"The Spirit of Sharing: Is Social Media Changing Museums?"

From the New York Times last month--an article by Carol Vogel on how museums are building a presence online.  Museum websites are offering much more than visitor information on operating hours and ticket prices.  The websites themselves offer participatory experiences and chances to submit feedback on collections and operations.  For example, "At the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Web users can track its endowment, its membership, the number of visitors it had that day and even how much energy it is using," and "The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Web site has a new attraction called “Connections,”where behind-the-scene staff members — including an educator and a media producer — talk about their favorite works in the collection. “It’s a balance between personal and scholarly voices,” said Erin Coburn, the chief officer of digital media at the Met."