We’ve just finished our first survey of museum blogs and community sites. The complete report is available as a PDF at the bottom of this post.
We found 26 sites and collected basic information about each. The sites range from Art Museum blogs to Science Museums community-sites to personal blogs about museums. Here’s a portion of the Summary and Methodology from the Survey…
The purpose of this survey was to get a sense of the level
of activity within the museum field when it comes to
blogging and developing community-based sites. While
conducting research for various papers and presentations,
we couldn’t find a single source anywhere that contained
all of this information.A number of sites included here were quite helpful in
pointing us to additional museum blogs and sites. In
particular, the Walker New Media Initiatives Blog (one
of six that the Walker Art Center Hosts) and Mario Bucolo
Museums Blog, were great sources. To a certain extent
these two very different blogs are representative of
what we found. The Walker Blog is over a year old, is
made up of six separate blogs, has multiple contributors,
and is sanctioned by a museum. Mario Bucolo’s blog is
just two months old and is a personal blog focusing on
museums. As you’ll see, the sites listed here are quite
diverse in how they operate and who they serve.In terms of sheer numbers, museums have been slow to
develop blogs and community sites. Along with following
links from site to site, we searched various Web and
blog search engines. We found a total of 26 sites that
are either produced by museums for the public, or that
focus on what museums do. Technorati, a popular blog
search engine claims it searches 29.6 million blogs (as of
March 3, 2006). Apparently, museum blogs are literally
one-in-a-million.
The complete report is available below:
Museums: 2.0: A Survey of Museum Blogs & Community Sites
[...] For this update on the state of museum blogging I’ll just refer to a post on Ideum by Jim Spadaccini. He has surveyed several museum and museum related weblogs and listed them in a downloadable PDF. [...]
[...] My friend and colleague Rob Lancefield from Wesleyan U just alerted me to a museum blog survey by ideum, a company specializing in new media installations at and for museums. The short report is memorable for finding a total of 26 blogs, despite the fact that they counted the 6 Walker Art Center blogs as only 1 entry. The report quibs: Technorati, a popular blog search engine claims it searches 29.6 million blogs (as of March 3, 2006). Apparently, museum blogs are literally one-in-a-million. [...]
Jim, thanks to your work I integrate the list in my blog and I add 5 more from The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts blog. Now entries are 52 plus my blog.
Mario
Hello! I just wanted to let the blogosphere know that I’ve started writing a new blog on museums called, “Museum Madness”. The blog can be found at http://www.museum-madness.blogspot.com/
Everyone,
We’ll posting a follow up in a couple days. There’s lot’s to report.
Jim
Everyone, please consider the idea to meet during AAM/Boston, will be a good occasion to share experience, comments, ideas and to illustrate to collegues that want to create a museum blog how to do on the base of our experience.
I post the invitation on my blog, so comments there to share the meeting idea.
Mario
Interesting list and nice to be included in it! One small note, I’m not sure that Museums and the Web is running anymore – you might want to investigate?
[...] We got quite a response from our “Museum Blogs and Community Sites Survey” last week. [...]
[...] New blogs. A few museum blogs that did make our Survey of Museum Blogs or the follow up have contacted me. Australia’s Powerhouse Museum has a fresh + new blog that has been posting since May 2005. Kulturelle Welten is a German language blog about museums. Finally, the Museum Detective joins us from New Zealand. [...]
[...] Although Science Buzz uses a variety of tools to meet its goals, a lot of attention was paid to its blog. You don’t find blogs on too many museum websites. I suspect part of this is due to the quick, informal reputation of blogging, which runs counter to the slower, more rigorous processes of exhibit curation and peer-reviewed publishing that most museums value. And part of it, I’m sure, is that most museums have far more goals than resources, so you won’t find too many administrators willing to commit staff time to writing or maintaining a blog. [...]
Hi there. I just came upon your blog post because I was actually asking myself this same question “How many museums/galleries have blogs”. I found your report very interesting and I agree that museum blogs are “one in a million” and it’s a shame! The notion of Web2.0 and Blogging has such potential as a vehicle for timely communication among “like minded people”.
I’m interested in this topic because ArtLOOK is a bit unique as it focus’ on web design and online marketing for artists, galleries and art concerns. ArtLOOK has just posted, on April 19th, a brief article on “How Blogging Can Help Your Art Career”. Of course, this info serves museums as well.
I have to tell you that 7 years ago when i started my business, I was told by a museum curator that my intention of creating web design for galleries, and museums was “very pedestrian”. Well not so anymore with nearly every gallery/museum having an online presence. Perhaps as you say…next year museum blogs will not be so “one in a million”. I’d be very interested in any follow up/discussions/meetings you have on this matter.
Thanks for your comments, I enjoyed ArtLOOK and I’ve added it to my favorites at Technorati. We will have more to report about museum blogs and I will mention your blog in our next round up. All the best.
Thanks Jim!
[...] We’re happy to announce that museumblogs.org is up and running. Over the last couple of months, off and on, we’ve been working on putting the site together. The original idea came from our Survey of Museum Blogs, the follow Up, and numerous conversations and ideas that came out of the Museums and Web conference. (We posted some of those ideas here, the Walker’s New Media Initiatives Blog posted about it here with numerous comments.) [...]
[...] So I did some surfing this weekend and it turns out that “museoblogging” is this whole new thing. One inspiring find was Jim Spadaccini’s blog with roundups of museums, blogs and community sites, and in particular his powerpoint for a presentation he gave back in March on Museum and Web 2.0. My other favourite find was the Walker Art Centre’s blogs, which are marvellous. They even blogged about their guidelines for their blogging staff. Here’s a great summary of what a museum blog might have that would make it worthwhile: something more personal, something thats not going be on the official website. Perhaps press/reviews regarding exhibitions from publications, reviews of staff, of programming and/or performance, curatorial insights, anecdotes about installation, execution, general thoughts, images, artist interviews that are included in current exhibitions, etc. Anything that supplements and rounds out the programming and, perhaps, includes the viewer. Blogs can make the possibilities of what an institution can do endless and with ease. (Caryn Coleman) [...]
Hi,
I just started a blog about contemporary museum design. I will now check out all the various blogs on museums out there. I agree…. not enough of them. My site Architecture for Art is hoping to build a community of museums and ideas about art and space. We’d love to have you join us in this endeavor.
we’re new….. so we would love feedback on what you would like from us. In the meantime, I will check out all these comments and go to other blogs.