>I have had one person pull a face at the thought (an archivist as it 
>happens), but the point is that the way we have catalogued 
>collections, and in particular the terminology we have used, do not 
>make it easy for the non-expert (or even the expert at times) to 
>find things even when they know we have them, because they just 
>don't use the right words.

Exactly.

Museums have an incredibly detailed language of description for their 
objects, but those descriptions were designed for and serve the 
museum's needs, usually not visitors.

The classic example I use that if you went to the Met and asked to 
see works of 'Impressionism', you'd get no results. The Met describes 
those works along the lines of 'French, masterpiece, oil, work on 
canvas, late 1800s, etc''. You can see the disconnect.

Museums describe the objects themselves, not their meaning or use. 
Letting users tag objects gives you a whole new arena of description 
that museums almost never do -- the object is 'red', has a sense of 
'ennui', or is of 'dogs playing poker.'

Importantly, tagging doesn't replace or compete with or replace the 
work that archivists, collections folk, librarians, etc are doing. It 
*co-exists*. It's a lexicon creating by a different class of users 
with that different class of users being the users. The museum is 
still authoritive, you're just making use of how non-museum people 
describe your stuff.

Heck, what's wrong with making it easy for people to connect or find 
the objects in your collection that have meaning to them?

(disclosure: I've been involved with steve.museum for a long time)

-bw.
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Bruce Wyman, Director of Technology
Denver Art Museum  /  100 W 14th Ave. Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204
office: 720.913.0159  /  fax: 720.913.0002
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