Really interesting points being made by everyone.
Thanks to Jon Pratty for agreeing with points I made earlier. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I agree overall with Tim Trent's points.
I would try to persuade any small museum trust to try to include a small amount to help build and keep a decent website running in a form that enables typical volunteers to add/change things without major panic or wrecking the website. It may be that this is something for which they do some specific fundraising or look for a small grant. Not all museums will be able to find a Tim Trent to volunteer.
Yes, the image facilities do tend to strip out image metadata. This is intensely annoying and causes extra unnecessary work. They also don't allow for the image content and the image itself both needing metadata to describe them, because most people don't need that. Of course, museums can be really awkward and digitise 19th century photos of the museum's objects so there is a further layer of description. We can't expect general open source software to be designed to cope with that level of complexity. Most don't need it for uploading and storing photos of their baby/dog/birthday party/product launch/conference etc.
Jim Richardson's point about events was an interesting one. I've certainly come across a plugin or 2 that do archive events once they've been and gone. I wondered if events seem to be a key concern to him for museums because it is the staff most concerned with events (educational or promoting the headliner exhibitions or special events) who are most likely to have a budget and prioritise getting such information on websites? Are the curators as proactive regarding the website?
I think that websites are an important part of a museum's (or other cultural institution's) presence these days; and that a good open source website + use of other free or low-cost Web facilities could allow small museums etc to achieve far more than might have been possible pre-Web.
I think this discussion is highlighting areas that those funding could target as effective ways of helping the smallest museums be more sustainable, especially since they can enable more and perhaps different volunteers to engage with a museum (or similar). People might not have time to spend several mornings a week working on the museum's ticket-and-shop counter, but they might be able to spend some time uploading images or proof-reading/editing a new article and publishing it on the website, wherever they happen to be.
Janet
Janet E Davis
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