Open Museum
Encyclopedia
Open Museum is a participatory exhibit space for fine artists, art museums, and art enthusiasts. Also a not-for-profit digital outreach tool for artists and museums, its purpose is to
help make the arts more accessible to everyone and support museums in engaging people around their collections. Visitors can explore Open Museum through Objects , Museums , or People .
Open Museum also offers educational and inspirational games for art and museum lovers, such as The Association Game (t.a.g.) , which everyone is welcome to watch, but only members can participate in.
Open Museum is a kind of “Facebook
meets Blogger
and Flickr
for the visual arts
.” By being a simple, web-based tool and keeping the object at its center, the museum fills a niche: a destination site for art students or enthusiasts and a tool for visual artists or art museums wanting to use the internet
to optimize its outreach and connect with other arts professionals. Open Museum is ideal for exhibits that have no permanent home in a museum’s exhibit space, or for collections that have no catalogs. For museums without an actual building, Open Museum provides a permanent (virtual) home away-from-home for collections that would exist nowhere else.
Any Open Museum curator — regardless of financial and technical resources — can create participatory exhibits that engages visitors around their collections. Furthermore, Open Museum harnesses the power of social networks to share and promote these collections. The curator selection process is juried. To start a collection (curate), applicants register (i.e. become a member) for Open Museum and send an email inquiry. Each category has a separate jury and a rigorous selection process. To curate as an independent artist, the applicant must submit a resume and sample work. To curate for an organization (museum, collective, school), the applicant must demonstrate his or her connection to this institution and his authority to curate on its behalf.
The museum is a free and not-for-profit service, has been funded exclusively through the generosity of our donors and the free elbow grease of its founders. In the future, Open Museum also hopes to raise revenue through fees for special services, sponsorships and grants. Currently Open Museum hosts content on its servers free of charge to Open Museum users.
Open Museum is a collaborative project between Zirgoflex L3C and Heritance, a 501c3 non-profit organization that promotes open museum practices worldwide. Zirgoflex, one of the first Vermont
designated low-profit social ventures, has built the technology. Heritance, also based in Vermont
, provides the Open Museum service and training workshops, consultations, and technical support to Heritance partner museums .
help make the arts more accessible to everyone and support museums in engaging people around their collections. Visitors can explore Open Museum through Objects , Museums , or People .
Open Museum also offers educational and inspirational games for art and museum lovers, such as The Association Game (t.a.g.) , which everyone is welcome to watch, but only members can participate in.
Open Museum is a kind of “Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
meets Blogger
Blogger (service)
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
and Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
for the visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
.” By being a simple, web-based tool and keeping the object at its center, the museum fills a niche: a destination site for art students or enthusiasts and a tool for visual artists or art museums wanting to use the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
to optimize its outreach and connect with other arts professionals. Open Museum is ideal for exhibits that have no permanent home in a museum’s exhibit space, or for collections that have no catalogs. For museums without an actual building, Open Museum provides a permanent (virtual) home away-from-home for collections that would exist nowhere else.
Collection
The museum currently features approximately 1000 Objects , as well as rich media supporting material for those works, by visual artists from around the world. A unique feature of the site is that inspirations, sources and studies for works of art are provided for most objects.Blog
The Open Museum Blog features articles about the Objects , Museums and People , which is presented on the Open Museum site.How it works
Any Open Museum visitor can explore any area of the site. Registered visitors (members) can participate in a variety of additional ways, ranging from reading and participating in conversations, posting photos on their walls, "favoriting" objects, friending museums, and playing t.a.g. (the association game). Registered members can also apply to be curators of their own collections, in one of the following categories: art museums, independent artists, artist collectives, schools of art and design, history museums.Any Open Museum curator — regardless of financial and technical resources — can create participatory exhibits that engages visitors around their collections. Furthermore, Open Museum harnesses the power of social networks to share and promote these collections. The curator selection process is juried. To start a collection (curate), applicants register (i.e. become a member) for Open Museum and send an email inquiry. Each category has a separate jury and a rigorous selection process. To curate as an independent artist, the applicant must submit a resume and sample work. To curate for an organization (museum, collective, school), the applicant must demonstrate his or her connection to this institution and his authority to curate on its behalf.
The museum is a free and not-for-profit service, has been funded exclusively through the generosity of our donors and the free elbow grease of its founders. In the future, Open Museum also hopes to raise revenue through fees for special services, sponsorships and grants. Currently Open Museum hosts content on its servers free of charge to Open Museum users.
Open Museum is a collaborative project between Zirgoflex L3C and Heritance, a 501c3 non-profit organization that promotes open museum practices worldwide. Zirgoflex, one of the first Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
designated low-profit social ventures, has built the technology. Heritance, also based in Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, provides the Open Museum service and training workshops, consultations, and technical support to Heritance partner museums .