On the 19th September we held the second edition of Ask a Curator. This international initiative emerged two years ago from Sumo, and it has a very simple aim and at the same time very effective: people from all over the world ask a question, and the museums and the curators answer. And all of this through Twitter under the hashtag #askacurator that in this edition once again ended up being a trending topic!
Hundreds of museums from various countries signed on, and this year from the museum we participated again by both answering the questions that the tweeters asked us directly as well as the general questions that many people published on the timeline. Lots of topics were dealt with: about the exhibitions, about the work and the studies of the curators and commissioners, about the economic situation of culture, about the importance of digitisation and the diffusion in the networks, etc – the list is very long! These are some of the questions we were asked:
How do you communicate digitally with the people who cannot visit you in person?
How do you combine the necessary diffusion about works and the author rights in cases such as that of Picasso?
For museums that have apps for mobiles, what evaluation do you make of their advantages? Would you recommend them to the rest of us?
This year’s figures that we’ve collected at the museum have generally increased compared with the 2010 edition:
• Questions sent directly to @museupicasso: 19
• Comments and feedback: 24
• Answers sent: 26
• Total number of mentions received: 43
• Total number of tweets sent: 47
And as it tends to happen in these cases, the initiative was also spread to other networks: Facebook, blogs and websites have echoed the event helping in this way to reach a wider public, beyond the habitual users of Twitter.
We value very positively the participation by both the cultural institutions as well as the tweeters, and this shows that the public is interested in things beyond the exhibitions that they visit, and that the museums are disposed to responding and sharing their knowledge. Until the next edition!
Cristina Martín
Community Manager
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