103. How Computers Transformed Museums and Created A New Type of Professional
Welcome to Museum Archipelago in Your Inbox, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Museum Archipelago, your audio guide to the rocky landscape of museums, is hosted by me, Ian Elsner.
Computing work keeps museums running, but it’s largely invisible. That is, unless something goes wrong. For Dr. Paul Marty, Professor in the School of Information at Florida State University and his colleague Kathy Jones, Program Director of the Museum Studies Program at the Harvard Extension School, shining a light on the behind-the-scenes activities of museum technology workers was one of the main reasons to start the Oral Histories of Museum Computing project.
The first museum technology conference was hosted in 1968 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This prescient event, titled “Conference on Computers and their Potential Application in Museums” was mostly focused on the cutting edge: better inventory management systems using computers instead of paper methods. However, it also foresaw the transformative impact of computers on museums—from digital artifacts to creating interactive exhibits to expanding audience reach beyond physical boundaries. Most of all, speakers understood that museum technologists would need to “join forces” with each other to learn and experiment better ways to use computers in museum settings.
The Oral Histories of Museum Computing project collects the stories of what happened since that first museum technology conference, identifying the key historical themes, trends, and people behind the machines behind the museums. In this episode, Paul Marty and Kathy Jones describe their experience as museum technology professionals, the importance of conferences like the Museum Computer Network and the benefits of compiling and sharing these oral histories.
Gallery Continues 🎒
Paul Marty identifies how digitally moving museum collections beyond the museum walls as one of the biggest shifts over the 60 years of museum computing. In this episode, Joe Kalicki takes us on a tour of museum collections in virtual spaces, which present a possible future for museum computing.
Archipelago at the Movies🍿 Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again (2022)
Some of the museum movies we watch are great movies. Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is not one of them.
But bad movies make for a fun time.
Join Rebecca Reibstein and I as we dive into the fourth installment of the Night at the Museum franchise. Just lock the your museum’s front door and don’t forget to read the night guard’s manual to refresh your understanding of the rules of the universe.