc. All of course needs that must be fulfilled, but, none of which challenges the underlying oppression of disabled people within society, and in fact by focusing on such approaches as if they were a burden museums in fact continue the oppression. [[Great post, Dan]]
• Patrik Schumacher on parametricism – ‘Let the style wars begin’ | The Critics | Architects Journal
  Every architectural project is immediately exposed and assessed in comparison to all other projects. Global convergences are possible. This does not mean homogenisation and monotony… Parametricism implies that all architectural elements and complexes are parametrically malleable… Parametricism aims to organise and articulate the increasing diversity and complexity of social institutions and life processes within the most advanced centre of post-Fordist network society. It aims to establish a complex variegated spatial order, using scripting to differentiate and correlate all elements and subsystems of a design.
• ExhibiTricks: A Museum/Exhibit/Design Blog: Museum "Face Lifts"
  Paradoxically, even though the buildings have doubled or tripled in size, there seems to be less inside than in the old buildings, not more. They've become unintentional "air and space" museums of a sort, because they're filled with more "air" and "space" than exhibits or activities.

  And the staff to run the new place?

  Many of them have been "furloughed" or "downsized" or just "fired" which makes one wonder about the future of a much larger physical plant.

• Center for the Future of Museums: The Whole World a Museum?
  This UK-based project essentiall is encouraging people to catalog objects and share the associated stories in a public database. A prototype of the universal, dispersed, publically curated collection?… Will objects that have their own "accession" and "catalog" records be less likely to be discarded, and more likely to be treasured and passed to a new user?
• Can a university museum also be a science communication unit?
  However, Medical Museion is currently reframing its identity, from merely a ‘museum’ to an institution for science communication. The point of departure for this identity shift is a growing dissatisfaction with the state of science communication. Traditional dissemination of science through mass media (either printed, electronic, or web 1.0-based) is no longer viable. Science communication needs to embrace the rapid emergence of the full spectrum of social web media (web 2.0), and many museums are adopting the practices of museum 2.0.
• A Learning Paradigm Shift: Cybergogy
  Cybergogy focuses on helping adults and young people to learn by facilitating and technologically enabling learner-centered autonomous and collaborative learning in a virtual environment. At the core of cybergogy is awareness that strategies used for face-to-face learning may not be the same used in the virtual environment.