Another quick link to someone else’s thoughtful reflections

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Today at the Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) blog, a look at “mobilizing museum archives.” Discusses a project that uses historical records (images and field notes) to explore biodiversity in Colorado via crowdsourcing. The specific project is a good model, and the general point is highly relevant: “We live in a world that is increasingly digital. While museums are gradually adapting to this new reality, it is crucial that we complete ongoing digitization projects with minimal resources and a maximum of community engagement.” I also recommend the blog So You Think You Can Digitize, which is curated by two of the guest authors over at CFM.

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About philkatz

I am assistant director for research at the American Association of Museums. One of my jobs there is to track and analyze trends for the Center for the Future of Museums. I'm a historian by training (original area of focus: Civil War and Reconstruction, with a special interest in trans-Atlantic interactions during the era), but have spent most of my career as an administrator and researcher for public humanities and higher ed organizations.

2 thoughts on “Another quick link to someone else’s thoughtful reflections”

  1. Impressive. One thought inspired by this is to refer folks to the Biodiversity Heritage Library project (http://biodivlib.wikispaces.com/About). Work in botanical taxonomy has a very specialized historical structure, with the key thing being links between type specimens in herbaria, first descriptions in books and journals, and subsequent mentions of the same plants. BLH (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/) links these all together, using Latin names as the key. It’s a dramatic example of what you can do when the rules are carefully set and widely adapted, and there’s a particular purpose in mind (and when there’s lots of money thrown at the problem).

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