[MCN-L] Department name question.
Hi We've just started the set a new Image Library Services (iconoth?que in french)(under the IT and information division)at the Canadian museum of Nature. We will manage the standards for the generation, the documentation and the preservation of the all the CMN images (photos, drawings, paintings, etc.) including the old analogical images collection and the new digital images collection. We will also handle the internal and external image requests. We are also looking to set a new photo studio, however, this studio will be under research and collection division. M. Dominique Dufour Commis Services de l'information et des Technologies Clerk Information and Technology Services Mus?e canadien de la nature Canadian Museum of nature CP 3443, Succ D / PO Box 3443, Stn D Ottawa, On, K1P 6P4, CANADA (613) 566-4216 -Original Message- From: Sue Grinols [mailto:sgrin...@famsf.org] Sent: 19 f?vrier 2008 14:44 To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Department name question. Hi Jeff, We are the Photos Services and Imaging Department. We are made up of two photographers and myself. I Manage the department/photogs and handle RR requests for the museum. Our official titles are: Director Photo Services and Imaging Museum photographer Image Production Technician Sue -- Susan Grinols Director Photo Services and Imaging Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Ph. 415.750.3602 Fx. 415.750.2679 On 2/18/08 8:00 AM, Jeff Evans jfevans at Princeton.EDU wrote: All, We are renaming a Photo Services department here. Please reply with both department names as well as manager titles that you may have generated at your institution. Thanks in advance, JEFF Jeffrey Evans Digital Imaging Specialist Princeton University Art Museum 609.258.8579 ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
[MCN-L] Job opening at Smithsonian - New Media Assistant
New Media Assistant The National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, is seeking a motivated team member to support the development and operation of museum Web sites and related media. Duties include technical support and troubleshooting, digital image and multimedia editing, entering content, and Web page maintenance. You will also provide technical and administrative support to new media development projects, track user statistics, and provide general office support. Successful applicants will have experience in building and maintaining Web pages, familiarity with a variety of web-based interactive technologies, and excellent organizational skills in a team or office setting. The best qualified applicants will also have strong writing and communication skills; experience in one or more specialized areas such as ColdFusion, ASP, database design, audio/video editing, Flash, or graphic design; and demonstrated ability to learn, apply, and troubleshoot new tools and technologies. This is a fulltime, 1-year non-federal position (renewable). Salary $43,921 plus excellent benefits. To apply, send your resume to nmahweb at si.edu by March 7, 2008. The Smithsonian is an Equal Opportunity employer. Minorities and women encouraged to apply.
[MCN-L] expansion of -- Re: Department name question
My unit here at the Center for Jewish History is called the Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory, named after the Gruss Lipper Family Foundation that provided the initial 2-year start-up funding. In addition to myself, we also employ 6 staff across 3 full-time equivalent roles: - Quality Assurance Metadata Librarian (1 x full-time) - Digital Camera Operator (3 x part-time) - Digital Asset Production Associate (2 x part-time) We primarily work on imaging, using the following equipment: - BetterLight Super 8K-HS on a AIAXAct 3040DV copystand - Mamiya 645 ZD on a Kaiser RS-1 copystand - Epson Expression 1XL Photo flatbed scanner - Minolta DiMAGE Scan Multi Pro AF-5000 film scanner - Various hardware-specific software, plus Adobe Photoshop CS2 We are also doing an increasing amount of audio digitization, using the following equipment (and recently got a METRO grant to digitize more audio materials): - Teac 860-R cassette deck - Otari MX5050 BII 2 reel-to-reel tape deck (recently purchased on eBay!) - Behringer UB502 mixer - M-Audio Audiophile 192 soundcard - Sony SoundForge 8 We haven't done any video digitization in-house yet, but are looking into acquiring the hardware to digitize video from Beta SP video tapes. You can find much of what we've digitized so far here: http://digital.cjh.org/ Cheers, T. -- Tony Gill Director, Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory Center for Jewish History http://www.cjh.org/ Telephone: +1 (917) 606-8212 Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:40:10 -0500 From: Deborah Wythe deborahwythe at hotmail.com Subject: [MCN-L] expansion of -- Re: Department name question To: Museum Computer Network Listserv mcn-l at mcn.edu Message-ID: BLU126-W2520AA4EA306AB83F48707CF230 at phx.gbl Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 This has been an interesting thread (esp. the most recent posts...) To expand the discussion: most of the responses seem to indicate that digital photography and scanning are the primary responsibilities. I'm curious about where digital video and audio recording fall in other museums. Here it's more of a stepchild than anything -- if a department needs these media (usually Design or for the Web), they either contract out or borrow a video cam or digital audio recorder from IS for less formal projects. Digital Lab sometimes fields questions about formats and long term storage, but we're not responsible for creating AV materials. Others? Deb Wythe Deborah WytheHead, Digital Collections and ServicesBrooklyn Museum200 Eastern ParkwayBrooklyn, NY 11238tel: 718 501 6311fax: 718 501 6145deborahwythe at hotmail.com
[MCN-L] exhibit development opportunity using Second Life
Dear MCN-ers, I want to invite you to get involved with an exhibit development process project I've been working on for several months. Have you ever found yourself sitting across the table from an exhibit developer who can't read your blueprints, or an exhibit designer who can't convey the core idea of an exhibit? As the divide between developer and designer increases, and as more museums are relying on outside designers to implement their exhibits, we often end up with communication disconnects where the content person and the design person can't work together productively. Here at The Tech Museum of Innovation, we've been trying out a new way to address this divide and to get away from describing exhibits either in words or technical specs. We're using the 3D virtual world of Second Life to bring people together to collaborate on exhibit prototypes real-time. While Second Life isn't as robust a design package as an Autocad or 3D Studio Max, it's an environment where you can quickly convey your ideas in 3D, even if you don't have previous computer design skills. That means that educators can put together a 3D display to show how they feel the pieces should interrelate, floor staff can contribute a fun interaction, designers can adjust color palettes and sizes on the fly... and everyone can work together on a shared 3D representation of the exhibit in progress. It's a social environment, meaning that you and I can talk real-time as we design, and the building tools are simple enough that we can make meaningful progress in a single session. It's a prototyping tool that people who don't have CAD skills etc. can really use. So far, The Tech has been running this project for two months, and we've been encouraging members of the Second Life community to design their own exhibits with us. We're taking the best of these virtual collaborations and turning them into concept designs for real exhibits we're building this spring (to open in June--which means a 5 month concept-to-floor design cycle). Second Life has allowed us to work faster, take ideas from a wider group of people, and make prototyping (something that's getting value-engineered out of many museums) available to everyone. We'd like to invite you to join us--either to develop your own exhibits or to try your hand by getting involved with ours. While we've been focusing on generating exhibit prototypes for upcoming Tech exhibits, our grant provides money to support helping other museums check out this process as well. We can hand-hold you through an introduction to Second Life, and we can help you get started brainstorming and developing exhibits with our community of interested creative, museum-energized Second Life exhibit designers. We functionally can subsidize free contractor time with creative exhibit developers working on your projects and challenges, and if you want to get deeply involved, we have some residency opportunities for paid work in this space. If you would like to try this out or would like more information about this project, please contact me. I know that all the press about Second Life can make it seem threatening or over-hyped. But while it may not yet be a slam-dunk as a visitor experience venue, I do believe it's a great place to test out new ideas, to share a common concept design language across educators, designers, developers, fabricators, and visitors. And we'd love to do that with you, too. Nina 408.795.6267 nsimon at thetech.org Second Life: Avi Marquez
[MCN-L] Announcement: MuseTech Central
Introducing the launch of MuseTech Central, the MCN Project Registry! MuseTech Central provides a place to share information about technology-related projects in the cultural heritage sector. From implementations of digital asset management systems, to the latest use of educational media and interactives, the registry represents the latest technology and information management projects in museums, libraries, and archives. This community-supported registry offers an opportunity to change the way we disseminate information about the projects we are implementing, and opens new possibilities for networking and knowledge sharing. Instead of responding to inquiries about projects your institution is undertaking by sending documentation via email, register the project at MuseTech Central and direct interested parties there for the most up-to-date and accurate information. Use the registry to learn how your colleagues are implementing technology projects in their institutions or to evaluate the latest trends in our sector. Visit MuseTech Central today at www.musetechcentral.org and view some of the technology projects that have already been registered, and then enter your own projects. Its fast and simple! The registry is also accessible from MCN's website at www.mcn.edu. MCN would like to thank the Museum Software Foundation and the dedicated team of museum professionals who contributed considerable time and effort to create MuseTech Central for our community. The Museum Software Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that supports the collaborative development of open standards, and open source solutions, for software systems used by museums.
[MCN-L] Omeka software for museum exhibits
Greetings, Below you will find some information announcing the public beta release of the Center for History and New Media's latest software project, Omeka (http://omeka.org) -- the free and open-source software that provides museums, historical societies, libraries and individuals with an easy to use platform for publishing collections and creating attractive, standards-based, interoperable online exhibits. We're very excited about the software and building a strong community of users and developers, and we hope that some of you decide to download it and try working with it at your institution. We are very interested in feedback, so please send an email (omeka.support at gmail.com) or log into our Forums to comment and discuss your experiences with Omeka. Thanks for your time. Sheila A. Brennan Senior Digital History Associate Center for History and New Media George Mason University 703-879-8366 sbrennan at gmu.edu http://chnm.gmu.edu The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the Minnesota Historical Society are pleased to announce the public beta release of Omeka omeka.org, the free and open-source software that provides museums, historical societies, libraries and individuals with an easy-to-use platform for publishing collections and creating attractive, standards-based, interoperable online exhibits. Omeka is designed to satisfy the needs of cultural institutions that lack technical staffs and large budgets. Bringing Web 2.0 technologies and approaches to small museum, historical society, and library websites, Omeka fosters the kind of user interaction and participation that is central to the mission of those cultural institutions. Omeka's development is the result of ten years of digital public history work, experimentation, and technology development on projects such as The September 11 Digital Archive 911digitalarchive.org and Object of History: Behind the Scenes with the Curators of the National Museum of American History objectofhistory.org. Omeka is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services imls.gov and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation sloan.org. The theme-switching process and plug-in architecture at the heart of Omeka will be familiar to users who are accustomed to working with popular blogging software, but Omeka includes a number of features that are directed specifically at public history users and other humanists. First, the system functions using an archive built on a Dublin Core metadata scheme, allowing it to be interoperable with existing content management systems and all other Omeka installations. Second, Omeka includes a process for building narrative exhibits with flexible layouts. These two features alone provide cultural institutions with the power to increase their web presence and to showcase the interpretive expertise of curators, archivists, and historians. But Omeka's plug-in architecture also allows users to do much more to extend their exhibits to include maps, timelines, and folksonomies, and it provides the hooks and APIs (application programming interfaces) that open-source developers and designers need to add additional functionality to suit their own institutions' particular needs. In turn, a public plug-ins and themes directory will allow these community developers to donate their new tools back to the rest of Omeka users. The Omeka team is eager to build a large and robust community of open-source developers around this suite of technologies. Available in private beta since September, Omeka has already accrued over 150 test users, and a number of successful projects are using the software: The Light Factory and Cultural Heritage Museums in South Carolina are using Omeka for an online collecting site to accompany their physical show, River Docs http://www.catawbariverdocs.com/, in which contemporary artists documented their personal interactions with the Catawaba River over the course of a year. Omeka has enabled the curators to collect images and reflections from the public, extending the reach of the physical exhibit and deepening the connection of the visitors to the project. The New York Public Library is testing Omeka for an online overview of its most popular collections, Treasures of the New York Public Library http://labs.nypl.org/labs-projects/exhibits/. Virginia Tech has used Omeka to collect remembrances and memorials of the sad events of last Spring, The April 16 Archive april16archive.org. Omeka's flexible design and architecture enabled the launch of this site within days of the tragic shootings. Other projects using Omeka include: Object of History: Behind the Scenes with the Curators at the National Museum of American History objectofhistory.org Hurricane Digital Memory Bank hurricanearchive.org A Look Back at Braddock District braddockheritage.org Omeka is now available for download omeka.org/download/ and includes
