Nik Honeysett moderates a panel of two directors who share the podium with their heads of IT staff.

James Cuno, Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, is a techno-convert, realising that his daughters live in a world where information is on-line, people have ipods and the museum is featured on YouTube in visitor-created videos. Committed resources, time and staff, to make this happen.

Janice Klein, Director of the Mitchell Museum of the American Museum, is in a small museum, without IT staff, struggling to manage technology with volunteers and limited expertise. Challenge of maintaining infrastructure is significant; her colleagues are focused on outcomes and technology is a tool. Drivers are often the members of the Board.

Sam Quigley has a privledged position as an IT person at the table with museum senior management (thought his isn't as rare as it once was).

John Dodge works on 'soft money', responding to immediate needs.

Nik: how do we develop the understanding of technology at a strategic level?

mcn in chicago: opening plenaryi'm at MCN in Chicago for the next few days, and i'll be blogging my notes. first up, a day on professionalization and changes in the field, as th is is MCN's 40th anniversary.

Museum Studies Programs: That Was Then, This Is Now

Marla Misunas began this session by surveying the emergence of 'computer skills' as a requirement in collections management jobs advertised in Aviso. Amusingly, she notes, these were required first in assistant registrars, before registrars had to be computer literate. Marla suggests that the following skills are required for collections managers:

Samuel Mann has been writing up his notes from ICHIM07 for his blog, Computing for Sustainability. See all 15 posts – from the Opening to the Closing Plenaries – aggregated here.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Samuel!

/jt