History Bytes > By Tim Grove Institutional Change Through New Media Guest Columnist Jasper Visser

Editor’s Note: Since we received this column in the twenty-first century, to get people based services such as Foursquare and for publication, we have found out that interested in history you need more than Facebook to tell the world they went to the Museum of National History of the a building with paintings on the wall. a shopping mall or restaurant. We seize Netherlands has been slated for closure by And one of the ways to get people to care this opportunity and use these platforms the State Secretary for Culture. Because we about history, and even engage with it, is to tell them a bit about history whenever have followed the museum’s groundbreaking through new media.1 they visit a historical place. We’ve used work in the digital medium for some time I admit, it’s easy for me to talk about the option in Foursquare to leave tips and believe it has relevance to this column, how new media can change institutions: at locations, to tell people who checked and to the history field as a whole, we have first, because of the solid institutional in at a train station about the history of chosen to run this piece anyway. Hope you support for new media and, second, their surroundings and links to additional enjoy and garner some nuggets of wisdom in information. Results vary per location your own work. but overall the reception is good. On It’s not about how our top of that, it was free to implement t the recent Museums and apart from a couple of hours of work. the Web conference in institutions should change This summer we’ll follow up on these Philadelphia I attended a ses- experiments with a dedicated history on sion on institutional change. to embrace new media. location project, which will make history ASoon enough, as always, the discussion locally available to many more people.2 It’s about how new turned to the million-dollar questions: How do we get the institutional support media can change our Create Engaging Narratives from management to implement new In Holland, most museum collections media strategies? How do we get our col- institutions to embrace are online and many museum people leagues to care? How can we change the the future. have begun to understand that the story way our CEOs think about cooperation you tell is more important than the between institutions? objects you have on display. Engaging I think we need to reverse these ques- narrative gets people’s attention and tions. It’s not about how our institutions because as a new institution, we are not connects them to your collection and should change to embrace new media. bound by doing things in a certain tra- your institution. As I wrote earlier, the It’s about how new media can change ditional way. It’s easier to turn around Museum of National History doesn’t our institutions to embrace the future. without a building and collection! own a collection. Online, we use the col- In this column, after some background, Starting from scratch often provides a lections of partner institutions and sourc- I’ll discuss some simple actions you can fresh outlook. es such as Wikipedia to tell stories about take today, in your institution, to start In discussions about new media, his- history. Our website hosts about 800 sto- the change. tory, and heritage, there are a couple of ries and continues to grow. We built the I work for the Museum of National recurring imperatives. For instance, Go semantic INNL network to make more History of the Netherlands. We are a Where Your Audience Is. Although these meaningful connections between existing new museum and still very much in our imperatives have an institution-wide online collections and communities. We early phases. For instance, we do not yet impact, I believe they can perfectly well found that good stories with links to dif- occupy a permanent physical building, start from within the new media depart- ferent collections result in visitors who although we currently own an office and ments and serve as a catalyst for institu- spend more time on our website. And public place in the center of Amsterdam. tional change. I’d like to focus on four of because we now have the tools in place, it Also, we do not have a physical collection these imperatives. In addition to the ear- has become easier for all our staff to tell and do not plan to ever have one. Yet, lier example, these are: Create Engaging engaging stories about history.3 last year we reached over half a million Narratives, Serve as a Platform, and Focus people in real life with our activities, and on Participation. Serve as a Platform hundreds of thousands more through a Like many people I believe that a cul- variety of new and traditional media. Go Where Your Audience Is tural institution should be a place where In the two years I’ve worked at the mu- People go to shopping malls and people come together and interact with seum there has been strong institutional restaurants more often than they come each other. It should serve as a platform. support for the use of new media and through our doors. Our prediction, The first steps towards this can be taken technology. Our vision emphasizes its im- as new media practitioners, is that online, virtually without cost. For in- portance. Why? Because we believe that ever more people are using location- stance, a while ago, before we had our

H i s t o r y n e ws 5 website and semantic network in place to There are many small, tangible things function as a platform, we used our blog We found that good you can start doing right now using new and some free tools to see if we could be media that might result in a change in a platform for history in the Netherlands. stories with links to your institution’s policies or behavior. We mapped local oral history initiatives different collections Because truly, new media can change an on a Google Map and we created a calen- institution. And it should. Change has dar for historical events of other institu- result in visitors who a tendency to come from unexpected tions. We got a lot of positive feedback places. This time, let it be the new media on these initiatives. People added their spend more time on our departments taking the lead. own information, and our simple web- website. log became a platform. We used these “History Bytes is a forum for discussing Web lessons to design our new website and issues facing all types of historical institutions. its content strategy, and every month it Tim Grove can be reached at [email protected]. works a little bit better. We can benefit from these developments to create best practices for participation Jasper Visser is project manager for new tech- Focus on Participation in our institutions. Two years ago the nology and media projects at the Museum of Fortunately, the discussion about us- Museum started with simple (and now National History of the Netherlands. Together ing new media is increasingly one of common) participatory Twitter “games” with the team he’s responsible for the new providing visitors with a participatory that led to in-depth conversations and media strategy, (online) participation, com- experience. One day, most of our best positive exposure on blogs and even in munity building, and online communication. physical museums or archives will have traditional magazines. By showing the He writes about innovation in museums on his perfectly balanced participatory exposi- positive effects of participatory projects, blog, http://themuseumofthefuture.com. tions and personalized experiences. This we managed to have discussions about does not mean that our institutions will participation at the beginning of every 1 See http://innl.nl/vision. become arcade halls. Rather, it means project. Coming mostly from the online 2 See http://themuseumofthefuture.com/2011/01/13/ using-foursquare-to-make-historical-contents-locally- we will involve people in the stories we realm and the general vision laid out by available-and-reach-new-audiences/. tell about them. The social media and our directors, participation now is con- 3 See http://themuseumofthefuture.com/ Web 2.0 revolution has put participation sidered as essential as education or com- 2011/03/06/does-a-semantic-network-improve-the- quality-of-museum-website-visits-some-stats-from-the- at the core of many online experiences. munication in any project. innl-network/.

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY Patron Members Acknowledges and appreciates these Institutional Partners and Patrons for their extraordinary support: $250+ Ms. Sarah Barton Institutional Partners Anchorage, AK North Carolina Division of Ms. Virginia Margaret Carnes $1,000+ Springfield, IL Archives & History Raleigh, NC Mount Kisco, NY Arizona Historical Society Indiana Historical Society Mr. Walt Crimm Tucson, AZ , IN Ohio History Center Columbus, OH Philadelphia, PA Arizona State Capitol Museum Mr. D. Stephen Elliott Phoenix, AZ Indianapolis, IN Old Sturbridge Village Sturbridge, MA St. Paul, MN Atlanta History Center Kentucky Historical Society Mr. Jonathan Finkelstein Atlanta, GA Frankfort, KY Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission Brooklyn, NY Belle Meade Plantation Harrisburg, PA Ms. Lori Gundlach Nashville, TN , LA R. Squared Communications Fairview Park, OH Billings Farm & Museum Massachusetts Historical Society Dublin, OH Mr. Jeff Hirsch Woodstock, VT , MA Senator John Heinz History Center Philadelphia, PA Cincinnati Museum Center Michigan Historical Center Pittsburgh, PA Ms. Katherine Kane Cincinnati, OH Lansing, MI The Sixth Floor Museum Hartford, CT Colonial Williamsburg Minnesota Historical Society Dallas, TX Mr. Russell Lewis Foundation St. Paul, MN Williamsburg, VA Strawbery Banke Museum Chicago, IL Missouri Historical Society Portsmouth, NH Ms. Rebecca Jo Macwhinney Colorado Historical Society St. Louis, MO , CO Strong National Museum of Play Coldwater, OH National Heritage Museum Rochester, NY Ms. Kathleen Stiso Mullins Conner Prairie Lexington, MA Fishers, IN Grosse Pointe Shores, MI National Trust for Historic Nashville, TN Florida Division of Historical Preservation Ms. Beverly Sheppard Resources Washington, DC William J. Clinton Foundation Edgewater, MD Tallahassee, FL Little Rock, AR National Underground Railroad Ms. Bari Oyler Stith The History Channel Freedom Center Wisconsin Historical Society Pepper Pike, OH New York, NY Madison, WI Cincinnati, OH Mr. George L. Vogt Idaho State Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society Portland, OR Boise, ID Lincoln, NE

6 Summer 2011