What is a Museum without YouTube?

What is a Museum without YouTube? sounds like a riddle.  I couldn't think of a punch line can, you?   This was a response from a Twitter follower, Hans de Kraker who pointed me to this blog post (in Dutch). Looks like reviewed the YouTube channels for museums. I like Moma's Channel. The videos include short promotions, almost like movie trailers promoting an exhibit.  The one above is Richard Serra's Torqued Ellipse IV (1998) and Intersection II (1992) being installed in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at The Museum of Modern Art in preparation for Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years (June 3 - September 10, 2007).   

The videos that give a peek behind the scenes at the museum have the most views, like this one of another sculpture installation.  Interesting commentary by viewers too.   The IMA has a YouTube Channel too that uses a slightly different approach.

Update:  From MCN List and J Trant

Beyond launch: Museum videos on YouTube
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2008/papers/hart/hart.html

David Hart, The Museum of Modern Art, USA
Allegra Burnette, The Museum of Modern Art, USA
Chris Alexander, San Jose Museum of Art, USA
Dan Dark, Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA
Jennifer Rossi, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, USA
Nicole Minor, Exploratorium, USA

I wonder how effective placing videos like these on YouTube is as a strategy to get people to visit the museum?  I wonder what the crossover is between YouTube viewers and museum attendance?    Have you come across a museum channel that you think is really good. Why? 

Comments

[Nick]

hi beth, the best in the UK right now is the Tate - http://www.tate.org.uk/tateplayer/

v good access, high quality video and regularly updated. the answer to your question is that You Tube is only serendipitous, it won't drive traffic in any significant way to galleries. Tate uploads to Itunes and that makes more sense for them. i'm working on a project to create a portal for galleries across the UK, and eventually the wolrd. anyone interested, do get in touch.

[Michele Martin]

I wonder if getting people to attend the Museum should be the measure of the effectiveness of a YouTube campaign? It occurs to me that a lot of museums could expand their reach through social media campaigns, so that people around the world are "visiting" their museums virtually. I understand that there are funding issues with that, but then maybe there's a way to create an online museum membership site that would give people specialized access for a fee to things no one else gets to see--behind the scenes looks, opportunities to ask questions of curators, etc. I think that there are potentially some niches that could be filled here for an entrepreneurial museum.

[Jeff Stern]

Hi Beth,

At the Museum of Life + Science in Durham, NC, we're beginning to experiment with YouTube and have a channel here: http://www.youtube.com/ncmls

We look at this less as a potential driver for admissions or marketing, and more as a way to deepen our relationship with those folks who are already our fans/friends/members. Many of the videos on the YouTube site were originally put together for either our animal department blog (http://mlsanimaldepartment.blogspot.com/) which was created for the same relationship-deepening reasons, or for the "Science in the Triangle" section of our website which was created for mission-based educational purposes.