author SOR, Published in the newsletter of Culture - Management - Policy, Raabe Verlag, June 2010 In February 2008, Ludtke one the Luce Foundation Center Smithsonian American Art Museum Internet users mitzuentschieden that painting in the issued by art historians and other researchers visited frequently and publicly accessible repository should be. This sets up the staff of the museum's Flickr group Fill the Gap, which allows users to propose for the freedom of art on the walls, leaving the images that are on loan or restored.
Fill the Gap has a small but potentially groundbreaking step for the mighty Smithsonian Institution, the discussion on the changing role of curators and the public at the Web 2.0 era, the use of the Internet interactively, initiated. End of 2009, called the Smithsonian Institution an initiative under the name Smithsonian Commons to life. Within this initiative, applications and licensing agreements are developed, the other users to download, Distribution and mixing of royalty-free art of the Smithsonian collection on the internet eg on the personal internet pages or in social networks enable. allow
While social networking sites for potential new user participation, they can also help to spread misinformation or dubious opinions and to undermine the authority of curators. This applies to other cultural institutions, universities, publishing houses and newspapers alike: how to reconcile the institutional principles of the new opportunities in the electronic media?
"Museums are often afraid to lose control," says Nina Simon, exhibition designer, who published a book on public participation in museums. If anyone can contribute something to the collection, how are curators and visitors and deal with the potentially endless user-generated content?
The key will be to provide visitors with a set of rules for disposal, categories and themes, which are given by curators. Michael Edson, New Media Director of the Smithsonian Institution, said, that visitor attendance does not necessarily mean loss of control of the trustees: "I think that the public continue to respect the authority to claim the Smithsonian, authority and trust institutions these days but which is recognized differently -. Transparency, speed and visitor orientation "
Ultimately, the viability of Internet-based museum collections from the ability of curators to use technologies that allow visitors to participate without compromising the ability to judge the curators. "There is a difference between power and expertise," says Nina Simon. "Museums will always have the expertise, but should share power."
Follow the newly readable blog by Nina Simon http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/
