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Recently a debate has been sweeping through museums throughout the world: should we allow the use of the new and wildly popular camera technology, the selfie stick? For those unfamiliar, selfie sticks are telescopic monopod devices that allow users to take selfies at more flattering and comfortable angles. Many museums, including the Smithsonian group, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Modern Museum of Art (MOMA), the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Cleveland Museum of Art, have decided to ban selfie stick use in their galleries, citing concern for the safety of museum objects and guests. A chain of emails I received last week concluded that they will be banned at the LBJ Library as well.

While I wholeheartedly agree that the safety of museum collections is paramount, what I don’t like about these debates is the tone of contempt anti-selfie-stickers assume. Wendy Malloy, Director of Public Relations for the Seattle Museum of Art, cited the “obnoxiousness factor” in the decision to ban selfie sticks. Some have coined the term “Narcisstick” to emphasize the narcissism of selfie culture. In the email I received, someone said (paraphrasing) “something with such an obnoxious name should be destroyed, not just banned.” This contempt for a useful, if frivolous, simple invention reminds me of the general contempt I often encounter towards new technologies, new ways of communicating, and basically anything millenials seem to like. Museums are struggling to keep up with modern trends, and are often perceived to be stuffy, boring, and no fun. We all know that isn’t the case, but museums aren’t helping themselves by spouting condescension and vitriol over a popular sharing tool.

The Centre for Computing history has taken to encouraging patrons to bring and use selfie sticks in the museum, mentioning their value both as tools for visitor engagement and for attracting new visitors through social media sharing. While this model can’t work for every museum – like I said, the collections come first – toning down the contempt is a good first step for museums trying to stay current.

For the first few weeks of this class, I struggled with how I would participate. I’m very comfortable online; I use social media in my daily life to connect with long-distance friends and family, and I’m a member of online communities. But participating on the class board felt different. I think it’s because my default behavior is to lurk. I read comments and follow discussions, but I only chime in if I have something in particular to say. In a class setting, I want to be sure I’m participating so I work a little harder to come up with something to say. I thought I’d look a little further into the phenomenon of lurking and its place in online classes.

The first thing I discovered is that lurkers are very common! According to the theory of the “90-9-1 rule,” lurkers are 90% of a given internet community. Lurkers are sometimes regarded as free-loaders, but more often are encouraged so that new members can learn community standards before participating. Studies on technical support for open-source technologies show that lurkers may also gather valuable information that better equips them to answer questions and contribute content.

What about in an online classroom? While lurkers in online courses may appear to be disengaged slackers, there is some evidence that lurkers are engaged students who are simply more introverted, “listener” types. However, they tend to get lower grades than their more vocal classmates. This same study (which has many interesting results!) found that students frequently explained that they were “low visibility participators” because online classrooms are new environments that take time to learn to navigate. Like me, some students are reluctant to participate solely for the sake of being present. For the most part, participation mirrored in-person classrooms, with some students being more vocal and some sitting back. What I’d be interested to learn is whether the students who are quiet in person are the same who are quiet online, or if different formats elicit different participation styles.

Here’s a list from one of the studies I cited spelling out how to best react to lurkers in online courses:

Web 2.0 is changing the face and function of libraries, archives, and museums. Patrons of these institutions expect them to have modern website interfaces, interactive exhibits and tools, an a robust social media presence. I work for the museum department of the LBJ Presidential Library, and we are very conscious of our online presence and application development. When developing these Web 2.0 tools, it’s extremely important for institutions to identify their users and recognize those users’ needs and desires. Do patrons prefer to interact and contribute material, or would they rather passively absorb information? Should a website be developed as a destination in itself, or should it supplement the physical institution? What level of knowledge does a typical user bring to their visit? Too often these questions remain unasked as institutions waste time and money on tools their users don’t want. I’d like to point to two examples of user involvement in the development of Web 2.0 tools for museums – one done very well, and one not so well.

SFMOMA Website Redesign: Considering the User

When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) decided to re-design their museum website, they recognized the need to identify their user base as well as that base’s expectations and desires. They came up with some surprising findings – for instance, their largest user group is Business/Finance/Technology professionals, followed by students, contrary to what they expected (art professionals, educators, and museum curators). They also found that their users were less enthusiastic about interactive tools than they had expected, and preferred to passively browse material rather than contribute their own content. These findings allowed SFMOMA to develop web tools that enhanced the experience of their current user group. For example, they offered expert interpretations of art for their large user base who lacked this knowledge but were still curious.

Personal Digital Collections: Is this what users want?

In an paper for Library and Information Science Research, Paul Marty analyzed the use of personal digital collection tools in several different museums. These tools allow patrons to curate their own collection of museum objects on museum websites, and users are encourages to visit and modify their collections in the future. Marty found that while users were verbally enthusiastic about these tools, they rarely used them more than once and did not return to previously created collections. Perhaps this is because, as we see in the SFMOMA survey, users prefer to absorb and learn rather than create and curate. The problem, as I see it, is that patrons of these museums were surveyed after the fact to gauge their enjoyment of already-developed applications. Instead, users should be surveyed initially, and their responses should dictate what applications museums choose to invest in.