Videos from Shelf Life

Early in August 2012 I said we'd document Chris Gaul's exhibition Shelf Life by video. Here are those three videos, by the very talented Dave Katague. Enjoy.


Shelf Life from Chris Gaul on Vimeo.

Library Frequency Tuner from Chris Gaul on Vimeo.

Call Number Telephone from Chris Gaul on Vimeo.

I've also posted this here:
http://informationonline2013.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/videos-from-shelf-life/

FasterChef - Xmas Fairy Bread

OK, so this is my attempt at spreading (pardon the pun) Xmas cheer this year. No boring newsletter about what I did, but a useful visual feats for your eyes and stomachs. Everyone loves a cooking show on the TV these days, in fact on most stations that is all there is to watch, so I've decided to clutter up YouTube with even more mindless rubbish about food preparation. And it comes with bonus hygiene tips!

So, here we go, mind the step . . .

FasterChef - Xmas Fairy Bread

OK, so this is my attempt at spreading (pardon the pun) Xmas cheer this year. No boring newsletter about what I did, but a useful visual feats for your eyes and stomachs. Everyone loves a cooking show on the TV these days, in fact on most stations that is all there is to watch, so I've decided to clutter up YouTube with even more mindless rubbish about food preparation. And it comes with bonus hygiene tips!

So, here we go, mind the step . . .

Encouraging exploration in social media @ work

A friend asked me via Facebook what social media tools we've been encouraging staff to play with at work. (I used to say Web2.0 tools, but have now ceased using that term after reading something on Peta Hopkins Innovate blog .)
We could have gone with anyone of a dozen existing programs ranging from 16-43 "things" but decided to quickly tailor a program to our needs and our endorsed strategic directions for our website. Liz (our Web Manager) and I put it all together in super quick time by collaborating on the one Google Doc. It seems to have attracted enough keen participants and we are happy with the result so far.
So, here are our "ten things" (actually there are nine because thing #1 is an internal thing - applying for extended network access to Firefox browser, Facebook, YouTube, etc.):

1. iGoogle and a Gmail account (I know Yahoo is another alternative, but to keep it simple we selected Google);
2. Blogs & blogging (duh);
3. RSS and feed readers;
4. social bookmarks (we picked del.icio.us);
5. sharing presentations (eg. SlideShare);
6. social networks (Facebook & ArtShare, LinkedIn);
7. social media "things" (including: Flickr, YouTube & Podcasts);
8. wikis and Wikipedia.org; &
9. "other" tools and applications we invited participants to find and explore themselves (Zoho, Google Docs, Open/NeoOffice, CutePDF, Rollyo, LibraryThing, Last.fm).

We've used several CommonCraft videos (which I think are GREAT!) and Wikipedia definitions where available and useful to introduce each "thing" so as not to overload them with too many motherhood statements from us.
To facilitate all of this we are using Ning. It is another social network and we think it has been very helpful in facilitating: forum discussions, user profiles, blog posts, the formation of groups for projects and the hosting of videos. It isn't perfect (yet), but it is almost free (we pay a monthly subscription to get the adverts removed). Hopefully they'll eventually introduce a spell checker and some easy way to export useful discussions. It hasn't been made compulsory, but so far we've managed to get 52 staff involved - almost a fifth of our total staff. The groups we've set up focus on progressing small sub-projects such as Flickr Commons, ArtShare on Facebook, Copyright, our Digitisation Steering Group and Marketing. Just participating in our internal Ning network is itself a learning experience for some people.

Using iPods in the Museum

I heard an interview (online) today with Chris Alexander from the San Jose Museum of Art. They are doing some very cool stuff with iPod Touch devices and a wifi network in their museum. The interview is podcast on the here.
If you don't have the time to listen, these are the main points that I picked up:

• they are mainly using it for a current exhibition and also to feature the work of some of the artists in their collection who have been filmed at work in their own studios;
• they have a multi-use approach with delivery of the same material via many platforms using their YouTube channel, RSS, iPods that visitors can check out, a wifi network in the museum and as audio files on their website;
• they were originally using video iPods in "notes-only" mode, so they were locked down for use specifically in the museum;
• they are now using iPod Touch devices because they offer a better interface and more possibilities including the upload of user comments (not quite there yet);
• they deliver all content to visitors via a wifi network or website only available in the museum, so that saves synch-ing or updating 20-30 devices for new or changed content;
• if you don't have an iPod or iTouch you can check out one of 20 they have now and they will eventually have 30;
• other US museums experimenting in this space include MoMA (NYC), SFMoMA, Denver, but Chris says a lot of museums are looking at using the same technology;
• he said the URL for their online iPod content was sjma.mobi but on a computer terminal it comes up as http://www.sjmusart.org/m/#_home;
• Chris said they go into the artist's studio and film them working, but only one in 30 has declined their suggestion to do this and some of the artists have embedded their YouTube vids on their own sites too; and
• again he mentioned their intention to use the devices to allow users to upload their own comments about their experience.
  

I reckon this is a great model for us and many other museums. I'm not sure whether their wifi content will only work on Apple's devices and I think that might be a bit limiting in an Australian setting.
SJMA's home page is here: http://www.sjmusart.org/

Where I work

This is just a quick vid from Animoto. I was mucking around with images and music thinking about how museums could perhaps do less interpretation and use more music to create a mood or reflective environment. I had limited choice on the backing music to this short clip, so just picked what was available, but I'll try and find a better MP3 at home over the weekend.

Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards Using the Wiimote

Wow . . . just wow! Johnny Chung Lee is really clever. He has come up with a complete electronic whiteboard system that you can make yourself really cheaply. You can find the hardware and software instructions, including a very popular YouTube video and the software downloads on his Wii Project page here. You can also view a great demo of his new projects on TEDBlog here. (I tried embedding the video here using the code they give on TEDBlog, but for some reason Blogger didn't allow the video content to load.)

The only limits to what we might be able to use this for in museums are the bounds of our imagination.