Discussing Wikipedia & Museums at the Picasso in Barcelona

Do you remember my remarks about the Museums & the Web conference? Well, we’ve just had an informal mini Wikimedia session here in Barcelona. This was prompted by the happy coincidence of three factors: the arrival of Liam Wyatt, who has just concluded his stint as Wikipedian-in-Residence at the British Museum, the growing interest of local museums in what is a real outreach phenomenon, and the dynamism of the Wikipedia community of Catalonia (Vikipèdia). Read more »

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Museums as part of society - and vice versa

As head of the Visitor Services department I have just spent three days visiting some of the most famous museums in the city of London - the British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Britain and Tate Modern.

In all of these museums I had the pleasure of meeting the heads of the various departments responsible for visitor services and of discussing with them issues to do with guided tours, audio guides, activities, accessibility, complaints, signage and tour management, including others.

Like the vast majority of cultural institutions in Britain, these museums believe that art and culture are not a luxury but a part of the DNA of a country or city and, as such, a necessity. Read more »

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5 ideas from “The Museum of the 21st century” talk between Directors of Tate & British

Yesterday in London, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum and Nicholas Serota, director of Tate, discussed about the Museum of the 21st Century in front of an audience of 500, at the London School of Economics. The event was coorganized with Thames & Hudson. While the announced podcast is not yet available, here are 5 ideas I’ve chosen from the excerpts publishes in Guardian and in Social media and Comunications:

1. Museum’s future lies on the internet: the relationship between institutions and their audiences would be transformed by the internet. Museums would become more like multimedia organizations.
2. The Museum will address audiences across the world and will be a place where people across the world will have a conversation. Those institutions which take up this notion fastest and furthest will be the ones which have the authority in the future.
3. The future has to be the museum as a publisher and broadcaster: there will be a limited number of people working in galleries, and more effectively working as commissioning editors working on material online.
4. The growing challenge will be to look for online capacity and encourage curatorial teams to work there as much as they do in the galleries.
5. In the past, there has been an imperfect communication between visitors and curators. The possibility for a greater level of communication between curators and visitors is the challenge now.

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