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April 11-14, 2007
San Francisco, California

A Museums Wiki

Introduction

Wiki technology is not new in Web terms, the first having been introduced in 1995, but it is now gaining increasing acceptance as a useful tool for on-line collaboration (Bowen, 2006). However, it may not be particularly easy for the novice user both in terms of the technical facilities and understanding the process of developing a successful wiki. Wikis are a technology that allow and encourage collaboration on-line. There are competing technologies such as blogs and the rather older and more widely used e-mail (Bristow, 2005; Kelley, 2005; Richardson, 2006). Wikis, with their direct Web interface, work well when a group of people with a critical mass wish to achieve some collaborative purpose concerning information on-line, without geographical considerations apart from access to the Internet. They are increasingly used on company intranets and extranets for intra-company collaboration. Their use in the public sector (e.g., libraries, education, government, etc.) has also been considered (Guy, 2005).

Currently there is not much public use of wikis by museums. Greenmuseum.org, which describes itself as a “nonprofit on-line museum of environmental art”, provides a wiki on-line (http://wiki.greenmuseum.org). The Kew Bridge Steam Museum in London (http://www.kbsm.org) has a wiki for use by staff and volunteers to enable research collaboration. However, to the knowledge of the authors, there are still no widely used public museum-based resources using wiki technology on-line.

Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org) has been the first extremely successful wiki to enter the public consciousness. It is a general encyclopedia that now rivals even the likes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com). A study by the leading scientific journal Nature indicated that the quality of selected important scientific entries was not dissimilar when Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica were compared in detail (Giles, 2005). Of course Encyclopaedia Britannica contested the study (Nature, 2006), even though it was shown to provide slightly better quality information, but not outstandingly so.

Perhaps Wikipedia’s greatest strength (and some think its significant weakness), especially compared to a traditional encyclopedia such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is that it can be updated by anybody at any time. Thus both experts and vandals can update entries at will. However, Wikipedia has now reached such a critical mass of users (both readers and writers), that inappropriate entries and changes to entries are picked up by both “Wikipedians” and automated robot software that scans changed Wikipedia entries with suitable heuristics for detecting many of the typical changes made by people who do not have the public good at heart in their editing. This is much like real life where people drop litter, but others are altruistically willing to pick it up subsequently. The Wikipedia community is now sufficiently large that the process is very fast (literally minutes) for important entries.

Wikipedia is an excellent resource for museums, both for (at least initial) research and for publicity concerning the museum itself. A paper in Museums and the Web 2006 (Bowen & Angus 2006) explained in practical detail how museums can create their own entries on Wikipedia. Indeed, every real museum is deserving of a Wikipedia entry, and it is highly recommended that museum curators either create an entry for their museum (using an independent rather than marketing tone, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia rather than a commercial tool), or correct and add to any existing entry. This should ideally be done by someone with a good knowledge of the museum rather than a member of the marketing department, unless the latter is able to take a very independent and non-promotional view of the entry. For example, information on the history of the museum is much more appropriate than details of the latest temporary exhibitions, which can be provided on the museum’s own Web site, with a suitable link from the Wikipedia entry if desired.

Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia documenting “notable” information, it can only include limited information on any given museum. For very large museums of international repute, it may be appropriate to have entries for individual items in the collection (e.g., important paintings). However, at some level, items will be deemed inappropriate by other members of the Wikipedia community and could be suggested for deletion. This is a situation best avoided by professional museums.

To allow museums more free rein in creating wiki entries, a wiki dedicated particularly for museums and related issues has been established using the Wikia facility (http://wikia.com). This was initially started as Wikicities in 2004 and is provided as a free service (supported by reasonably discrete Google advertisements) for communities with a wide enough remit to be considered worthwhile by the managers of Wikia. A proposal has to be submitted and accepted before a new Wikia wiki is established, and it is not intended for personal wikis of limited appeal. For that, there are other facilities such as PBwiki (http://pbwiki.com) where a wiki can very quickly be established by anyone in a few minutes (e.g., see http://jpbowen.pbwiki.com). The basic facilities of PBwiki are free, but to expand further there is a (not unreasonable) monthly charge.

A Museums Wiki has been accepted by Wikia and was established in 2006 (http://museums.wikia.com). So far this has been used for experimental purposes, but museums are encouraged to use it for any museum-related entries that they would like to create. This may be especially appropriate if the material is not suitable for Wikipedia (e.g., if it is too detailed or marketing-oriented). The issue of notability and marketing is not applicable on the Museums Wiki. The main criterion for acceptability applicable on this wiki is that the material is museum-related. Of course the site is still an open wiki like Wikipedia, so no one person has overall control of the material. Any entry could be updated by others. Thus it is mainly useful where collaboration is being actively encouraged (e.g., by on-line museum visitors).

Fig 1: A screenshot of the main page of the Museums Wiki (http://museums.wikia.com).

For more control, a museum could set up its own wiki on its own Web site. This is reasonably easy to do with suitable technical support (i.e., probably less than a day’s work for anyone with reasonable technical knowledge). There are various wiki software systems available, many free. Perhaps the leading one is MediaWiki (http://www.mediawiki.org), as used by Wikipedia. This has the advantage that anyone familiar with Wikipedia will find it easy to use, particularly with regard to the editing and markup facilities.

Experience

In this section we present some experiences of using the Museums Wiki from the point of view of novice wiki users, in the hope that this will help other museum professionals in their first use of a wiki.

The following may be useful information before starting on a wiki:

• Use Wikipedia to find out about the markup language. For example, have a look at the tutorial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial)
• It is good to try out on the “sandbox” facility on Wikipedia. You may be reluctant to start initially because mistakes seem to be very public and archives are kept. It is not like a blog where you can normally delete and completely wipe out your mistakes. Instead a history is kept and only wiki administrators can completely delete material.
• Starting on the tutorial means you gain some confidence with some experience behind you before attempting real entries.
• Although you can use the wiki, many people are more used to using a blog where there is more personal control. A blog is good as a diary of information stored in (reverse) temporal order. A wiki maintains a history for each entry in a similar way, but this is less emphasized. Instead the most recent version of each entry is the one that is available for viewing by default. In any case, there is no reason why different tools cannot be used with suitable links between them. It is possible to use a wiki as a collaborative space to keep notes and maintain a collective memory. For people used to blogs, this might take time to assimilate.
• According to the O’Reilly Network (http://www.oreillynet.com), a wiki is good for the following (Stafford & Webb, 2006):

  Good for writing down quick ideas or longer ones, giving you more time for formal writing and editing.

  Instantly collaborative without emailing documents, keeping the group in sync.

  Accessible from anywhere with a web connection (if you don't mind writing in web-browser text forms).

  Your archive, because every page revision is kept.

  Exciting, immediate, and empowering - everyone has a say.

A wiki is certainly all that, but it takes time to assimilate the process and the learning curve needed to collaborate effectively.

With respect to collaboration on a wiki, the following is recommended:

• For good collaboration, it is necessary to find and enthuse other people who are passionate about the subject area to be covered by the wiki.
• Get a clear idea from the people you are working with about what the project is going to achieve (Tonkin, 2005).
• It is best to choose a topic about which you are keen and knowledgeable to have a good chance of the project developing successfully. Considering “museums” as a topic is rather a wide subject to try to cover as an individual. For novices, there is a big learning curve and they need motivation to learn how to collaborate with wikis.
• Collaboration means constant and frequent communication, so it is necessary to engage with the wiki regularly.
• There should be some targets and objectives - just like any project management plan.
• Look forward to the time when the team becomes obsessive about the wiki.

Making contributions to a wiki site may not be as straightforward as you may think if you are a beginner.  Here is a list of tips that may help other museum professionals who are wiki beginners at enriching a wiki site. They relate to the structure of the Museums Wiki Web site and use it for  appropriate examples.

• First of all, do not forget to create a user account on the wiki and ensure that you are logged into this account every time you want to make any contribution. Otherwise the site will capture the IP address of the computer from which you have been doing edits but will not record your username identification in the history of edits made.
• Generally, any creation added to a wiki site is called an “edit”, so to add something new to the site, look for this word.
• A basic distinction to be made concerns the difference between creating a new category in the site and creating a new content page, as the function of each is very different. Categories allow structure of the content news so they can be traversed in a normally hierarchical and logical way. For example, the Museums Wiki is composed of an ever-growing number of categories that structure the site according to topical and geographical criteria (for example, “Awards”, “Conferences”, “Glossaries”, “Museums”, “Resources”, “Websites”, etc.).
• Most categories are divided into subcategories, thus giving a route to individual pages with specific information about a single issue: for instance, under the category “Countries” you find several subcategories, one of them being “Belgium”, which contains a page on the “Royal Museum for Central Africa”.  This is also accessible more directly under the “Museums” category. A topmost category called “Categories” has been created, linked from the main Museums Wiki home page, which is a good starting point for other categories.
• Thus, in order to see all existing categories, click on “Categories” on the main page of the Museums Wiki site. If there is a category you would like to insert, say “Fellowships”, then you need to create a new wiki page called “Category:Fellowships”. In order to make sure that this does not exist already, type “Category:Fellowships” in the search box at the left hand side of the Web interface. If it does exist, it will take you to it; otherwise it will give you the option to create such category. In order to add a new category, edit it and just add (as a minimum) “[[Category:Categories]]” to place it in the topmost category. As a result, now your category will be included in the main categories page. It is also possible to add further categories as required and appropriate.
• Now what you want to do is to fill your new category with content pages (and perhaps further sub-categories as well). In order to do this, type the desired page title into the search box as we want to make sure that such an entry does not exist already in the Museum Wiki site. Let us say that we want to write about “Metropolitan Museum Grants” within the Fellowships category. If this entry is not there, click on the “create this page” link that will appear on the screen, add the text in the edit box, write a brief summary of the edit in the summary line box that appears below the edit box. We need to add the “Fellowships” category using “[[Category:Fellowships]]” at the end of the text box information. When finished, press the “Save page” button below the summary line box.
• It is advisable to click on “Show preview” before actually saving edit to check that what has been written about the new content does not contain mistakes, grammatical errors or discrepancies. If we or any other wiki user notices that there is a mistake in what has been written or simply wants to modify it, it is necessary to click on the “edit” option that appears above the written  text, and add the new contribution in a similar manner as just explained.
• Normally when we are editing new content we need to insert any referred Web site related to that content - for instance, its official URL if it has one. If we simply write down a URL address, it will appear in the text as http://... with a link to the Web site. Links to Wikipedia entries on the Museums Wiki can be made using a macro of the form “{{wp|…}}” where the dots are the name of the Wikipedia page.
• If all this seems confusing, the best way to learn how to make edits is to pick any wiki page on the site at random, and press the “edit” button in order to view how that page was created and uploaded to the site. There is a (fairly simple) markup language for bold text, URL links, categories (as briefly covered above), etc. Viewing other wiki pages that include the formatting you require is a good way to learn the markup language.

Conclusions

In conclusion, there is a choice of wiki facilities available to museums, depending on the goal required. For general information on a museum, an entry on Wikipedia is highly recommended (Bowen & Angus 2006). For a more expansive set of entries than is suitable for Wikipedia, the Museums Wiki covered in this paper may be suitable (http://museums.wikia.com). If a museum requires more control over wiki entries (both for reading and writing), a wiki facility on its own Web site (e.g., using MediaWiki software – http://www.mediawiki.org) may be the most appropriate solution. This may work well in association with a special exhibition where public participation is encouraged, or for in-house projects where collaboration is being encouraged, especially among a geographically separated team (e.g., including museum personnel and a company).

For a successful wiki, a critical mass of users is need; otherwise it will simply stagnate. It is also important to have one or two people responsible for overseeing the wiki, ensuring entries are appropriate, and editing them when not, perhaps with a warning to the user concerned in more extreme cases. For some, this loss of control is a worry when wikis are used. For others, this is part of the excitement, allowing the unexpected to become possible. In any case, there are ways to control wiki use if necessary (e.g., administrators can lock pages from being changed and ban particular IP addresses from making updates). Normally the problem is encouraging worthwhile use rather than discouraging inappropriate use. The latter can easily be corrected, anyway, with suitable monitoring.

For the future, it would be interesting to have more studies on the actual use of wikis. Successful wikis like Wikipedia have a large virtual community with conventions concerning the running of the wiki (e.g., the removal of unsuitable pages) that have grown up with time. The background of such communities is largely unknown and most members have never met each other. Studies in a museum context (Beler et al., 2004) and with respect to different backgrounds such as gender (Boiano et al., 2006; Gunn et al., 2006), etc., would be worthwhile.

Currently, supporting literature on wikis, especially books, is relatively lacking. See, for example, Ebersbach et al. (2006). More are due to appear, both at a personal (Woods, 2007) and professional (Choate, 2007) level. Copyright is an issue with any material placed on-line (Numerico & Bowen, 2006), and it is recommended that copyrighted material be avoided in public wikis in general. Interlinking with Wikipedia is highly recommended where appropriate since Wikipedia is highly rated by Google and other search engines. This will help to improve the search engine ranking of the wiki facility and the museum Web site itself if suitably interlinked (Numerico et al., 2005).

In summary, all museum professionals engaged in using and exploiting on-line technology are encouraged to try wiki collaboration. It should not be expected that the benefits are immediately apparent. Like most good things, it takes a while to learn and adapt to the wiki environment and culture, but once that is done, the less obvious benefits become apparent. In particular, readers are very much encouraged to experiment with the Museums Wiki. Provided material added is museum-related, the site is likely to be further improved and developed by other wiki users (not least by authors of this paper!).

Acknowledgements

Jonathan Bowen is an Emeritus Professor and Silvia Filippini-Fantoni is a Visiting Research Fellow at London South Bank University. The Wikia facility was founded by Angela Beesley and Jimmy Wales (who also co-founded Wikipedia), and is provided free of charge by Wikia, Inc.

References

Beler, A., A. Borda, J. P. Bowen and S. Filippini-Fantoni (2004).The building of online communities: An approach for learning organizations, with a particular focus on the museum sector, In J. Hemsley, V. Cappellini and G. Stanke (eds.), EVA 2004 London Conference Proceedings, University College London, The Institute of Archaeology, UK, 26-30 July 2004, pages 2.1-2.15. http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.CY/0409055

Boiano, S., A. Borda, J. P. Bowen,X. Faulkner, G. Gaia and S. McDaid (2006). Gender issues in HCI design for Web access. In P. Zaphiris and S. Kurniawan (eds.), Advances in Universal Web Design and Evaluation: Research, Trends and Opportunities, Section III, Gender Issues, Chapter VI, pages 116-153. Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, USA.

Bowen, J. P. (2006). WWW.world of give-and-take. The Times Higher Education Supplement, 1752:21, 21 July 2006.

Bowen, J. P. and J. Angus (2007). Museums and Wikipedia. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2006: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, March 1, 2006, consulted 27 January 2007. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/bowen/bowen.html

Bristow, R. (2005). Beyond email: Wikis, blogs and other strange beasts. Ariadne, Issue 42, January, consulted 27 January 2007. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/beyond-email-rpt/

Choate, M. (2007). Professional Wikis. Wrox. (To appear.)

Ebersbach, A., M. Glaser and R. Heigl (2006). Wiki: Web Collaboration. Springer-Verlag, 2006.

Giles, J. (2005). Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature, 438:900-901, December. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/438900a

Gunn, R., G. Moss, J. P. Bowen, I. Bernal, E. Lisney and S. McDaid (2006). A comparison of gender bias in art and science museum websites. EVA 2006 London Conference Proceedings, London, UK, 26-28 July 2006. EVA Conferences International, pages 5.1-5.7.

Guy, M. (2006). Wiki or won't he? A tale of public sector wikis. Ariadne, Issue 49, October, consulted 27 January 2007. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/guy/

Kelly, B. (2005). Web focus: Experiences of using a wiki for note-taking at a workshop. Ariadne, Issue 42, January, consulted 27 January 2007. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/web-focus/

Kelly, B. (2005). Web Focus: Must Email Die? Ariadne, Issue 45, October, consulted 27 January 2007. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue45/web-focus/

Nature (2006). Nature's responses to Encyclopaedia Britannica, consulted 27 January 2007. http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/

Numerico, T. and J. P. Bowen (2006). Copyright Protection and Cultural Heritage: Steering digitization between public archives and search engines. EVA 2006 London Conference Proceedings, London, UK, 26-28 July 2006. EVA Conferences International, pages 6.1-6.7.

Numerico, T., J. P. Bowen and S. Filippini-Fantoni (2005). Search engines and on-line museum access on the Web. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.), Museums and the Web 2005: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, March 31, 2005, consulted 27 January 2007. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2005/papers/numerico/numerico.html

Richardson, Will (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Corwin Press. (See especially Chapter 4, Wikis: Easy collaboration for all.)

Stafford, T. and M. Webb (2006). What Is a Wiki (and How to Use One for Your Projects). O’Reilly Network, 7 July 2006. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2006/07/07/what-is-a-wiki.html (27 January 2007).

Tonkin, E. (2005). Making the case for a Wiki. Ariadne, Issue 42, January, consulted 27 January 2007. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/tonkin/

Woods, D. (2007). Wiki for Dummies. Wiley. (To appear.)

Cite as:

Bowen, J., et al., A Museums Wikii, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 1, 2007 Consulted http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/bowen/bowen.html

Editorial Note