Museums and the Web

An annual conference exploring the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line.

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Mixing It Up: Developing and Implementing a Tagging System for a Content-Rich Website Which Uses Aggregated Content from Multiple Sources

Andrew Lewis, Victoria and Albert Museum, United Kingdom

http://beta.vam.ac.uk

Abstract

In 2009, the Victoria and Albert Museum website had a very large amount of in-depth content including museum content and user-generated features. This presented a challenge in connecting users with site content that they may not have been aware of. In January 2011, the Museum made live a beta version of its redesigned website which aimed to address this issue. The new site moved away from a hierarchical navigation model to a dynamic concept-driven one. This aimed to collect and present content relevant to the user's subject of interest. A central method in achieving this was the development of a tagging system to classify Web content so that it would aggregate as required. This paper looks at the reality of developing and implementing a bespoke tagging system that could be effective for users yet simple enough to use for staff who are not specialist classifiers. The human issues for staff in developing the system are discussed, with some early results and feedback from the early beta-testing period. It is hoped the paper will offer insight into what happens in practice when using tagging for real on a live website.

Keywords: tagging, content, staff, classification, management

Social Media and Organizational Change

Keywords: 
social media
Keywords: 
leadership
Keywords: 
management
Keywords: 
strategy
Keywords: 
audience engagement
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social media policies
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organizational change
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organizational structure
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social media coordination
Keywords: 
managing social media
Abstract: 

There has been great attention placed on how to work in the social media space. This includes how to work with social media in order to improve brand recognition, build a fan base, engage visitors, and expand programming. But you cannot accomplish any of this without staff members who understand how social media can be useful to their work and their institution.

Type: 
Paper - in formal session