Blogging thoughts

Blogging has been interesting to get into. Its interesting to think about the two ways that blogging has intersected with my life, both in my job and in school. I have been required to blog for class once before this one, and found that it was very useful as the class was on music and sound and video links beyond those that we were given by the professor were easily shared between members of the class, which was very enriching to the discussions that we had. It was also nice that we could share these thoughts in a way that we might not have if they had been printed on paper. I didn’t really feel too much of a downside in this particular context in terms of what blogging could and couldn’t do.

For my job, it has been very different, albeit interesting. As I had mentioned in class, it is fascinating how blogging has impacted restaurants with such immediacy. At almost every pre-shift meeting, we discuss what has been blogged about, both good and bad. Here is where I feel some sort of limitations as well as benefits. It can be a constructive medium, as comments and criticism from 3rd parties reach us very quickly. No waiting for Zagat surveys or Tom Seitsema to come out with a review of our performance. We have a general (as well as specific) idea about what the public’s impression of us is. My reservations (haha..no pun intended) lie in the fact that the people who often blog either are predisposed to web-bashing for sport, or these web conversations turn into absolute derogatory blabber at times8426.html (like here, for example). Who are these people? Some of them I can guess, actually, but really. Does any of this have a place in this forum? Constructive? Not so much. Although I am a proponent of free speech and do feel that internet censorship could be potentially bad news, I would hope that open discussions would be more mature. I am overestimating. A lot of posts do the opposite, and are quite helpful and constructive. As another student had mentioned in class, one trusts a more nuanced and sane-sounding blogger rather than someone who is on a rampage. Either way, blogging is gaining popularity and can be quite powerful. Hopefully people take blog comments with a grain of salt as I believe they do, but the rapid pace of information exchange and publication does not cease to amaze me.

Project thoughts..thinking out loud

I’m trying to sort through the many possibilities for the upcoming web page project. I would like to do something on the history of the city of Barcelona, and two possibilities come up–La Boqueria market and La Sagrada Familia. These are both historically significant sites in the city, Boqueria being one of the largest markets in Europe (some say the 3rd largest) with a history stretching back to the 11th century, the Sagrada Familia being Gaudi’s unfinished temple (not technically a cathedral). I’ve visited both places before and will be returning the 1st week of Oct. (field study?Sure..) Both places have official sites, but they both could definitely be re-organized and updated.(www.sagradafamilia.cat for Sagrada Familia, www.boqueria.info for La Boqueria). I’m leaning more towards the Boqueria site as it could definitely use some revamping and elaboration, and the Sagrada site is pretty developed and sophisticated despite still being under construction. The Boqueria site has some pretty cool features, such as maps of the market stalls that as you scroll over their location on the map a photo comes up in the right corner of the screen. The history section could definitely be elaborated a bit, and more photos or even a historical photo gallery would definitely be nice. I’m debating other possibilities as well besides these sites, but still trying to make more concrete decisions.

Museum Websites II

After visiting the NMWA website, I decided that it would be interesting to look at a federally funded museum in contrast. I chose the Freer/Sackler Galleries, which are separate yet connected entities that house much of the Smithsonian’s Asian art collection, as well as some American, 19th century European, and Middle Eastern art as well. As expected, this site was very different, and definitely had a much more scholarly, student oriented focus. The site featured its own links to scholarly journals such as Artibus Asiae, although via Jstor (which requires a university or private subscription) it also has external links to sites such as the Library of Congress to further investigate the collection and research that would be relevant. There are also links to forums and conferences, the muesums’ archives and library, and information on how to make appointments to use their facilities. 

There is also a good representation of the collection that is digitized, and the information about the images is easy to access. Provenance is searchable to a good degree on this site, and information regarding not only the collection but the individual history of the museums is available in the navigation bar, as this is particularly interesting in the specific case of these museums. One could potentially spend hours bouncing from link to link gathering information. This would be a great place to start for research. 

There also is a good amount of encouragement to potential visitors, as temporary exhibitions are not viewable online, one must actually visit the museum. All the relevant information is also present in terms of location, maps, hours, educational workshops, tours, and calendars. Much of the permanent collection is visible online, and you can create a free e-gallery of your own selection, which brings the possibility of the creation of your own ideas about what is relevant to you, not just what the museum dictates. Interesting. This could also be nice when doing image related research, so you have a savable reference! 

In all I found the site to be helpful and that it provided more sources and resources that one could expect in one site. However, it may seem a bit overwhelming to the general museum public, as it may not have these interests, but I think its better that they are available than if they weren’t. 

Sonya Baccus

Museum Websites

As my interests lie in the discipline of Art History, I decided to check out a few art museum websites. First, I looked at the National Museum for Women in the Arts museum located here in Washington, D.C. www.nmwa.org The site definitely seems to be geared to the potential visitor, as the vast majority of its navigation bar is devoted to calendars, events, exhibitions, etc. It is only obliquely relevant to a student or scholar, as some of the material in their collection is well documented and searchable on the site, but not all or even a great amount of it. For example, I searched Abastenia St. Leger Eberle, a Progressive Era American sculptor that I had previously researched elsewhere. Although there was one record of one small sculpture in their collection, there was little to no additional information available on provenance, exhibition history, not even the artist’s bio or related works. For the scholar or student, the site provides little information about the collection, and the image quality is often poor.

Another interesting aspect of this site is its promotion of its gallery space for corporate and private events. The museum is a private entity, not federally funded, as the Smithsonian is. It has to push for private funding, and the NMWA site is definitely used to solicit non-conventional use of its space to bring in more funding for the museum outside of membership. Note that they also host a brunch. This brings up more questions about the museum’s directed audience, and the assumptions made about it. (Do the potential visitors there have a propensity to like mimosas and eggs benedict? Hmm..) Either way, the site functions as both educational and commercial. It could definitely use some revamping in terms of design, but that’s another week (Wow, that lavender is really gross). 

I also tried to see how simple it was to search for employment opportunities and internships, and this was a little tricky as well. There isn’t any link in the navigation bar that connects you to information about these types of opportunities, but if you use the search function, you can actually turn up info on open positions and internship programs. I would have thought that this kind of information could have been connected to the education or outreach navigation tools, or have its own, but at least it turns up in the search function. The site needs some work, especially if it wants to expand its audience beyond middle and upper class females into a more expanded market–what one would hope that this museum is trying to do in order to promote understanding and knowledge about women’s role in the Art Historical narrative.

Sonya Baccus