Developing a website is always an adventure, especially when building improvements onto a live site like mcn.edu. This blog post is to share some of the behind the scenes of an incident that occurred this morning, including why it happened because we want to be transparent about all of the development activities around the website…
by Erin Canning, Ontology Systems Analyst at LINCS (Linked Infrastructure for Networked Cultural Scholarship); @eecanning on Twitter Linked data is a way of structuring data so that it can be connected to data from other sources and queried all together. For museums, this discussion often comes up in regards to collections data: how can different…
By MCN Human-Centered Design SIG Chairs Cathy Sigmond, Head of Strategy/Senior Researcher at RK&A, Inc. (@cjsigmond) and Madhav Tankha, UX/UI Designer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art If the pandemic has brought one idea to light since it began in 2020, it’s this: people matter most. This is just as true for museums as it…
I’m delighted to announce that the Board of Directors of MCN has just appointed Lyn Hsieh, Andrea Ledesma, Brittany Nazario, Seema Rao, and Jessica Warchall to serve on the Board for a 3-year term effective this November. Join me in congratulating each of them on their appointment. As new faces join the board, others will…
By MCN DAM SIG Chairs Jessica Herczeg-Konecny, Lead Technical Analyst, Digital Asset Management, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art & Rachael Winter Durant, Digital Asset Management on the Solutions team at Gates Archive In this month’s MCN SIG Corner highlighting Digital Asset Management (DAM), we want to take a moment to reflect on how the…
by Mark Osterman, Digital Experience Manager and Head of Education at the Lowe Art Museum, and MCN Board Member (@osterman_mark on Twitter) How should we as museum technologists think about and act upon diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI)? I am constantly grappling with this question in my current practice. Over the past 20 years—while…
Last year, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, MCN repurposed its planned in-person annual conference into a virtual experience. Thanks to the generous support of the Kress Foundation, MCN was also able to redesign its long running Scholarship Program to award scholarships to 10 qualified emerging professionals from the cultural sector. The grant allowed…
By Andy Cummins, Director of Product Development at Cogapp, and MCN Board member. I’ve been thinking about what it takes for an open source project to fulfill its potential as a shared resource for the GLAM community. What do I mean by open source? When I say open source project, I’m not going to get…
By Christopher Ciccone, Collections Photographer & Digital Asset Manager at the North Carolina Museum of Art and chair of the Digital Imaging SIG. Twitter: @musepix I’m often asked about my work in Cultural Heritage (CH) imaging, and while sometimes I answer that I take pictures of pictures, I usually talk about the fact that the…
Thanks to all of you who already submitted proposals for MCN 2021! Given the new format for this year’s event, we received a good range of submissions in the following tracks: Leadership & Strategy; Interpretation, Storytelling & Education; Ethical Responsibilities of Museums, and Experience Design & Immersive Technologies. However, we’re looking for a few more…
By Prachi Chhajed, John Decker, Ian Gregory, Sarah Tsao, and Zhichun Zhao; Pratt Institute, 2021 students As part of ongoing efforts to improve the user experience across the MCN website, Executive Director Eric Longo and Senior Digital Strategist Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli recently paired with a group of UX-focused graduate students from Pratt Institute’s School of…
We’re pleased to announce the 2021 call for candidates to be considered for MCN’s Board of Directors. MCN is looking to recruit at least four (4) board members to replace those whose 3-year term will be ending in November. WHY SERVE ON THE MCN BOARD OF DIRECTORS? Envisioning a world in which all museums are empowered…