Jim Spadaccini and I are in Montreal at Museums & the Web this week, looking forward to demonstrating the site on Saturday morning. If you’re here, please stop by and give us your ideas as we plan next steps.Wendy

With so many of the ExhibitFiles reviews and case studies focusing on computer-based exhibits (browse the tag: computer),  I thought there might be some interest in a survey we (Ideum) have developed on the subject.  We’re conducting the survey to better shape a project that we’re developing called Open Exhibits. We hope to find out just how museums are using computer-based exhibits.

One of the primary goals of Open Exhibits is to develop a suite of open source electronic exhibit templates which will be freely available to museums.  There’s more about Open Exhibits on the Ideum blog or you can go directly to the survey. We will share the results with everyone who completes the survey.

Here’s an opportunity that may be of interest to ExhibitFiles members, with a March 28 deadline for submission:

ASTC seeks to recognize small and large science centers and museums for recent and extraordinary accomplishments in exhibitions, education programs, technology applications, theater and film programming, visitor services, research and evaluation.

Winning visitor experiences must have achieved a tangible impact or lasting effect. The visitor experience must have been implemented by or for an ASTC science center or museum since January 2005.

Each award will consist of an etched glass “Edgie” presented during the ASTC Annual Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, plus a paid registration to the 2008 ASTC Annual Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

New deadline is March 28, 2008. For details and nomination forms, visit www.astc.org/about/awards/leading_edge.htm

2007 Recipients
Clore Garden of Science – EcoSphere
MIDE - Museo Interactivo de Economía
OMSI – STARS Project

2006 Recipients
Hands On! Regional Museum – Eastman Discovery Lab
The Tech Museum of Innovation - TechTags

2005 Recipients
Denver Museum of Nature & Science – Space Odyssey
Omaha Children’s Museum – Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition
Saint Louis Science Center – Taylor Community Science Resource Center

Contact: Diane Frendak, dfrendak@astc.org; 202/783-7200 x112.

We’ve just added some new features to the ExhibitFiles site. You can now tag any case study or review. The tags are then added to the list of available keywords for each entry. This simple addition will help with search functionality. It also provides a new way to browse the growing contributions of ExhibitFiles members–users can now browse by tag on the redesigned Browse page.

Other additions to the Browse page include a new thumbnail viewer as well as improved “sort” capabilities in the columns toward the bottom of the page. Case studies and reviews can now be displayed by Popularity, along with Title and Date. All of these changes should make it easier for members and visitors find entries of interest in the ExhibitFiles collection.

As 2007 comes to an end, the ExhibitFiles community numbers 513 members from around the world. Since the site opened at the end of April, we’ve collectively contributed 86 case studies and reviews on topics ranging from toasters to tenements, aging to Antarctica, memories to Matisse. It’s always a delight to open the site and find a new contribution.

In recent weeks, we’ve also been identifying ways to make ExhibitFiles better and more useful and are at work on changes in both design and ways to use the site. You’ll be hearing more soon.

For now, many thanks to all who’ve joined, contributed, and advised over the past eight months—and best wishes for the coming year.

Are you coming to Los Angeles for the ASTC Annual Conference, October 13-16?

Come by the ASTC Resource Center in the Exhibit Hall on Saturday or Sunday. We’ll have Internet access, so we can help you join—or even take your picture and add it to your profile on the spot.

On Sunday morning, join us in the lobby of the Wilshire, 7:15-8:30am, for for breakfast and conversation (there’s free wireless, so you can get help here, too).

And post a review of an exhibition you see while you’re in LA. Help ExhibitFiles grow!

ExhibitFiles has grown since May to more than 380 members and 70+ case studies and reviews. We’ve seen everything from Chagall to Second Life, with some classics like the Discovery Room in between.

Now it’s time for another round of improvements to the site, and we’d like your help. To make it easier for members to share their ideas, we’ve moved the blog to a more prominent location, with a tab near the top of the main page. We’ve been keeping track of the bug reports (and killing some bugs along the way). But we’d like to know more.

Please let us know your ideas for how the site could be improved by leaving comments here.

We’ll also be at the ASTC Annual Conference, which is coming up in LA in the middle of October, and hope to talk with ExhibitFiles members there. More on that soon.

Recent redesign of the ASTC website means more exposure for ExhibitFiles content. Feeds are now drawn directly into a tabbed area of the ASTC main page, highlighting the three newest ExhibitFiles case studies and reviews.

Together with a variety of other strategies, these feeds are helping to increase visibility of ExhibitFiles members’ contributions.

Latest is Judy White’s extensive case study about the development of the Smithsonian Institution’s first discovery room more than 30 years ago. There are now 39 case studies, 25 reviews, and more than 350 members.

Join up and share your experiences and perspectives with the growing community. And please let us know your ideas for site improvements. We’ll be making another round of changes soon.

Those of you who use the Mac OS might be interested in a Apple Dashboard Widget that displays the latest updates from the ExhibitFiles right on your Mac Desktop.
Download the widget (Mac OS X users only):
exhibitfiles.wdgt.zip

In future versions, we’d like to add recent comments. We’re also interested in possibly exploring other widget types such as Google Gadgets, Yahoo! Widgets, and others. This is version 1.0, so your feedback is appreciated.

As Wendy mentioned, this week we will be rolling out an update to the ExhibitFiles software. There are a few bug fixes, some changes in terminology, improved help, and a series new features. Thanks to everyone who has reported bugs or suggested changes. Many of your suggestions have found their way into the new version of the site.

These are the major improvements and changes that you’ll find in the ExhibitFiles last this week:

Search - We’ve added the ability to search all of the site content (case studies, reviews, and member profiles). In addition, keywords, author names, and museum names will be clickable–allowing users to see all of the records that relate to those terms. This a major improvement over our temporary Google co-op search engine.

Comments - The ability to edit comments for up to 15 minutes after posting will be added. Web addresses that are in comments will be clickable.

Profiles - We’ve added the ability to embed RSS feeds from your blog or a favorite one. In addition, you can now add thumbnails of your latest photos from flickr automatically. (See the image above.) Also, you will be able to add co-authors to your list of publications and presentations.

Contacts - When you add someone to your contact list, they will receive an email letting them know that you’ve added them.

Favorites - Case studies and reviews will now display icons and links to the profiles of those members who have “favorited” an exhibit.

We’re still testing these new features, but we’ll send along a message once these enhancements are in place. See you on the ExhibitFiles.