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Museum Podcasts
A Newsletter for Museums
March 2006 - Vol 1, Issue 2
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The Museum Podcasting Feasibility Analysis is a joint academic research project working in association with the A.L.M. Museum Studies curriculum at Harvard University.

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Articles are submitted by our readers. Click to submit an article or podcast feed in the next edition. We feature articles in other areas besides podcasting. Click Here

The Grace Museum

James Yasko Curatorial Assistant Interactive Media Coordinator, The Grace Museum Abilene, Texas. JamesY@thegracemuseum.org

The Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas is publishing a podcast collaboration with a local university for the Spring 2006 semester. “Works on Paper: A Creative Writing LitCast,” is a twelve-part series written by Abilene Christian University’s Advanced Creative Writing class based on the painting “The News” by Jack Bookbinder – housed in The Grace’s Permanent Art Collection.

The twelve students write one chapter of no more than 1500 words based not only on the painting, but also on the chapters that precede theirs. In addition to writing the chapter, the students are recording their chapter in their own voice, and the podcast is then uploaded to the website, and ready for download.

Professor Albert Haley (winner of the John Irving First Novel Prize for his novel Exotic, and ACU’s Writer-In- Residence since 1997) guides the class and has made the assignment required for his semester curriculum.


The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum

Buster Ratliff Operations Coordinator, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum 2503 4th Ave. Unit 60967 Canyon, Texas. bratliff@pphm.wtamu.edu

The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum views podcasting as a way to market exhibits to a different demographic than the typical museum patron. So is our podcast a gallery guide? Maybe. Let me answer that one again. Yes, to us a podcast is a gallery guide. But then again, it is not a gallery guide. Confused yet?

Our original goal was to make our podcasts be energized gallery guides that would appeal to the iPod generation. What they turned into was a simple discussion between a variety of people on a particular exhibit. Most of the time a curator is involved and there are usually a few college students involved too. This gives us the opportunity to get a wide array of viewpoints when it comes to what the exhibit is saying.

With the discussions we try to get the students and curators to focus on one or two things that really stand out in the exhibit. This keeps the discussions from getting bogged down and our hope is for the listener to come to the exhibit and search for the item discussed.


http://www.panhandleplains.org/rss/gallery_guide.rss
Key Points

    • Develop Podcasting Tour Architecture
    • Understand your visitors
    • Don’t force podcasts or MP3 audio on visitors
    • Designing only preplanned podcast tours forces visitors to follow paths the museum wants them to travel and can be frustrating for the visitor
    • Podcasts can be created to let visitors choose paths through the museum giving them flexibility to make their own choices of what and when they want to listen to information

    Suggestion

    When starting your museums podcast programs, experiment with different versions. If discussing a particular object make a version for the serious visitor and another shorter version for the casual visitor.














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