The clearest, most interesting consideration to date of how social tagging and folksonomies apply to museum collections may be found here on the Museums and the Web 2006 site.

This week, Trendwatching reflects on the usefulness of virtual anthropology to market researchers. Trendwatching describes virtual anthropology as the process of collecting data, and especially visual artifacts, posted to the web by consumers. The author explains:

As consumers around the world pro-actively post, stream if not lead parts of their lives online, you (or your trend team) can now vicariously ‘live’ amongst them, at home, at work, out on the streets. From reading minute-by-minute online diaries or watching live webcam feeds, to diving into tens of millions of tagged pictures uploaded by Flickr-fueled members of GENERATION C in Mexico, Mauritius, Malaysia and dozens of other countries.

Why now? Look no further than many of the consumer trends we’ve been discussing for the last two years, with at the core a massive shift from consumers being members of the audience to active participants. Consumer generated content and rampant collaboration have created a web of insanely valuable content and context. There is now the web of organizations, and the web of people.

*snip!*

For the first time in the history of our still evolving consumer societies, tens of millions of consumers are pro-actively telling and showing each other, and you, what they’re feeling and doing in the broadest sense of the word, all in a centralized online arena, in real time (it has never been easier to upload your LIFE CACHE), whether it’s on (mo)blogs or on picture and video sites. They want to connect, to share, to create, to show off. Add to that a slew of new search engines helping you navigate through Web 2.0 (there, we said it), and the ability to link postings to personal profiles (TWINSUMERS) to put things in perspective, and what you end up with is a completely new way of observing, of keeping a finger on the global pulse, of inspiring yourself. Regardless of whether you’re a CEO, a researcher, a planner, an entrepreneur, a designer, an MBA or MFA student, or a fellow member of GENERATION C.

Check out the article for some excellent examples of how virtual anthropology works.

Museums and other repositories can also use these cyber-artifacts to their advantage. Three uses that come immediately to mind:

1. Gauging initial interest in a potential exhibit or program topic. Thinking about doing an exhibit on toys? There might be some interest in it, considering there are 44,000 photos tagged with “toy” on Flickr (and more than 184,000 if you search tags, titles, and descriptions) and more than 3,500 Yahoo! groups related to toys, including ones specializing in wooden toys and girls’ toys from the 1980s.

Members of these groups, of course, also may serve as excellent resources in locating artifacts and other resources for your exhibition. Yahoo! groups are free of cost, and most of them allow anyone to join and listen in on conversations among aficionados of this or that.

2. Incorporating into an exhibit a slide slow of related virtual artifacts, updated frequently. Take, for example, an exhibition of children’s toys from the 19th or 20th centuries.

(photo by Jason Mouratides)

Such an exhibit could be accompanied by a stream of toy photos. (You can search Flickr here. Better yet, search at FlickrLilli to ensure you’re only using photos licensed under the appropriate Creative Commons license. Be sure to give credit where it’s due through appropriate attribution.)

(photo by toybot studios)

3. Encourage visitors to your museum’s physical site and to your website to share their photos related to your current exhibit. Simply ask them to use a Flickr tag unique to your institution, such as “Museum-Of-Anytown-Toys”–and then provide a direct link from your museum’s blog or site to this tag search. Flickr is neat because users can leave notes about their photos, even selecting sections of a photo to highlight and caption. In addition, other users may comment and start a conversation about the objects in the photo.

You should, of course, draw further attention to the exhibit by selecting the best of these photos and commentary to repost on your museum’s blog. Pair users’ photos with photos of related items in your exhibit.

I’ve used Flickr for my examples, but there are other Web 2.0 services that also may prove useful to museums. Check out the Trendwatching article to learn about other searchable user-generated content.

Thanks to Skillful Minds for bringing the Trendwatching article to our attention.

This looks like a terrific workshop for anyone interested in digitizing collections (which then, of course, should be featured in your museum’s blog!): Digitization and Museums, put on by the American Association of State and Local History.

Details, from the AASLH website:

June 14-16, 2006
Fullerton, CA
Host: Center for Oral and Public History, California State University

July 26-28, 2006
Seattle, WA
Host: Museum of Science and Industry

August 23-25, 2006
Columbus, OH
Host: Ohio Historical Society

Cost: $200 members / $250 nonmembers for all three days; $70 member/$85 nonmember for individual day registrations.

The purpose of this workshop is to introduce archivists, curators,
librarians and other staff from cultural heritage institutions to the
range of issues associated with digitization of primary source
materials. This workshop provides an overview of key issues such as
selection of materials, physical preservation, considerations for
digital imaging, metadata and the resources required for responsible
sustainability of digital collections.

Instructor:
Jill M. Koelling, director of the Collaborative Digitization Project in Colorado and author of Digital Imaging: A Practical Approach.

Items on the agenda include, among others, defining an audience, legal issues, funding options, image capture, digital imaging hardware, and creating metadata records. There will be hands-on exercises included with the instruction.

MuseumBlogging.com seeks to provide the best information on how museums and related institutions–including zoos, aquaria, science centers, and botanical gardens–can use blogs and other online tools in support of outreach.

Along the way, we’ll discuss other forms of outreach, including exhibit, program, and curriculum development.

Turn to MuseumBlogging.com for analysis, insight, ideas, and news of the latest research and resources on institutions of informal learning.

Coming soon to this space: a blog about–you guessed it–museums and blogging.

Check back for updates, or better yet, subscribe to this site’s RSS feed.

More soon!