There are gender wars, and then there are casualties. It wasn’t until 2011 that the behemoth toymaker LEGO acknowledged girls’ desire to build with bricks, even though the company had long before made a seemingly effortless pivot to co-branding, video games, and major motion pictures. So it’s little wonder that girls face all-too-real obstacles when […]
Read moreAuthor: IDEA
Museums and archives manage information about their collections, facilitate interdepartmental communication, and make collections available to the public using collection management software. Here’s a rundown of the collection management systems being 
Drones, spy robots, Mach 6 warplanes, new energy sources, and climate monitoring are just a few of the new technologies being developed by the U.S. military to fight the wars of the future. These technologies depend on cutting edge scientific knowledge, and are fantastic ways to get the military-oriented public (nearly 30 million Americans) excited about science and appreciative of the applications of scientific research.
The largest science outreach program telling the public about military-related science is a popular blog, Armed with Science, which features podcasts and short articles by scientists and other staff in various military departments. (more…)
Here’s a snapshot of the current exhibitions or activities being featured at a sampling of U.S. science centers, and their ticket prices for adults. (more…)
Open access means that readers have free access. But who pays for the operational costs of running a publication? Often it’s the authors, though there are several common business models.
How much are authors paying? What do they think about it? And what are some other business models to sustain journals and other kinds of digital content? (more…)
Open access journals are transforming how researchers share information, and how the public can access it. They are peer reviewed journals which are digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Open access journals are now commonplace. As of last lear, nearly 10% of scholarly articles were published in open access journals. There are now currently over 7500 open access journals, according to the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which indexes freely available, peer-reviewed journals that don’t have an embargo period (see criteria). (more…)
Today, Nancy Proctor, the head of mobile strategy and initiatives for the Smithsonian Institution, gave an online talk about Smithsonian’s mobile strategy.
Here are key points and comments Nancy shared about developing mobile products… (more…)
The following were the twenty most visited art exhibitions of 2010: (more…)
What’s the difference between a science museum and a science center? To insiders, the difference is the extent a museum is based on a collection of objects vs. experiences they create for visitors.
To the public, it’s largely immaterial. (more…)
Social media can feel like you are talking to the world, but in reality there’s a lot of self-selection going on. So know your audience.
Before the Internet, the gatekeepers of public information (journalists, editors and producers) considered the needs of audiences for you. These gatekeepers would filter a fire-hose of information in press releases and technical publications to deliver a digested slivers of information via television news, tv, print, and trade press. Other kinds of technical information was discussed at conferences, at meetings, in journals or in private. (See my post about “Fall of the gatekeepers“) (more…)
National security is a useful angle for presenting science, art and culture issues to disengaged or skeptical audiences.
Like any hook, such as sports or popular culture, military and national security themes broaden an audience for outreach. There are over 3.6M military personnel in the U.S., 1.9M spouses & kids of active duty members, and over 22M veterans, who also have families. (Stats on personnel & families, and veterans.)
There are several initiatives which are bridging the military world with the sciences and culture…