Collecting social media as a museum object

Laura Lannin

Ellie Miles

Museum of London

London Museum, 1912 “we do not, however mean to confine ourselves to the remote or semi-remote

past. The fashions, industries and topography of a city rapidly change, and garments work, articles made and the plan of a neighbourhood today may undergo a vast change in the course of the next few years and should not, therefore be neglected in our plan for a Museum which shall be a complete mirror of London’s activities”

(Laking in the Daily Mail, 18/04/19 quoted in Ross, 1998)

Image © Museum of London

Image © Museum of London

Image © Museum of London

Images © Museum of London

Objects must have cultural, social and/or historical significance to London or Londoners OR Objects must show significant interpretation of historical/contemporary/everyday issue(s) facing London and Londoners Digital preservation issues, while not the only reason to collect or reject material, should always be considered during the acquisition process. The Digital Collections Manager (Preservation) should be consulted regarding all potential acquisitions. Where appropriate contextual information to facilitate the acquisition and future display of the object should be acquired and a decision made as to whether this should be accessioned or not. This might include screen grabs, installation photos, exhibition copy, sound recordings, video or still images. Any dedicated hardware or software required to display the digital object should be listed and considered as part of the acquisition process and where appropriate sought as part of the overall acquisition in order to aid future display and preservation. However, the digital collecting policy does not cover the acquisition of physical objects used to display digital content or hardware associated with emerging digital technologies or communications in their own right.

From Museum of London’s Digital Collecting Framework, 2012

Images © Museum of London

General Collecting Principles

Events

Everyday life

Democracy and politics

#Citizencurators

Research Questions

• Can we collect the immediacy of events as they unfold?

• What is the value or what is the object when collecting social media?

• What about long term preservation?

• What about IP in links, images etc?

Image © Museum of London

#Citizencurators • A collaborative and experimental digital collecting project

• Collaborative partners: Peter Ride, University of Westminster

Dr Hilary Young, Digital Curator, Museum of London

• Students from the MA Museums, Galleries and Contemporary Culture at the University of Westminster

Jayacintha Danaswamy

Fliss Hooton

Nadia Little

Xiaosong Liu

Mengming Ran

Eleni Tziourtzia

• Recruited participants

Screengrab of the citizencurators’ profiles http://citizencurators.com/2012/07/20/the-citizencurators-announced/

Location, Location, Location?

Screengrab from #citizencurators spreadsheet

The Accessioned Object

Hashtag projection in Museum of London foyer, August 2012. Photo by Hilary Young.

Digital photograph data visualization projection in Museum of London foyer, August 2012.

Photo by Hilary Young.

Results and outcomes • Blog www.citizencurators.com

• Live feed in foyer

• Participation – so many people involved

• Gallery video

• Commission?

• Study day

projection in Museum of London foyer, August 2012. Photo by Hilary Young.

Internal results and outcomes

• Advocating digital collecting with museum

• Questioning: what is the digital object?

• Accessioning and procedural documentation

• A very publicly experimental project

• Collaboration with HE students and public

• Technical capacity to collect other hashtags and topics e.g. #savesouthbank

Discoveries

• Difficulties of copyright

• Finding space to show this in the museum (and getting permission to do so)

• Images and links – online context

• Its timing helped to make it manageable, but was also a constraint: we didn’t collect the Paralympics. Something to think about in future

Collecting social media workshop

• Chance to learn from other projects and research

V&A,

British Library,

Digital Humanities

• Chance to discuss collecting digital

• Discuss shared concerns

Current and future digital collecting projects

• Can techniques be applied to something more

spontaneous – Thatcher’s death and funeral

• Finding out where social media collecting is most useful – Protests organised through it – collecting in the way

that we use it as far as possible

• Digitally Collecting everyday life in and of London – Cycling stuff – films, digital material

– Market soundscapes

References

Kavanagh, G. 1998. Buttons, Belisha Beacons and Bullets: City Histories in Museums. in Kavanagh, G.

and Frostick, E. Making City Histories in Museums. Leicester: University Press.

Ross, C. 1998. Collections and Collecting. In Kavanagh, G.

and Frostick, E. Making City Histories in Museums. Leicester: University Press.

Sheppard, F. 1991. The Treasury of London’s Past. London: HMSO

Smith, G. 2008. The making of oral history: Sections 1–2. Available at

http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/oral_history.html#early_history

accessed 21st February 2013

Laura Lannin Ellie Miles

@ellie__miles

emiles@museumoflondon.org.uk