I just have to blog about this app!

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ArtLens iPad app available from App Store

For all the irreverent comments made by friends over the years about Cleveland, OH there is now something to entice me to visit and see the place for myself. Just as the director tells me to in his TEDex presentation.

Sitting on my couch 3524 miles from The Cleveland Museum of Art I can be transported to a world class art collection thanks to the new iPad app ArtLens. Hat tip to @amyldale for bringing it to my attention.

The app is so good I had to blog about it. It has a good cross section of an impressive encyclopaedic collection amassed since the museum's foundation in 1913.

It is easy to be critical about apps, there are so many, they have great things that make us use them, but generally one BAD thing that infuriates and makes us complain. For example, the Reminders app will not let me see all my categorised lists in one place so i have to review each list each time. But it does sync with Outlook, not many others do that!

Carrying an iPad around an exhibition is not ideal and the irony of me singing ArtLens praise is how great an experience it is from my front room. I hope the developer and museum do not deem my enthusiasm as a failure, in the space I am sure the experience will be awesome but never must technology get in the way of the real object.

The reason I am evangelising is twofold;
1. This app has things I have been wanting in a museum guide for ages: tailored tours, self-build tours, optional extra context on works beyond labels, sharing buttons and augmented reality. Multiple methods of learning more with videos, audio and 'similar works' links.
2. It looks great and is easy to work.

Just this morning I was telling a colleague of the options technology provides to enhance the visitor's experience and benefit further from what they do and do not know. ArtLens gives choices and at no extra intrusion to other visitors.

Recommendations
My recommendation to ALL iPad users is to download and enjoy getting close to this great collection. Museums, take note, an app can be done well with enough thought and dare I say $$$$$.

To the CMA I say; include a note to say the additional download when first using the app will take "approx 10 minutes" to give the user a choice when to do it.
Add a feature to allow audio to be recorded to personal tours. Have a look at Soundcloud, Audioboo and Digisocial for good implementations.

WELL DONE!! You have restored my faith in apps in museums, they can be done well and can be incredible in the museum or in my pyjamas.

Curator enters the world's vocabulary

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What's in the name "curator" and is it spreading beyond the museum sector?

This topic has been ruminating with me for some time and there seems to be general chit-chat about it in the wider realm: Museums Association, MuseumNext, and more research shows the New York Times saw this trend in 2009!

With me, it started many years ago when Word 97 told me with a red squiggly line that 'curator' was not a word. Well excuse me, but my job title includes curator and therefore I know it; A. exists and B. is spelt correctly. A check at Dictionary.com shows it is in the American dictionary as the person in charge of a museum - not perfect but closer than not existing!!

I have also noticed the word is beginning to creep into more conversations, and I found myself recently speaking to someone at a party that the word 'curator' is actally going to make it big this year. I have done this in recent summers, "Gowalla is totally going to be big this year", "QR codes are going to be everywhere" and "this is Foursquare's year". So my new found party friend will be justified if they pay little attention. Seeing MuseumNext's tweet prompted more thought;



Digg is a news aggregation site which enables the 'crowd' to vote up (dig) or down (bury) stories gathered from across the web. Rather than trust CNN's editors the crowd curated the online news story based on users opinions and an algorithm by Digg. Everybody is a curator, they just don't call themselves that.

Mexico '86 World Cup Sticker book

 Panini stickers, Top Trumps, Barby dolls are all carefully collected, cared for and then shared, interpreted and displayed for a wanting audience. Heck, Google is curating the Internet as quickly as the content providers create the material. 

Current online tools enable individuals to become curators of their own digital content, creating, pinning or plussing what they like at source which is then transferred to their own page, thus adding to the woe of a site like Digg. We choose who to follow on Twitter, then create Lists and share what thrills us. The most obvious Museum of Me is Pinterest, choosing a theme and pinning content to clarify and explain it.

The recently aired BBC Wales show The Exhibitionists offers two people the chance to curate an art show in a gallery at the National Museum of Wales.

As with other areas of leisure the great democratisation has been happening, watch television shows on your terms, control where and what news flow you get to Google Reader, even listen to your phone messages in the order you want. We all need to make more decisions than ever before, Gladwell explains more choice is a good thing, although there is always another way to approach it as Schwartz argues. 

Google Art project enables you to curate your own art show after visiting many hallowed collections wordwide, then share your own curated collection. Are you interested in sharing your curated collection?

How long is it until 'curator' becomes used even more? Will the museum sector wish to distance itself if the word becomes too popular? Or, will museums take advantage of the rise in publicity and the digital link to capitalise and use it to bring management and public on board?

 

 

What is a museum?

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Challenging thought! I have visited museums for years, initially as one who went 'because it was the thing to do in Paris' or embarrassingly 'it's raining outside'. Now I am a 'trained' professional in the field meaning I have studied the history and practice of museums in self-named developed countries. What I want this blog and website to bring is a place for people who love museums, either as people who get paid for it, volunteer or visit. Are there any other places like this out on the Internet? I hope to deliver something different, new websites, new museums and a place of discovery for us all.

What do you think a museum is?