The Participatory Museum

I came across this book “The Participatory Museum” by Nina Simon, 2010:

The book focuses on visitor participation in this new age of museums, libraries, art galleries, and cultural institutions. The book acts as a guide basically to working with community members, to ensure that our institutions, proactively aim to be innovative, and remain relevant in today’s society. It also advocates for us, as individuals to participate in this process. The book is not heavy on the technical side, so it is an easy read, and appeals to a larger audience. It recommends different design techniques and also offers results from case studies to create a participatory community amongst individuals, libraries, museums, and archives. For more info about The Participatory Museum, check out their website here.

Linking Libraries to Wikipedia

I just read about this template that adds links to libraries’ print collections to Wikipedia articles, making it easier for casual researchers to wind up visiting their local library. Seems like a cool idea!

Although I’m not sure why the template wouldn’t link to Worldcat, which does a much better job of linking to library catalogs.

Here’s an example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_history#External_links

And more about the project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_history#External_links

So now I subscribe to the CHIN newsletter. This month there was a note about a wiki on the future of museums and libraries. I have not had a chance to look at it yet but thought I would post the link.
http://imlsupnext.wikispaces.com/