This interaction will provide a forum to examine how Web 2.0 technologies can be and are used by curators, educators and other museum professionals to expand a museum's role by promoting new methods of collaboration within itself and with other museums and institutions. These technologies can also be used to enhance a visitor's experience by transforming it from a passive role to that of an active participant in an exhibition.

Despite the relative ease of implementing Web 2.0 technologies, a wide range of issues need to be addressed at the start of a project, such as security, in-house or out-of-house software application management, whether or not to monitor user-generated content (and if so, how) and assessment. Interaction participants will be encouraged to share their experiences regarding the development of different kinds of social networks (professional, educational, visitor participatory, etc) and the specific tools and processes chosen. By identifying different initiatives, tools and processes, we will learn together how to improve our best practices as well as to create new forms of museum content that enhance visitors experiences.

Discussion ideas will include strategies on the integration of user generated audio, video and text into both practical and virtual exhibitions, multi-institutional collaborations for education and research. Some of the tools that will be introduced will include wikis, e-portfolios, steve.museum, nexhibition, mobile-to-web technologies (Gabcast, flickr, etc), calendaring and scheduling.

Additionally, I will present a paper summarizing the results of my research the integration of Social Networking tools into museum environments and will provide participants a current list of web links to 2.0 tools and sites.