Digital Efforts at an University Museum
The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum is located in Roanoke, Virginia on the campus of Hollins University, a small-sized historical women’s college. The Museum is free and accessible to the public, and encourages the local community to visit and engage with its exhibitions.
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic the Museum is currently only open to Hollins students, faculty and staff. I was interested in learning how a smaller institution has been handling its limited reach and in-person visits over the past year, alongside how its approaching and incorporating digital content into the overall structure of the Museum.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Laura Jane Ramsburg, Assistant Director of the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum (EDWM), about how the institution is handling digital content, engagement and challenges.
Does the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum have a digital content strategy?
“Yes, but an informal one. We’ve had student interns create formalized strategies, but not in the past 5 years.”
What are the objectives of your digital strategy? Of your overall strategic plan?
“The two main objectives of our digital strategy are (1) to increase public awareness of the EDWM’s art collection, exhibitions, and programs and (2) to advertise our offerings to the off-campus (specifically non-student) audience through social media. We tend to engage students through fliers in buildings across campus and faculty/staff via direct emails. Overall, the plan is to use digital content to raise awareness and engage our audience.”
How would you rate the digital maturity in your organization?
“We are basic but enthusiastic!”
How has the EDWM changed its strategic approach during the pandemic?
“The whole digital discussion is different these days since Hollins University isn’t currently allowing off-campus visitors. We’re creating and providing online versions of our physical exhibitions, but also doing less social media so we don’t confuse our audience into thinking they can come see us in person.”
What is the structure of your digital ‘department’?
“The EDWM has four professional employees, three of whom are engaged in digital content. The director has final approval, the assistant director oversees the marketing strategy, and the visitor service/programs coordinator creates and uploads digital content to Facebook and Instagram. The visitor service/programs coordinator also assembles and publishes online exhibitions with Wix. The assistant director creates and sends audience emails via Mailchimp, uploads PDFs of exhibition catalogues to the main museum site (hollins.edu/museum), and oversees art collection updates on JSTOR (to be digitally made public this spring).”
Could you share a bit more about placing the art collection on JSTOR? What does that entail?
“Since 2004, the museum has used PastPerfect as its collections management software with the promise from the service that they were planning to make the program Mac compatible (which is what we all have on our desktops here at the museum — we have exactly one PC in collections storage exclusively to run PastPerfect). After more than 15 years, we decided that one point of access to the digital info about the collection (me getting info from that one PC in the back) wasn’t suiting our purposes anymore. Jenine Culligan, the EDWM’s director, particularly wanted easier access. We looked at several options, including cloud-based (which is what PastPerfect is also moving towards) but didn’t like the prices. Luke Vilelle, the University Librarian for Hollins, recommended that we consider JSTOR. The university already has a subscription, and it was only a matter of taking the info on our 1,500 artworks out of PastPerfect in Excel format and merging it into JSTOR. Kyra Schmidt, our museum visitor services/programs coordinator, is taking all-new photos of the works in the collection to upload into JSTOR and we’ve all been working on updating the full collection inventory in the past year, so we have the most updated and accurate info. In short, a long but simple process. JSTOR is accessible from any desktop so we can use it for collections management software plus we get to have a point of digital public access when we’re satisfied with how the records look.”
What are the main opportunities you see in upcoming technologies that can support museum work?
“We’re not currently interested in expanding technology due to budget constraints, but we’re always interested to hear what other places are doing to see if there are strategies we can adapt and adopt. We occasionally provide digital content supporting the physical exhibition in the gallery space on TVs, in projections, or the museum iPad.”
How do you measure the success of your strategy?
“We informally measure audience engagement on social media and Mailchimp through likes, clicks, and responses.”
Who are your target audiences?
“Our main social media / email audience is the off-campus community, including arts-interested individuals and families but also some targeted exhibition-specific audiences (photojournalists, historians, quilt enthusiasts, etc).”
What are the main challenges the EDWM is currently facing?
“Outside of the pandemic, we struggle with student engagement. They’re our most immediate audience, but they’re hard to attract.”
How does the EDWM approach copyright policy?
“We’ve long said that photos can be taken for personal (not commercial) use. Broad exhibit photos and even closer photos of the art in our collection are okay as long as they don’t turn into pictures on tote bags or postcards. Guests are usually quite good about asking and front desk staff lets them know our policy or if there are works that cannot be photographed. We’re always understanding of artists who do not want their work photographed and we’re happy to make those accommodations.”
How do you see the future of using emerging technologies for the museum visit?
“We would be interested in providing extended information about artists and artwork via digital means, but price is a hurdle for us and many of our visitors don’t convey interest in a deeper dive. We certainly see technology as a complement to object-based experiences, not a substitute.”
