The Museu Picasso wins a Best of the Web 2010 award for the most innovative social networks project

This post was going to be a report on and assessment of Museums and the Web 2010, the annual MW conference held in Denver, Colorado, from 13 to 17 April, about which Conxa already advanced some information in her previous post. The conference brought together over 600 specialists from around the world to consider issues such as the uses and design of culture websites, the management of online collections, the construction of social networks in 2.0 environments and mobile multimedia resources for cultural institutions.

That’s what this post was going to be, but something happened at the conference which made us decide to change the focus slightly — something we are very excited about: the Museu Picasso won the award for the best work in the social media! Read more »

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The Picasso at the Museums and the Web Conference

For the third year running the Museu Picasso will be taking part this week (in Denver this time round) in the top-level international M&W conference, a real generator of knowledge and ideas about interactive museography, digital communication, mobile applications for museums, social media, the creation of content by the public and a host of related subjects.

In 2008 we ran a session at the Usability Lab presenting the then just revamped Picasso website. In 2009 we were asked to be part of the International Program Committee, which is responsible for, among other things, assessing and orienting the review of papers to be presented at the conference. And as we were going to be in Indianapolis, we decided to make a CRIT Room presentation of some of the improvements we made to the site in its first year of operation. This was an excellent way of publicizing the site — we even found comments on a blog from Sweden — and to cap it all we were given a prize for one of the best posts on the conference’s blog. You can read a report of MW2009 in Patrimoni Gencat blog. Read more »

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We’ve finally got the Collection online!!!

After more than two years’ hard work it’s a great pleasure to be able to offer a first online version of the database of the Picasso Museum’s catalogue, with more than two thousand works. Making the collection accessible online was one of the major objectives for 2009.

It is difficult to transmit the muddle of mixed feelings: first of all a high degree of satisfaction (almost emotion!), to finally see tangible results for such an effort put in by the whole team who have collaborated and opened up to the public a thorough knowledge about our collection of the works of Picasso. I will mention just a few of the functionalities that the system presents:

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Online learning: MoodleMoot’09

More and more, there are an increasing number of tools available that enable virtual or eLearning. For years the museums have been incorporating new educational ways. Really good examples can be found throughout the country, and these include the WikiDocentes del Guggenheim of Bilbao or the EducaThyssen in Madrid.

A few weeks ago took place the VI MoodleMoot in the centre for contemporary creation, the “Matadero de Madrid“. The meeting of users of this online teaching and learning platform has been organised into sessions of debate and workshops that have let the participants share knowledge: teachers, computer programmers and users have discussed future developments and improvements of the platform, as well as innovations in its uses and applications.

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How do you look after more than 900,000 visitors a year? Taking care of Visitor Services at the Museu Picasso

With close to million visitors a year, open to the public 10 hours a day, six days a week, plus evening activities, like all good museums the world over the Museu Picasso has a great team working in what tends to be known as ‘visitor services’.

The fact is that a million visitors a year isn’t all that much compared with the more than eight million who visit the Louvre, but our museum has something of a handicap in terms of its physical structure of five medieval palaces, connected to one another. A wonderfully rich historical heritage and an excellent example of secular Catalan Gothic architecture, with some wonderful details, the place is a bit of a maze, and it isn’t easy to guarantee a smoothly flowing itinerary.

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