physical presence in London will be complemented by a globally accessible media resource […] as a result, visits to the Museum’s main web site should double to over 14m by 2012” (The British Museum, 2012). The importance of achieving this goal cannot be overstated. It has at least two main advantages.
First, by giving relevant information to the visitor before they reach the museum he should be able to put the content of the actual museum in a better context and make a more informed observation of what he sees once he arrives to the analog museum. Stuer (2001) argues that achieving this can produce a more comprehensive and enjoyable experience for the visitor, making it more likely for him to later on return to the museum or simply become more interested in the art he has seen.
Second, by increasing the presence museums have on the Internet they are targeting a key sector of the population. Internet users is a group dominated by young people, mainly in the range of 16 to 19 years old, which is also a sector that museums have a hard time appealing to because it this groupis normally misinformed or has preconception that it is not compatible with its theirinterests (Veirum& Christensen, 2011). Digital museums open an opportunity for art to become more visible among the youth, and for disabling false preconceptions of museums as esoteric and uninteresting places. Furthermore, Veirum& Christensen also argue that, due to the social nature of museum visits, “targeting teenagers with digital technologies could be the way, not only to reach a new young audience, but also to engage current, older, visitors at a higher level” (2011).
The Australian Powerhouse Museum is another example of a museum that is adapting to this new trend of digital museums. This case in particular is interesting because of its use of crowdsourcing. In 2009 the Powerhouse Museum published the vast majority of its collection online but not all records were complete. Since then, outside experts have been contacting the museum offering help in completing their records without requesting payment in exchange . Similarly, Tate Britian used Flickr to crowdsource the contents for the photographic exhibition How We Are: Photographing BritianBritain. (Proctor, 2010) These are typical examples of how the Internet is creating cooperation systems that can be superior to the traditional institutional models.
To better understand the possible impact that crowdsourcing can have on museums it is useful to analyze the case of Flickr. As with most models of cooperation, Flickr is dominated by a very steep power-law distribution, where the top contributors give hundreds of times more than the average contributor. Specifically in Flickr, the top 15% contributors account for 60% of the photos. (Shirky, 2009) Normally, institutions, such as museums, could hire how?this 15% and receive a very good return on their investment. However, crowdsourcing allows Flicker to not have to give up on the other 40% of the contributions because everybody is able to freely contribute. Digital museums, such as the one created by the Powerhouse Museum, could potentially achieve the same thing. For example, museums could hire professionals to tag the contents of their digital versions so people can find what they are looking for in an easier way. However, it is much easier, and cheaper, to crowdsource this function, so that every contributing visitor of the digital museum i
