museumsandtheweb.com - outreach

So You Want To Be an Artist? How the National Gallery of Canada Used Social Media to Connect with Teens

Gary G — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:58:59 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

socialmedia

Keywords:

teen

Keywords:

art

Keywords:

artgallery

Keywords:

outreach

Keywords:

contest

Abstract:

This session presents a demonstration of how the National Gallery of Canada engaged teens from across the country in an online contest, So You Want To Be an Artist? [makeart.gallery.ca] where they shared their creativity through social media. Teens were invited to submit artworks online and have their friends and family vote for them. The twelve works with the most votes were then exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada and a jury selected the top three winners. Inspired by the reach of current web and new media technologies, this program represented several ‘firsts’ for the Gallery, including using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) as a primary means of dissemination and communication. As a national institution, the Gallery is dedicated to engaging a diverse range of audiences, many of whom may never visit their national art collection because of where they live.

Initially conceived as a website targeted to schools, designed to make the collection known to teens and based on a theme determined by the Gallery, the project evolved to be open to all teens, about themes of their choosing, and leveraged their comfort using social media. In the spirit of innovation, risk-taking, and being visitor-centred, the Gallery expanded on its standard approaches to program delivery and experimented with social media in order to engage meaningfully with a national teen audience. From across the country, 126 youth submitted artwork online. These submissions garnered 22,000 votes on Facebook, and the contest website was visited by over 55,000 people. By April 2012 the second iteration of the contest will be well underway.

Participants will learn how social media can offer access to diverse audiences; they will become aware of potential benefits and risks in using social media as a method of community building; they will become more open to experimenting and taking risks with social media. Participants will come away with practical tips, tricks, and lessons learned about using social media in program delivery.

The demonstration will be of interest to new or mid-career museum professionals in interpretation and education, marketing and public relations, and web and new media who seek to engage with diverse publics, possibly over a large geographic area. It will also be of particular interest to those who are developing strategies for using social media to engage meaningfully with new audiences, and who – with limited human and financial resources— seek effective ways of leveraging existing networks of communities.

Insights from staff and participants will be shared. Lessons learned and questions raised will be linked to other examples of current best practice to reveal some of the new ways of thinking— about audiences, staff roles, and the value of social media—that can help move us towards being more responsive and inclusive.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations III

Site:

http://makeart.gallery.ca/index.php/gallery/

Authors:

Gary Goodacre

The NASA Night Sky Network & Its Benefit to Museums

j santascoy — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:02:01 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

The NASA Night Sky Network and Its Benefit to Museums

Keywords:

outreach

Keywords:

Volunteers

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

iPhone apps

Keywords:

online communities

Abstract:

In this presentation, we introduce factors that help shape a model predicting individuals’ engagement in outreach activities and the extent to which web-based tools support those outreach activities. The NASA Night Sky Network (NSN) may serve as an example for the museum community to create an online hub for exhibits and programs, as well as help museum workers understand individuals' motivation for outreach, thereby increasing the likelihood of successful recruitment and retention of volunteers.

The NASA Night Sky Network is a nationwide community supporting over 350 amateur astronomy clubs who conduct educational outreach across the U.S.A. at museums, science centers, parks, and on urban sidewalks. An example of how NSN clubs help museums is when the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers, a NSN club, set up telescopes outside of the museum for hundreds of visitors to view the moon and planets, enhancing the De Young Museum's public program called Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Bay.

One NSN objective is to serve the clubs’ outreach needs by providing web-based tools to reduce clubs' efforts in publicizing outreach activities. This presentation introduces findings from research conducted by the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI) in partnership with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) on clubs’ use of NSN website and services, and potential factors that motivate club members to actively engage in outreach. Telephone interviews with a dozen astronomy club leaders throughout the country in both mid-2010 and late 2010 indicated specific ways in which NSN tools such as a web-based interactive calendar, iPhone application, and widget were being accepted and utilized.

While research is still ongoing, an intended outcome is to introduce factors that help shape a comprehensive model predicting individuals’ engagement in outreach activities and the extent to which web-based tools support those outreach activities. Additionally, NSN may serve as an example for the museum community to create online hubs for exhibits and programs.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

Demonstrations IV

Site:

http://nightskynetwork.org/

Authors:

Jessica Santascoy

Victor Yocco

Berendsen Marni

Kenneth Frank

Vivian White

Rethinking Evaluation Metrics in Light of Flickr Commons

dd388 — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:16:59 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Rethinking Evaluation Metrics in Light of Flickr Commons

Keywords:

flickr

Keywords:

digital images

Keywords:

statistics

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

outreach

Keywords:

online image collections

Abstract:

Flickr Commons launched in 2008 as a platform for enhancing the discoverability of cultural heritage collections and for allowing users to tag, annotate, and repurpose these materials. The Commons now boasts 46 members and tens of thousands of public domain images. The impact of the project has been monumental. Many of the institutions involved can boast hit counts on their Flickr images that far exceed other digital collections. While many of the numbers are certainly impressive, it can be argued that they are one of the least compelling statistics.

What, then, are the most meaningful statistics for a project that puts library collections in a highly visible space outside the library's traditional confines? Some of our standard and more established metrics, such as hit counts, only illuminate a small part of the story – the bigger picture includes the myriad ways users have interacted with our images, by adding notes and comments, by including them in their own curated galleries, by tweeting them, and referencing them on their blogs. There are limitless possibilities for users to interact with digital materials and we should be developing metrics that reflect this landscape. This forum will examine multiple approaches to assessing the impact of a digital library collection that exists beyond an institution's borders.

Type:

Professional Forum - discuss an issue

Professional Forum on Rethinking Evaluation Metrics

Authors:

Dianne Dietrich

Joseph Dalton

Effie Kapsalis

Sebastian Chan

Michelle Springer

Helena Zinkham

Paula Bray