MCN 35th Annual Conference

Chicago, November 7-10, 2007

The Museum Computer Network (MCN) conference –

BUILDING CONTENT, BUILDING COMMUNITY: 40 Years of Museum Information and Technology.

The Museum Computer Network (MCN) supports the greater museum community by providing continuing opportunities to explore, implement, and disseminate new technologies and best practices in the field.

In 1967, a group of museum professionals in New York held their first meeting to discuss the use of computers in museum settings. This meeting was the genesis of what would become the Museum Computer Network. Art, archaeology, science, and historical museums, as well as members of the computer industry participated in those early meetings.

In this anniversary year MCN highlighted current practice in museum information and technology in all types of museums….with special focus on

• · Opportunities for New Professionals
• Leadership, Sustainability, Accountability
• Building Content, Building Communities (online museums as social spaces)
• Digital Readiness, Digital Accomplishments, Digital Accountability (DAMS, Best Practices, Preservation, Access)
• Museum Information Standards
• Digital Convergence: Archives, Libraries, and Museums
• Copyright Issues in the New Millennium

Session topics over the four day conference ranged from Professionalism and Leadership to Defining Spaces for Digital Photography; from Collections Data sharing in Art and Natural History collections to Technology Planning and Web 2.0. Stimulating town hall sessions were presented on Communicating about IT with museum directors (http://musematic.net/) and Museum Image Licensing and Copyright Law.

MCN presented Case Study Showcases for the first time this year – with fourteen brief presentations followed by small group discussions with interested audience members. These sessions allowed for a close review of varied projects in the museum technology field. Examples include the Museum Software Foundation, developers of open source solutions to museum technology needs; the Spanish translation of the Getty’s Art and Architecture Thesaurus; online professional development tools; capturing user-generated content; and many others.

MCN hosted two international spotlight sessions, focusing on the work of the Taiwan National Digital Archive program and collaborative projects from the UK.

Several special coffee break sessions provided a close look at a number of efforts in the community.

• IMLS projects, with program officers presenting eight recently funded projects, offering delegates the opportunity to speak directly with the project managers about their efforts, successes and challenges.

IMLS projects

• AAM Media & Technology Committee Muse Award winners

Muse Awards

• MCN Project Registry – a community-wide resource for registering technology projects, developed through the pro-bono efforts of the Museum Software Foundation.

Special Interest Group meetings were held by the Digital Media, Standards, Intellectual Property, Metrics and Evaluation, Information Technology and the regional California groups. In addition, MCN was host this year to several working group meetings. In addition to presenting papers during the conference, ImageMuse , CDWA-lite and the Steve project scheduled their committee activities to coincide with the MCN conference.

Leading experts in copyright, digital imaging, social tagging, metadata standards, new media development, collection data sharing, information technology and professional development presented their projects and findings to the 310 delegates in attendance. The conference drew participants from 14 countries and 32 states in the US.

(full conference program with MCN sponsors and exhibitors available here: MCN 2007)