Fresh & New(er)

discussion of issues around digital media and museums by Seb Chan

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Entries from June 18th, 2007

Museums on the Web UK 2007 – Friday June 22 – register now

June 18th, 2007 1 Comment

If you happen to be one of our UK or European readers then you may be interested in Museums on the Web UK 2007 which happens on Friday June 22. It is organised by the Museum Computer Group, 24hr Museum and the University of Leicester. The Web is changing – faster, smarter, more personal, more [...]

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A reminder about ‘participation inequality’

June 8th, 2007 Comments Off

I’m busy preparing a couple of new and remixed presentations for delivery in the northern hemisphere in the next few weeks and Tony Walker over at the ABC reminded me about this excellent summary of Participation Inequality by usability evangelist Jakob Nielsen. How to Overcome Participation Inequality You can’t. The first step to dealing with [...]

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Hyperlinking collectively shared images – Seadragon/Photosynth

June 8th, 2007 1 Comment

There’s been a lot of discussion on the web about Microsoft’s Photosynth but this demonstration from TED really reveals the real possibilities. The image navigation opportunities offered by Seadragon are quite amazing but as Blaise Aguera y Arcas points out in the short demonstration, what a collective Photosynth experience offers is the ability for one [...]

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All you ever need to know about Google Page Rank at Smashing Magazine

June 5th, 2007 1 Comment

Smashing Magazine have put together a splendid and pretty much definitive guide to how Google’s Page Rank works. It is full of links to more information. Essential reading.

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OPAC2 does video

June 3rd, 2007 Comments Off

We have added the first of a batch of videos to our collection database. The first one features Tom Crawford, a former train driver who drove one of the locomotives in our collection discussing his experience. Rather serendipitously Tom’s family made contact with the Museum and Irma Havlicek from the Web Services team organised for [...]

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‘Thinkering spaces’ for children in museums

June 1st, 2007 Comments Off

The IIT Institute of Design is undertaking some very interesting work with American libraries prototyping what they call ‘Thinkering spaces’ for children. I’m particularly struck by how appropriate this research is for museums, and how many museums have already made large steps in this direction. Tinkering for the sake of one’s own discovery promotes more [...]

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Visualising sound and music – Last.fm visualisation tools

June 1st, 2007 3 Comments

The big news around the internet at the present, apart from Microsoft’s Surface, is that Last.Fm has been bought out by CBS. Hopefully that isn’t going to mean the closing down of their current open policy towards data sharing and use. One of the coolest data visualisation applications for Last.fm is one that creates a [...]

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