Museum and archives moving from Net to Networking

Olivier Nyirubugara (Zeist, 12 November 2010) -Recent developments in the cultural heritage sector show that institutions are gradually abandoning their conservative attitudes with regard to new technologies. Although museums, archives and other institutions have embraced digitization since the late 1990s, they have failed to take full advantage of the other possibilities that new technologies have put at their disposal (Cameron and Robinson, 2007: 174). This attitude is due to a long tradition and philosophy of 'closedness' and 'control' in which museums have operated for long. Museum studies scholar Ross Parry and his colleagues offer one possible explanation: 'Traditionally, museums bring fragments of society's knowledge and experience into a highly controlled environment, a closed system, within which order can then be found -- or contrived'(Parry et al., 2010:96. Emphasis added). This philosophy turned museums into what Parry (2007:102) called 'cultural freezers'. The current trend, however, shows signs that heritage institutions have taken a new direction by taking their collections from the highly controlled environment, from the closed system, into the uncontrolled and uncontrollable World Wide Web, first, and then into its Web 2.0 version. The Netherlands is said to be on top in this respect (De Haan et al., 2006: 5 ; 13 and 44; see also SNK, 2009:7), and the 12 November 2010 MuseumFuture! Connect conference in Zeist seems to confirm it. In the paragraphs below, I want to explore one of the most discussed topic during the conference -- the social networking media in the cultural heritage sector. I will do that by highlighting the way heritage professionals are striving to build communities around their collections, and by providing a theoretical perspective to that subject.

FULL ARTICLE:

http://www.olny.nl/Research_Recherche/Media_Studies/O_Nyirubugara_Museum_and_...

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• museum
• archives
• culture
• cultural heritage
• cultural memory
• ICT
• technology
• digitization
• networking
• Web 2.0
• social media
• Flickr
• Twitter
• facebook
• Paul Rutten
• National Archive
• Museum Boerhaave
• Olivier Nyirubugara

[catherinedhanjal]

great video Oliver , thanks

[olny76]

@catherinedhanjal Cheers.

ON.

[catherinedhanjal]

@catherinedhanjal I have referenced this video in an article for ARC magazine in the UK.