A hero of our time: the digital media director museums, digital networks and community software
MúzeumCafé 18.
If you attend a conference about the relationship between museum culture and the new media, at the latest during the coffee break you will certainly bump into the homo novus of museums, referred to as the digital media director. The person is usually in his thirties, is often engrossed in his iPhone and follows the cool college trend in his appearance, adding a hint of office dress code (for example, with a knotted tie over a retro T-shirt). While a digital media director is the symbol of a significant technological and cultural change, he or she struggles with the contradiction between responsibility and the image of a student-like appearance. The digital media director not only manages the digitalization of the collection and the homepage of an institution, but also maintains contact with the public, builds new online communities and connects the museum with the unavoidable players of the digital media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia. Although the New York Public Library is not part of the museum network it is in the vanguard of the digital revolution among the museums of New York. This is not due to budgetary reasons or to the fame of the institution, but simply because the New York Public Library appointed Joshua M. Greenberg as its Director of Digital Strategy and Scholarship. Greenberg graduated from John Hopkins and Cornell Universities. He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Science and Technology Studies in 2002. His job description not only includes turning the library into a digital institution but also a more precise mapping of the present and potential circle of New York Public Library users. Greenberg came to an agreement with Kaltura, a software company specialising in the creative management of video, such that the library’s visual documents, numbering around 600,000, would be freely available for users. The agreement is advantageous in a number of ways – the traditional institution can reach a broad range of people and its documents can become part of the new media life. Through Greenberg the library joined the Flickr Commons whose 42 members include the Smithsonian Institution, the Brooklyn Museum, the Getty Research Institute and the Imperial War Museum. The New York Public Library has served as an example for several institutions and as a result many cultural organisations have appointed digital media directors. Two worlds have met as this story has unfolded: the prestigious Smithsonian Institution, founded in 1846 in accordance with the will of James Smithson, and the community platform Flickr, set up in 2004. (A British scientist, Smithson decreed that his estate should be used to found the institution, although he had never been to the United States. The building of the Smithsonian burnt down a few years after its foundation, the flames consuming nearly everything that could have been known about the mysterious British founder.) The Smithsonian has a top-class digital media director, Michael Edson, who has the title ‘Director of Web and New Media Strategy’. He graduated from the Wesleyan University and since then he has worked in nearly all the areas of ‘museum and digital media’ from digitalization through computer games development to graphic design. He had already worked at the Smithsonian, his first job being to clean Plexiglass in the basement. Edson created the Smithsonian’s first blog, Eye Level, and the first alternative reality game to take place in a museum, Ghosts of Chance, which enables visitors to uncover secret codes and complicated puzzles with the help of a cell phone while walking in the Smithsonian. Several art museums have reacted to the technological and cultural challenge effectively and in time. For example, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) can be followed on Facebook and Twitter, it broadcasts videos on its own channel on YouTube, loads lectures on iTunes University and its blog is internationally popular among those interested in the museum. Private photographs made during a visit to the museum can be loaded on Flickr and with a bit of luck they can end up on the official website of MoMA. With a single click you can share contents on Facebook and other community platforms where your friends can also learn about your latest cultural experience. For many years MoMa’s Director of Digital Learning, Beth Harris, taught art history in a traditional way with the help of a slide projector before a visit to Rome made her question her unbroken belief in art history taught without recourse to wider means. The most exciting digital media decision of recent times relates to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, which is due to open for the public in 2012. Canada has not had a new national museum since 1967 and the content of the museum is also unique. Corey Timpson, the Design and New Media Manager of the new museum, was appointed on the same day as the General Director a number of years ago. Timpson studied interactive multimedia and graduated from Algonquin College in Ottawa. He spent eight years at the Canadian Heritage Information Network and the Virtual Museum of Canada.