An article that I wrote for the July/August issue of the Association of Science-Technology Center’s Dimensions magazine is now available online.  Appropriately for these economic times, the issue focuses on ways in which science centers can save money and do more with less.

The article,  Nine Free or Nearly Free Ways Museums Can Take Advantage of Web 2.0 covers a variety of Web-based services and touches on some of the open source initiatives that are now available to museums. I also list a number of inspirational examples, demonstrating how science centers and other museums are using Web 2.0 technologies. 

Just a couple weeks ago our small company quietly passed a significant milestone-we exceeded 100,000 pounds of carbon avoided. Back in May of 2006, we made the switch to wind power for 90% of electricity needs.  A month later, we became a completely carbon neutral company. We calculated all of our carbon usage and began to purchase credits from NativeEnergy. Each June since, we recalculate our carbon production including travel for business and to and from work. We’re now entering our third year as green company.

This year I won’t detail all of the calculations (you can see how we offset our carbon production in previous years) but interestingly, even as the company has grown to twice the number of staff, our carbon production (and offsets) have remain steady. Much of the credit for this lack of growth in carbon production has to do with the fact that many of us ride our bikes or carpool to the studio. Carlos, our system administrator has even made the move to an electric scooter. The Vectrix has a range of about 30 miles, enough to get to work, and after a quick charge, back home.  Sixty miles-per hour and no tail pipe!

To see more on how and why we became a climate neutral company, visit our climate neutral page.

As we mentioned in posts earlier this year, we’ve written and have now submitted a proposal with the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) to fund an open source initiative to develop software for computer-based interactive exhibits.  Our preliminary Website for the Open Exhibits project is now available at openexhibits.org.  The new site contains a screencast introducing the project along with a description of this planned project.

Also on the Open Exhibits site, you’ll  find results from the survey we conducted in April and May of this year. We had a total of 125 responses from 110 museums.  The survey results can be filtered by small and large museums, as well as informal science institutions.  You’ll also find  links to our Facebook group, YouTube page, and Flickr presence.   Please join us on these sites and we’ll keep you up-to-date as we  (hopefully) start this new initiative.