Nina Simon’s “The Participatory Museum” is a treasure trove of ideas that can be used to inform the Hyperlinked Library. In fact, after reading about the many real-life examples of participatory success stories and creative collaborations that are happening in the museum world, I’m having trouble imagining any other way forward for libraries as well. The barriers to participation are higher and more firmly entrenched in traditional museum culture, yet a revolution seems to be underway. This author is leading the charge for ME to become WE. Innovative museums are changing their focus from one-way communication (museums presenting content to passive consumers) to fostering genuine and sustained conversation with their users via participation.
I have distilled Simon’s observations about the ineffective outdated traditional museum and the effective forward-thinking participatory museum into this comparison chart. It’s an oversimplification because most institutions are somewhere in between the two but it’s intended to emphasize the positives of the participatory museum model.
As you can see it’s immediately obvious that there is a huge overlap between the limitations of the traditional museum and the traditional library (library 1.0), based on our HLL class readings. Both operate from a fear-based “don’t touch that” position. Both tend to center the organization over the user, leading to over-generalized and static user experiences. They have trouble reaching the long tail of non-users in the community. These institutions hoard their objects and collections, limiting the numbers and types of users that can utilize their resources. These policies decrease diversity, stifle innovation, lead to stifled top-down museums that often do not live up to their mission statements (or that have a horrifyingly racist mission statement), and which lumber along tripping on red tape and in fear of being phased out.
Likewise, you can see the advantages of the HLL (library 2.0) reflected in the participatory museum model. With the user as the central focus of the organization, trust, respect, and flexibility become paramount. Observers become participants, collaborators, and sometimes co-creators. Their contributions are treated as essential, are given support, and are centered as valuable to the institution. These institutions exist in a constant feed-back loop (everything is beta), with participant’s critiques and experiences informing constant adaptation. This culture of experimentation opens the door to innovation and ideas from outside of the field. When users feel respected, seen, and included, they become stakeholders, repeat users, and prosthelytizers for the institution. As the users are seen and valued as individuals, so are the staff–there is a real human face to the museum (or library), with room for personalities and authentic diverse voices. The institutions share their collections with others, opening up to remixing, collaboration, and scholarly discovery. This culture of openness extends to organizational transparency and a bottom-up or horizontal institutional power structure.
While it’s not featured in this book, participatory museums, like some libraries, have been doing away with fees (entrance vs. over-due book fees) in order to increase and diversify their user-base. The HLL goes one step further in user co-creation with the design of the building itself– this idea was seemingly absent from Simon’s book but I can only anticipate that this is one of the next frontiers in the Participatory Museum.
This book was a pleasure to read; the author is passionate and inspiring but also intent on practical, real-life advice and examples. Her detailed analysis of the diverse types of user participation, and how to target each, really expanded my awareness of how libraries can (and should) engage with the public in authentic and meaningful ways (for both the user and the institution). Finally I was thrilled to see the metaphor of the garden appear again in this book
Participatory projects are like gardens, they require continual tending and cultivation.
Nina Simon, the Participatory Museum, p.338