Perian Sully

Perian Sully works in the cultural heritage field, specifically helping archives, libraries, and museums activate their collections by making them accessible to a wide range of stakeholders. She is also the Program Chair for the American Association of Museums' Media and Technology Standing Professional Committee. She graduated from the John F. Kennedy Museum Studies Museum Studies program in 2006, earning her M.A. by writing about the evolution of collection records management and technology. Perian's route to becoming a museum collections/technology professional began when she discovered that her studies in Environmental Biology just weren't for her and she traveled the world until she decided to become a 3-D game artist. Fortunately, she wasn't very good at computer-generated art either, but her undergraduate work-study jobs at the University of California, Davis slide library and Richard L. Nelson Gallery showed her that perhaps museums were just the thing. When she's not trying to save the world one collection record at a time, Perian studies historical fashion, creates elaborate clothing and costumes, and makes interestingly-flavoured chocolates using such ingredients as lavender or bacon.

• Posts: 52

Reports of the Web’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

In tech circles, there has been a lot of sturm und drang this past week over Wired’s cover article, The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet. It’s an interesting and provocative title, but like many technology pundits before it (and Wired itself, it must be noted), Wired has fallen into the trap of declaring something as so simply to get the scoop. The problem here is that the so in this case, the death of the World Wide Web, is so premature – if it happens at all – as to be laughable.

Cultural Collections and the Semantic Web

Within change lies great opportunity, but what happens when individual change is incremental and the rest of the world is exponential? Our cultural institutions are in the slow lane, still, and they are being threatened because of it.

On The Front Lines

Our girl Nina Simon just penned, in my opinion, an important article about the usefulness of working on the museum floor from time to time. Now, I’m the first to admit that the thought of working the floor can terrify me – I can be shy, and I’m not great with intentionally chatting up strangers [...]

Empowered by Collections

Recently, a press release went out about a new appointment to a local museum. I’ll be somewhat vague here, as the particulars don’t matter to the discussion, but there was a phrase within that had some of my colleagues (and myself) a bit piqued. The release stated how excited the person was to be working [...]

Surfing the Wave

I thought about titling this post, “Getting Seasick,” but I think the Dramamine is starting to kick in. But be forewarned – getting involved with Google Wave at this stage is not for the faint of heart. If you’re concerned about all of your familiar actions and methodologies being turned on their heads, might be [...]

Museums Suck

Via Richard’s Twitter feed, I have a new favorite blog, Museums Suck. OK, I should clarify: I mean by “favorite” that it’s wince-inducing, snarky, sarcastic, biting, cuts a little too close to the bone for comfort and filled with good old-fashioned insults. So it rocks in that kind of “I hate you” sort of way. [...]

Always the Bridesmaid

I was recently browsing the liberal Daily Kos (yes, yes, I’m a Kossack…) when I came across this poll: Although this poll represents a heavily-biased demographic (technology-savvy liberals and moderates, ages 20-55), I still found it rather interesting. Museums lag far behind libraries, and slightly behind science buildings, schools, and streets. All of these locations [...]

In Soviet Korea, Art Eats YOU!

A couple of weeks ago, Nina Simon put out an idea-tweet (as she does) which asked: Why don’t art museums treat visitors like artists? That’s what science centers do (with science) After a brief flurry of Twitter replies, the question stuck with me, and it was something I kept thinking about a couple of days [...]

2009 MUSE Awards

There’s still time to submit your project for the 2009 MUSE Awards! Announcing the 2009 AAM Muse Awards Recognizing outstanding achievement in museum media, the AAM Media and Technology Committee announces the 20th annual Muse Awards competition. The 2008 Muse Awards competition received nearly 200 applications from a wide variety of museums in North America, [...]

MCN 2008 winddown

It was the last day of the MCN conference today. Washington DC is cloudy, rainy, and humid, and there are a few large protests downtown, making the place extra exciting. I’ve had a whole week’s worth of exciting, so I’m happily curled up on a couch in Suzy Sarraf’s beautiful condo, relaxing and trying to [...]