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Friday June 6, 2008

After your visit, click on this: Web site lets users interact with museum whenever, wherever

by andy altman-ohr
staff writer

Go to a normal museum and here’s what happens: You arrive, wander for a few hours, maybe have a nosh at the café or buy a replica postcard … and then leave. End of story.

But the idea people at the Contemporary Jewish Museum didn’t want the story to end when people left the building.

So they designed a Web site that keeps the conversation going. Did you take any cool pictures at the CJM? You can put them on the Web site. How about video? Post that, too. Have thoughts about an exhibit or even a specific work that you saw? Visitors can submit comments, as well.

Internet heavy hitters Flickr, YouTube and Facebook feature prominently on the site, but just as important, the site has been designed to be user-friendly.

“We really want to engage the audience beyond the museum walls and tap into the Web 2.0 culture that has become ubiquitous,” says Kate Patterson, manager of marketing and communications for the museum.

After leaving the museum, visitors can spark up their computer or Internet-ready phone, go to www.thecjm.org (user-friendly note: if you mistakenly type “.com” it still works) and look for “Join the discussion” or “Tell us what you think.”

Other features allow sitegoers to look up an exhibit, then read comments from other visitors and respond to what they thought about the entire exhibit or a particular piece. The whole thing will mirror a back-and-forth discussion, Patterson says.

“Encouraging dialogue and getting people to exchange ideas is a huge part of our mission,” Patterson says.

In addition to the back-and-forth, the Web site has all of the essentials: information about upcoming exhibits, a calendar of events, hours, ticket sales and an online store.

One example of the Web site’s breadth is on the “New Building” page in the “About” section. Click on and explore 15 images of the museum; read synopses on the building and the Jessie Street power substation; or listen to a pair of podcasts, one from architect Daniel Libeskind and one from California historian Kevin Starr.

And then there’s the “Exhibitions” section, where users can peruse thumbnails on upcoming exhibits and revisit Jewish Museum exhibits dating back to 2000. Remember the “Scents of Purpose: Artists Interpret the Spice Box” exhibit from 2005? Click on it and reawaken your senses.

The “Connect” section of the Web site — located on the far right side of the upper menu bar — is dedicated to user interaction.

Users are encouraged to share photos in the Flickr Photo Gallery; submit a link to a museum-oriented YouTube video; join the museum’s Facebook network; or download and listen to any part of the museum’s audio tour podcast.

Because users won’t be able to leave their comments until the museum actually opens, the focus of the “Connect” section so far has been the photo gallery, where more than 100 people have posted geometrically potent images of the new building through various stages of its construction.

The Web site also explains that patrons can shoot images only from public areas, not from inside the museum’s galleries.

In her two and a half years at the museum, Patterson has been overseeing the creation of the Web site. She

cut her teeth in Los Angeles for Web design company Kapow, which has designed sites for an impressive list of clients.

Patterson explored many Web sites in her quest to build the perfect one for the CJM. She says some of the CJM site is modeled after one of her favorite sites, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, especially its “community” section, which includes comments, blogs, photos, videos, a user network, podcasts and RSS feeds (updates sent to your phone or computer). The CJM has almost all the same features, including RSS feeds for people who sign up for them.

One thing Patterson really liked on the Brooklyn site was a “wall” where users could leave their own tags during an art-graffiti exhibit. She envisions the CJM doing something similar in the future.

“I think they do a wonderful job of using Web 2.0 to engage their audiences,” Patterson says. “Just go to the site and you can see how many people are participating, especially in the ‘comments’ area.’”

Patterson also likes anything that increases the “transparency” of a museum, such as video postings by or about the artists, how an exhibit was set up or short interviews with museum employees.

“These technologies and these activities are not a thing of the future,” Patterson says. “They are part of the here and now, and as a contemporary museum, we want to be involved in that.”

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