Museum as Distributed Network:

Sustainability for Small Gods

Museum ID Technology Colloquium

8 September 2010 Nancy Proctor proctorn@si.edu

Are museums a fad?

Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 2

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What is the Museum

in this Web 2.0 world of information on demand?

The Smithsonian Institution

The world’s largest museum & research complex

A Network for the Increase & Diffusion of Knowledge

• 19 Museums• 156 Affiliate museums• 9 Research centers• And a Zoo

More than 30 million visitors in 2009& 180 million ‘virtual’ visitors

Photo by Mike Lee, 2007; from the American Art Museum’s Flickr Group

Our audiences now access the Smithsonian through a wide range of platforms

beyond our walls and websites

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The Smithsonian has become a Distributed Network

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The Museum is a Social Network

Edward Hoover, 2010, from Flickr.

Non-profit network effects

Small Gods

Museum Metrics

1. Invaluable = highest possible quality

2. Public good = relevance & service for all

3. Forever business = must be sustainable

http://smithsonian20.si.edu/schedule_webcast2.html

Playing to the niches

Museums are very good at niches

• Niche collections• Niche expertise• Niche content

“It's possible to be niche and popular at the same time. – Natasha Waterson Royal Observatory

Idea by Grzegorz Klaman Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk,

Poland

Mobile is personal

and social

Think outside the audiotour box

From headphones to microphones

Oxygenate! Joanna Rajkowska 2006-7

Wyspa Institute of Art

Idea by Grzegorz Klaman Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk,

Poland