The role of the IT / information professional in museums:

• the 'museum information professional':

"The true value of museum information professionals lies not in their ability to solve individual technology problems; it lies in their ability to comprehend of the future of information work in museums and the impact of information technologies on the job of the museum professional."

• the 'webmaster':

"The notion that the museum Webmaster should be concerned only with designing and developing Web pages is now as anachronistic as the term Webmaster itself. Modern 'information professionals' in a museum must possess expertise in collections management, database systems, metadata standards, Web-casting, interface design, and data mining."

Marty, "The Changing Role of the Museum Webmaster: Past, Present, and Future"

"Museums are now employing New Media Editors, Interactive Media Managers and Heads of Digital Resources to meet these demands. No longer are webmasters required to simply have good technical skills, but they are now integrated into the museum as a whole, being involved with project planning and information structuring. These individuals need to mediate between the museum and the public, and between management and the technology."
http://digitalheritage.wordpress.com/tag/week-3/
and
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2004/papers/marty/marty.html

Forum

Guest speakers:
Dr June Bam-Hutchison (International Communities Development Strategist)
Ms Mia Ridge (Lead web developer, Science Museum, London)
Ms Bilkis Mosoddik (Web content manager, Museum of London Group)

Agenda:

16:00 Introduce guest panelists
16:10 Give overview of the course and the context of this forum
16:20 Invite each panelist to offer a short presentation

• Mia: the role of the IT professional in a heritage insitution
• Bilkis: in-house vs user-generated content?
• June: diversity in exhibition planning and in the workplace

16:45 Issues arising; informal Q&A session with panelists. Suggested types of question:

• What are museums for?
• How are ICTs supporting, enhancing, or otherwise changing the ways in which museums work?
• What, beyond their purely technical knowledge and skills, do museum IT / information professionals need to know about museums and heritage in order to work effectively with curators and exhibition designers?
• What new technologies are on the horizon? and how will they further transform the way that heritage institutions / 'memory institutions' work?
• Why should the museum IT / information professionals care about diversity?
  
• Why would I choose to work, as an IT professional, in the museum / culture / heritage sector?

17:00 Selected students invited to outline their projects; discussion of issues arising
17:20 Open forum and discussion
17:45 Close

Further resources / references

Mia Ridge's personal web site
Open Objects (Mia Ridge's museums blog)
'A Brief History of the Museum Computer Network'