An Open Letter to Cultural Institutions Online

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the role cultural institutions play in our society and what kind of function(s) they serve, or should serve. A few weeks ago, NewCurator.com circulated a video in which dozens of museum professionals were asked the question, "What is the single most important function of museums?" Later, @newcurator then posed the same question to the Twitter community. You can view the results of the poll here, as well as a pretty nifty word cloud compiled from the responses.

Needless to say, the question made a huge impression on me, evidenced by the fact that it never left me, to the point where it now informs every thought I have regarding cultural institutions and the arts. While there were many answers given above that I found insightful, the one that resonated with me the most (and, incidentally, was repeated most often) was "to educate."

Part of what I love about the arts is the sense of enlightenment that comes with a particularly moving experience at a museum, dance, opera or philarmonic performance. It's as if someone expanded the corridors of your mind, opened a door or a window or some new avenue, let in some fresh air, and suddenly, you're looking at things from a whole new perspective--if not permanently, at least long enough to make a difference in your day to day. Maybe that's not an experience that happens for everybody, but I'm willing to bet that most people have felt something akin to this at one point or another.

Cultural institutions' capacity for education--and not necessarily in the dullard, didactic, or even scholarly sense, but simply in the sense of imparting ideas and information from one source (a reputed source of authority) to a curious mind--is what I think makes them such a vital part of society. What I don't understand, however, is why so many institutions still feel, or at the very least act like they do, that this exchange of information, this translation of knowledge, can only take place in the physical space (as opposed to the virtual).

Too often, I find myself wondering what happens to all the information I see in program books, exhibition catalogues, all that museum display text and audio guides--where does all that stuff go once the exhibition goes down? Why isn't it repurposed and put up online? Why can't I watch or download the Met's HD Opera broadcasts on their website? Or better yet, on Hulu.com? Why are cultural institutions essentially hoarding this information when everyone agrees their primary role is that of educator, which, near as I can understand, requires disseminating information?

Ok, I admit, I know very little about how cultural institutions operate, and I'm sure there are all sorts of copyright and intellectual property laws that prevent these institutions from having a free-for-all with this content. Not to mention, there is that whole issue of money and how to make it. I get it. But putting that all aside for a moment, I still feel like they're missing out on a few opportunities.

1. To establish themselves as the go-to authorities for the content they provide. When I type an artist's name into Google, let's say Picasso, invariably the first thing that pops up is a Wikipedia entry. WHY?! Wikipedia has become our go-to source for information, though none of us can deny that it's not exactly the most reliable or trustworthy source. It's just a reliable repository of information--you know that whatever you're looking for is going to be there. With the more legit sources, that's not so much a guarantee.

The first reference source for the Wikipedia entry is the MoMA. Why is the MoMA letting Wikipedia steal its thunder? In fact, out of the 10 sources listed on the first page of Google results, only one appears to be a museum--the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. That's not to say that there aren't any useful or authoritative sources on that first page, the Online Picasso Project, for instance, looks like quite a nice catalog of Picasso's work. But then again, so there's also Mr.Picassohead.com, an online game that lets you create a Picasso-style face in Mr. Potatohead mix-and-match fashion.

2. Increased presence and permeation of cultural information online will aid in the education and appreciation of the arts. One of the questions I hear cultural institutions ask a lot is, "How do we engage the young people? How do we get them to come out?" Most people my age might take a trip to the museum about once or twice a year, maybe on an outing with their parents, while something like the Philharmonic or the Opera is seen as dreadfully boring to the point of actual torture. Maybe I'm exaggerating here, but not by much. If an appreciation for the arts is not something that's been instilled in a person from an early age, chances are, the associations they're going to have with something like opera are of the caricature variety--a fat woman wearing a horned helmet belting out awful sounding music in an incomprehensible language...for four hours. That sounds like brutal torture to just about anybody.

Increasing the presence of arts and cultural institutions online, and by extension, increasing the presence of arts and culture itself, could help teach a new generation of Americans to love the arts. The way I see it is as a sort of cultural immersion. If the arts are everywhere--on YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Vimeo--chances are they will be found and seen and (gasp!) maybe even enjoyed by a larger audience. Exposure is important, I think, because it plants the seed--it breeds curiosity and the desire to know more, but beyond that, it also establishes a sense of familiarity. Familiarity is imporant because it opens up the individual to learning more. The next time the person encounters opera or Picasso, they already have a point of reference, a touchstone which enables an "Oh yeah, I've heard of this before...now what was it about?"

I don't know if any of these ideas are going to help cultural institutions make money, but in a perfect world, that would be the end result. By establishing themselves as authorities and immersing the public in the cultural knowledge, perhaps they'd garner a sense of allegiance from the public. These types of efforts, paired with something like social media, could help people develop very real and personal relationships with the institutions, the communities surrounding the institutions, and the cultural properties themselves.

But like I said, I have only the vaguest idea of how non-profits work and the challenges they are facing. I'd love your thoughts on what I may have missed and what I haven't considered.