Museums and the Web 2009 – the final word

And the final word, I promise on this. It’s always interesting to see post mortems on international conferences like this, because everyone comes away with a slightly different perspective. The UK is about to run its own one day version (World Wide Wonder: museums on the web) and Sara Wajid writing in the latest edition of the UK Museums Association Journal makes some succinct comments on MW2009. What she got out of it is that the web is moving from being a place where museums can dump their collection content and feel ‘ job done’ to a place which facilitates an online landscape, which is a fertile breeding ground for future museum visitors and donors. She cites the dynamic Nina Simon, who runs the Museum 2.0 blog who said at the conference that ‘ ...people in positions of power in museums are finally getting interested in the internet … as a starting point for innovations.. They are looking for information about how the rise of the social web will affect the business model and viability of museums”.

Sara also picked up how Google analytics are now providing more and more sophisticated data about web site use (incidentally now considerably better than physical visitor data), but that museum evaluation staff are reluctant to switch to it because it notoriously shows lower (although more accurate) figures. Don’t think that response is going to hold water much longer.