Sharing museum objects online is a practice most museums are implementing on a regular basis. However, with the evolution of social media, digital user expectations, and museum collections management systems (CMS), it’s not always easy to know where, what, and how to share. This post will provide basic guidelines for sharing digital objects from the museum CMS in museum social media.

In our digital age, museum digitization projects seem to always be on the agenda at museums. Until 100% of museum collections are online, there’s more work to do, and if a museum is in active acquisition there may never be a day when every object of the museum has a digital surrogate online. With so many areas of the museum collection to choose from, how do we begin to prioritize our digitization efforts?

Below are my top 5 prompts to consider when deciding the museum’s next digitization and cataloging project.

Many of the companies known for Museum Collection Management Systems (CMS) were founded in the late-1970s through the 1980s. Collections management system usage became common among museums in the 1990s with wide-spread implementation occurring by the 2000s. Early adopters have likely seen the migration from at least one CMS to another.

In his Adweek article, Millennials are Discovering Art by Ditching Museums for Instagram and Pinterest, Robert Klara asserts that “social media has nudged museums aside as the primary venue by which American consumers discover works of art.” Don’t let your museum be nudged aside!

There will, no doubt, be certain jobs and industries that will be dramatically impacted by artificial intelligence (AI). However, that can be said about virtually any technological innovation introduced in the past 30 years. A more interesting question might be, “How does the hype surrounding AI affect my career today?”

Photo: David Ohmer

Many of our Argus clients are feeling inspired by the achievements of Thomas P. Campbell, director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who among many things, is an advocate for digitizing museum content and publishing online exhibits.

Due to popular demand, we are reprising a webinar presented by museum evangelist and strategist Nina Simon, where she drew upon research for her book, The Art of Relevance, and offered substantive, creative, and inspiring advice on how to increase your organization’s relevance to communities you hope to engage. Join us on February 2nd and see how Nina’s advice applies whether you work in a library, a museum, a theater, a park, an academic institution or a corporation.

This is the third in a series of posts on IT and the information Professional. When I chat with information professionals and IT managers about open source software, they often talk about two key concepts:

• It’s free
• Bug fixes and enhancements come from the community

While both of these statements are true, they fail to paint the whole picture and hide some pretty ugly truths.