Today’s sessions are scheduled and posted at museumsnyc2012.thatcamp.org/schedule/. Enjoy!

Upload Junaio augmented browser for your mobile, so we can use it in workshop today.
www.junaio.com
See examples at war-of-1812-1814.blogspot.com

How can a virtual environment help us circumvent the authority of the curatorial voice? How can we connect materials between the galleries of an institution or between institutions? Let’s explore alternate forms of curation that break down barriers between collections.

Some Brainstorming Questions for our Session. Sat. 2:45

How do you link interest in scattered sites, through mobile phone “history on the hoof” using curiosity about one place to stimulate hook-ups to other remote sites?

How do you get material culture back into the world from where it was once looted, whoops, I mean , collected?

How can modern technologies dialogue with older artistic techniques in interesting ways?

How do you deploy digitized collections to do active things, picking up on “history translation device” potential of the mobile, so museum collections project into travel and field?

How can mobile be motivator so obscure topics — say War of 1812 — can quickly flash little-known angles and controversies that may engage further interest? (telling bits to hook interest in larger narrative).

Technology offers countless ways to enhance the visitor’s experience in museum galleries. As museums continue to search for ways to employ new technology, it is important to ensure that these technologies enhance rather than eclipse the collection objects on display.

As museum audiences, especially younger visitors, increasingly gravitate to the next shiny new screen in any given gallery, how can we maintain the primacy of the physical object? What museums have successfully used new technology to enhance the visitor’s experience, and how have they done so? What pitfalls should be kept in mind when considering the use of new technology in museum galleries? In what instances might digital materials serve as a useful replacement for an object too delicate to be displayed for prolonged time periods?

There’s sure to be a lot of great conversations this weekend – so of course we want to document them – both for with those who can’t attend and our own future reference. In the spirit of the unconference, the sessions are unlikely to have slides or handouts to share, so we’re looking to you, the campers, to help create the THATCamp Museums NYC bibliography.

There’s four ways that you can contribute to the TCMNY bibliography:

One is by taking notes on the sessions you attend, and sharing them in the THATCamp Museums NYC 2012 Collection in Google Docs. To better streamline the process, we have the following guidelines and requests for note-taking:

• At the start of a session, call for a primary note-taker for the session.
• Include the following in your notes
• Session subject/topic
• Number of campers attending and, if possible, names
• Photograph or documentary whiteboard or flipchart notes
• Track useful, relevant URLs that emerge
• Share your notes in a Google Doc in the THATCamp Museums NYC 2012 Collection and send them to info@thatcamp.org. Please include the date, time and subject in the document title.
• Anyone else who is taking notes consider sending them to the primary note taker and/or add to the Google Doc.
• Primary Note-taker Person: At the end of the session, please write a brief summary of the session and add that to the Google Doc.

The second way to share is to tag your pictures, tweets, blog posts, etc. with “thatcamp” and “TCMNY”.

Third, if you have documentation to share that does not fall into the above categories, please send it to elzi@bgc.bard.edu. It will then be added to the THATCamp Bibliography.

Finally, your thoughts about THATCamp sessions are valued! Please post your reflections on each session attended on this blog. Be sure and tag your post with “Session Notes”.

The really successful apps and services we see today do one of three things: provide something fundamentally useful to other apps, collect together the already existing data and functions of other apps, or provide a central place for gathering all your interactions with other apps and services. Think Foursquare, Instagram, and Facebook. Foursquare provides location data and check-in for many apps; Instagram uses Foursquare to map your photos as well as Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr to share them; all your check-ins, instagrams and anything else can be on your Facebook wall. The “ecosystem” (mostly APIs provided by all these services) allows these parts to sum into a greater whole.

Most museums apps feel like dead ends to me because they don’t really do anything. They don’t share very well (if at all) and they don’t interact with anything else, not even the institution’s own website. I think what we lack is a sense of the proper “ecosystem” for Museum apps and web services. Some parts of a potential ecosystem exist, such as Foursquare, but what are the missing elements? What could a museum provide that would make a check-in at a museum more than or different from a check-in elsewhere (or how could we use check-ins more to our benefit)? Easier membership? If we could get over cameras in the gallery, what could we add to Instagram? A way to attach object information to the photo? Foursquare can find all the pizzarias near you, but if object information could be attached to a photo that was that attached to a check-in, couldn’t Foursquare then find all the nearby Van Goghs?

What kinds of interactions are going to truly benefit museums and museum visitors, how do identify the missing pieces and then… how do we build them?

What are museums, libraries, and archives hired to do? Does this matter, and how does it differ from what they offer? I’ve recently been learning about Clayton Christensen’s work on disruption theory and it’s provoked some interesting questions about what job(s) people hire institutions to do. Here’s a link to a piece on the blog Asymco.com looking at technological disruption and change in the early telecommunications industry.

The theory comes out of the world of business methods, so why should we pay any attention to it at all? I think we should because of the broader implications that arise from it. The technology industry has been seeing an increase in disruption recently, and it looks like the effects are spilling over into other areas alongside the penetration of technology. I would like to take the time to think about what job museums, libraries, and archives are hired to do by their patrons and visitors, and if they face disruption by good-enough alternatives that might or might not be in the same business space (Wikipedia, Amazon, etc).

I’m by no means an expert on this, but I did attend a conference in Amsterdam on the topic as it relates to mobile computing. I’m interesting in seeing what people are worried about when it comes to possible replacements, or even if it is considered a problem.

Projects like historypin that geotag historic photographs have gained a lot of traction over the past few years. But what about geotagging other types of museum content, specifically 3D objects? Museum of London has geotagged a portion of its collection by borough (My London). Minnesota Historical Society just launched a geographic collections search (in beta). I managed to load roughly twenty 19th-century objects from lower Manhattan into historypin before their content manager told me to stop (they’re still up on the site if you want to check them out–zoom in to the area around Broadway and Park Row).

I’d love to talk with fellow campers about the possibilities of geotagged objects. Do you know of other museums that are currently doing this work? What would it take to geotag objects on a broad scale (across many museums)? What new information can we learn about our collections when we can see that they used to live side by side or down the block from each other?

I have a couple of different ideas which might be different sessions, might meld into other people’s session proposals, or might all belong in one session – you tell me!

Basically, I have an ongoing concern that current representations of material culture online are not sufficient. I worry that we’re already stuck in a model that makes more sense for documents and for 2D art than for three dimensional artifacts.

1. Thinking outside the box:

How can we reimagine websites for digital collections of artifacts in ways that transcend current models? We all know the current standard: you search, you end up with a list or a grid of thumbnails, you go to a page for a single item, you have one decent image of that item and some summary / tombstone-type text. Should we just be adding to this? More images, more information, more conversation? I’ve previously written about this as a need for “multiplicity.”

OR should we be considering new, completely different models? What would they look like? It’s hard to even imagine – but I bet as a group we could brainstorm some interesting ideas. Maybe some of you can share sites that are already transcending standard models.

What are the pros and cons here? There’s definitely something to be said for keeping a familiar interface so users are comfortable navigating through the information we have to offer. But how can we balance this with a need to better express the materiality of the objects?

then, another related issue-

2. Are ObjectVRs worth the effort?

I hope the answer is yes, because over the last couple years I have put quite a bit of effort into an objectVR project. Here’s a recent example from my project:

vcomeka.com/vccc/VR/1984.001/1984.001.htm

When I look at this object, I can rotate it to whatever side (and zoom in on whichever detail)  is most interesting to me. It would take hundreds of close-up images to view the same detail in a strictly 2D format, and would be confusing to understand where on the garment each detail fell. As I view the object turning, I have a better sense of its spatial presence. So, yes, worth it – maybe? My undergraduate students are lucky to have access to these real objects in our collection, but rarely is such access available on demand – and I realize that students at other institutions don’t have the same kind of access to such artifacts. I’m hoping that these digital surrogates can allow a student to engage in close looking not unlike how they might examine the object in person.

In my time working on this project I have come to the conclusion that the most “expensive” moment of the process (in terms of time and labor) is in the preparation – mounting the objects and setting up the lights. However, the same time and effort would have been required for a single front view photograph! If you’re going to spend all that time and energy to photograph an object, why not stick it on a turntable and photograph it from all sides, taking just a few more minutes?

Well, in the process of developing this ObjectVR project, I’ve found a couple of answers to the “why not?” but I honestly don’t think they’re very good ones. It has taken us quite some time to develop a workflow for processing the raw images into objectVR animations, and to publish them online. However, I’m hopeful that future stages of this project will move more efficiently now that we’ve worked out the kinks.

So, what do you think? Is it worth it? I’m happy to share details of my process and show more examples, including our custom settings in the commercial Object2VR software we’re now using (including the settings that hopefully make these work on mobile devices).

THATCamp notes taken during this Session can be found at ow.ly/b1czR

Session Proposal
Yielding to the omnipresent camera phone, most museums have had to change their no-photography policy (although still enforced in special exhibitions). Museums even encourage taking photos, featuring them on their websites and social media pages.

I would like to explore how photo taking and photo sharing practices have changed the gallery experience and the experience of art online. Do these candid snapshots reveal something that official collection photographs don’t? What do we need to know about fair use and copyright infringement? How do we manage all these images?

Here are some links to spark conversation:

At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus

At Galleries, Cameras Find a Mixed Welcome

Google Art Project and Google Goggles

Also –
Check out any museum’s social media pages including Official Flickr Group Pool and Facebook;

And see results of online image search for any artist:
( Picasso? – About 75,600,000 results in 0.12 seconds; Gauguin? “only” about 3,510,000 results; Beuys? 1,350,000……)

Archives and special collections used to hold documents and books. Then archives expanded to maintain photographs, film, video and sound. These additional materials are less permanent than documents.

After the 1990s or thereabouts, digital media enter the archive. If the great novel of 2001 was written on WordPerfect the software that runs Word Perfect is no longer produced. Today’s Stan Brakhage uses an IPhone. When the next generation of IPhones comes along, can we still watch those movies? What will happen to the digital “rough cuts” of Hollywood movies that aren’t blockbusters? We still have Leonardo’s sketchbooks, but the aging monitors used by Nam June Paik are endangered, even though they are only forty years old.

The preservation of digital media requires emulation and migration. Almost any medium can be preserved on a hard drive but the physical parts of hard drives wear out, and hard drives themselves may become obsolete. The answer may lie in cloud computing, but even then, the motorized parts of servers will wear out. Perhaps there are computer hardware experts here who can help.

Let’s examine the history of knowledge containers, because that’s what servers are. If we use today’s language to describe them, wax and clay tablets are knowledge containers. So are scrolls, palm leaf manuscripts, codices, and folios. They are old technology that was advanced when they were new. In our culture, the book was the preeminent knowledge container.As in the tablet, the scroll, and the codex, function, available means, and serendipity all played a part in the development and adoption of the book. In what ways have function, available means, and serendipity influenced digital media?

Just wanted to take some time out to that a few of the organizations who are helping to make THATCamp Museums NYC possible.

Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Since 2009 when it supported THATCamp Pacific Northwest, Microsoft Research has been a donor for THATCamps and continues to be an active donor for the THATCamp project. Beginning in 2011, MS Research has provided more than $10,000 in support: $1,000 for THATCamp CHNM 2012, $500 apiece for many other THATCamps, including THATCamp Museums NYC.

NYPL Labs is an experimental unit at the New York Public Library developing ideas and tools for digital research. A collaboration among curators, designers and technologists, NYPL Labs is dedicated to rethinking what a public research library can be and do in the new information commons. The BGC and NYPL have an established relationship that includes the Visualizing 19th Century New York project, and we are very thankful for the support that NYPL Labs was able to provide for THATCamp Museums NYC.

Lastly, we would be greatly remiss if we failed to mention the role of Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media in not only providing guidance and support for THATCamp Museums NYC, but also for giving rise to the THATCamp movement. We would like to especially recognize the tireless and cheerful Amanda French. The energy and commitment that Amanda puts forward ensures that each of these events has the support it requires to go off well, and she is one of the reasons for the strong sense of community that is so important to the THATCamp movement.

What are some things you can do, when you happen to hear a tour group leader spouting some blatantly inaccurate information at their participants? Whether it’s a creationist group visiting the evolution wing of a museum, or an Official museum tour where the leader was ill-informed about the topic (happens a more often than you might think), most people tend to leave them alone. But, what if you are the type of person that just simply can’t stand idly by?! I will propose a strategy for addressing the situation that is diplomatic (you can NOT be mean!), pragmatic (using utility as a motivation for changing opinion), and concise (you might only have 30 seconds to talk). We can compare its strengths and weaknesses against any other approaches anyone else might have.

Realizing that some of you might not be familiar with WordPress Multi-Site so figured I would make a quick how-to to get you rolling.  Here are the steps:

1. Go to the login page for the WordPress dashboard for THATCamp Museums NYC here (this is a link to open the address http://museumsnyc2012.thatcamp.org/wp-admin/ on a new page/tab). It should look like this:

2. Enter the username and password to the site that you received when you were made a user of the site. (Email me if you did not receive this info or have any problems with this)

3. Once you enter that information and login you should see the dashboard, which looks like this.

4. On the top left of the dashboard menu select Posts.

5. Now click Add New

6. You should now have a place to create a title for your post and add content. Enjoy!

The great thing about THATCamps is that sessions and schedules are proposed by and agreed upon by the attendees. That means that what we talk about and what we do on Sunday will be up to all of you, the CAMPERS. In order to get things started, you the people need to post proposals for sessions to this blog. This is where you get to express what you find interesting in the field of museums/archives/cultural heritage and technology and to . The more talk there is about the sessions prior to THATCamp Museums NYC, the faster we can get going on the Saturday morning, so please join in and help us out!

Here are some topics from your applications to get your brains started:

• Digital Pedagogy in Study of Art History and Material Culture
• Best Practices in Institutional Digital Strategies
• Digital Repatriation of Aboriginal Objects
• Connections Between Digital and Physical Objects
• Game-based Approaches within Museums
• Digital Archiving and Preservation of Photographic, Performing and Multi-media Arts
• Integration of Object Data and Bibliographical Data
• Copyright & Licensing Issues Surrounding the Digitization of Art & Use of Art Images
• Linked Open Data-Libraries, Archives, and Museums
• Mobile Applications as Pedagogy and Museum Experiences
• Future of Visual and Multimedia Storytelling for Museums
• Application and Evolution of Metadata Standards

As far as process goes, you should all now have an account and username that will allow you to log in and add a post to this blog. The site uses WordPress and the process for adding a post should be either familiar or relatively easy to figure out. If you are having problems with that process or are ensure of just how the whole THATCamp proposal process works feel free to email us at thatcampmuseumsnyc[at]bgc[dot]bard[dot]edu. Alternatively you can visit the very helpful Propose a Session page on the THATCamp home site. There is a good explanation of the whole process there as well as good examples of posts from other THATCamps.

Lastly, remember that this is an UNconference. Creative, out-of-the-box, and even fun and playful ideas are in play here, and the more diverse the sessions the more enriching the whole experience will prove to be for everyone.

I realized that I emailed all the registered attendants and Tweeted that the workshop information was available but did not post it to the THATCamp Museums NYC blog, so here it goes. Workshop topics, instructors,and scheduling was finalized last week and we now have a fabulous slate of workshops from an esteemed group of instructors. Details about the workshops can be found at here and schedule information can be found here. We would like people to register for each workshop via thatcampmuseumsnyc[at]bgc[dot]bard[dot]edu. Registration will initially be limited to people accepted to the conference, but there is a small chance that we may be able to open up a few slots to the wider public as we draw closer to the conference. So, if you are unable to make it to Saturday and Sunday you may still be able to join us on Friday. Pay attention to this site and to @THATCampMuseums for more info.

Once again thanks to all the instructors for volunteering your time, and we look forward to seeing everyone in two weeks.

It took just a little more than a week, but THATCamp Museums NYC filled up sometime early this morning. It has been really great to see such an instantaneous level of interest manifest itself and as I have tweeted the range of interests, skills, and professions in the registered pool is really something to behold. Looks like it will be a wonderful weekend with lots of great conversations.

For those of you who missed registering in time, you can still get on the wait list here. As spots open up due to cancellations we will notify you if your registration has been accepted.

Keep tuned to this site for more info about workshops (almost finalized) and other details as we get closer to the conference and see you in May.

We opened registration up this afternoon for THATCamp Museums NYC, so now is your chance to join in the fun before we fill up. To register fill out the form on the Registration page and we will email you with information regarding the status of your registration as soon as possible. We will be accepting the first 90 registrants so time is of the essence. If you register and do not make it within the first 90, we will put you on the wait list and inform you if there is a change.

Look forward to seeing you all and remember to email me at thatcampmuseumsnyc[at]bgc[dot]bard[dot]edu or the reach me via Twitter @THATCampMuseums.

We can now officially announce that registration for THATCamp Museums NYC will open on April 2nd. We will be accepting registrants on a first come first serve basis and have room for 90 participants, so sign up as soon as possible once registration opens. When you register you will receive an email that your registration has been accepted and then another email confirming that you registered before the conference filled up if you are one of the first 90 registrants. More specific information about the registration process will be made available the 2nd.

Some other questions you may have about registration and the upcoming THATCamp:

How much does it cost to register for this thing?
Nothing. That’s one of the great things about THATCamps, registration for them is always little or nothing, which is a great way to open up the participant base to as wide a group as possible.

Who can register for THATCamp Museums NYC?
Anyone really. While this THATCamp was envisioned as regional and museum-centric, it is always great to have eager voices from outside of NYC and even from other fields. Just know that because the majority of the community will be local museum/cultural heritage folk that conversations and sessions will skew that way.

How do I keep up with everything about THATCamp Museums NYC?
We encourage all applicants, participants, organizers, and onlookers to sign up for a Twitter account and follow news, announcements, discussions, and general hype coming from our profile (@THATCampMuseums) and the global THATcamp hashtag (#thatcamp). Also, if you don’t already have one, go sign up for a Gravatar account.

Who do I contact with any questions about registration, travel, etc.?
You either send a message to our Twitter profile (@THATCampMuseums) or email us at thatcampmuseumsnyc[at]bgc[dot]bard[dot]edu.

What kind of workshops will be offered?
We will be making another announcement in the next week or so about workshops happening on the Friday before the conference on May 18th. It looks like we will have a really strong lineup, but are looking to continue to expand the offerings, so if you are interested in teaching a workshop drop us a line at the email above about any idea you might have for a workshop you could teach. Also, let us know if there are any tools or methodologies you might be interested in a workshop on and we might be able to drum

That’s all for now. Looking forward to seeing everyone in May!

I was emailing with the fabulous Beth Harris(@bethrharris) of Smarthistory fame about THATCamp Museums NYC the other day and she was interested in knowing who was coming and what motivated this particular unconference. I figured that I would share my response here because it is a good summary of just what this THATCamp will be all about and why it will hopefully have a significant impact on the NYC scene.

“The last time I went to THATCamp Prime down at George Mason I was thinking that the unconference model would suit a lot of the work being done by humanists in the New York area and that it was a shame that no one had hosted one in the city yet. I realized that part of the problem is that New York is such a massive place that doing a regional conference and limiting it to 100 people would be difficult. So, I started thinking about what smaller communities we interact with here at the Bard Graduate Center that would benefit from the collaboration, networking, and resource sharing that unconferences are so good at promoting. What came to mind was that through the BGC’s connections to a lot of different museums I find that many technologists and researchers at museums are often trying to answer the same questions in isolation because of the size or operational nature of their institutions. This seemed like a great waste of time as there was no need for them to each recreate the wheel on different projects when they would be better off working together and sharing solutions. So, I came to the realization that those in the museum community of NYC who are interested in the implementation of technology could use a gathering where they could hear what other people were working on, find collaborators and strengthen the NY cultural heritage and technology network. Hence, THATCamp Museums NYC. Although I don’t know who will be participating as of yet, I’m hoping that we get a wide range of participants with an equally wide range of skills and interests, but focused on the application of technology in museums and other cultural heritage institutions. The unconference structure will mean more conversation and less long presentations, so hopefully a lot of people will be able to actively participate, get involved, and get a lot out of the weekend.”

Writing that up for Beth got me really excited for an event that is now less than two months away. This week I will be announcing a lot more information about the upcoming unconference, including the opening of registration and a list of probable workshop topics and instructors.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in May and remember to let us know if you have any questions via the email thatcampmuseumsnyc[at]bgc[dot]bard[dot]edu or the Twitter handle @THATCampMuseums.

When: May 19-20 (workshops on May 18)

Where: The Bard Graduate Center

What: THATCamp Museums NYC 2012 is an unconference that will bring together the many people in New York City working with digital technology on material culture and art history in museums, cultural heritage institutions, and universities. The Bard Graduate Center, which has collaborated with many of these institutions throughout the city, is happy to host this gathering and provide a place for like-minded individuals to build communities that can share information and their experiences with different platforms and technologies.

Information will be popping up on Twitter (@THATCampMuseums #THATCampMuseumsNYC) and keep your eyes on this site for further announcements about registration and details about dates and possible workshops.

Inquiries can be directed to thatcampmuseumsnyc[at]bgc[dot]bard[dot]edu.