Image by Matt Hamm. Some rights reserved.

In the past year, we’ve been experimenting with different forms of social media, seeing which of the many tools available best suit our needs. No matter which platform we’ve engaged with you all on (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or this blog) we’ve found a welcoming group of enthusiastic supporters willing to help us learn the ropes and spread the word about what we’re up to. Thank you so much for the advice, the support, the introductions and the friendliness you’ve shown us since we started this experiment.We can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next.

We’re really like to pay you all back for your kindness, but as non-profit organization and registered charity, we really can’t afford give you the fancy and expensive gifts you deserve. That said, there are a few things we can do for you:

1) Sins of the City Tour – Heard about it earlier in the summer and meant to check it out? For the last four tours of the season (Sept 23, 25, 26, and 30) we’ll give you and a friend a spot on the tour for just $5 each (regular price is $15!). Just be sure  mention that you read our blog when you book your spot. (Or follow our tweets, or are a fan of us on Facebook). Tour details are here.

2) Event Hosting – Looking for an unconventional venue for an event? How about the city’s former morgue and coroner’s offices? We can’t offer the space up for free (for most events), but it doesn’t hurt to get in touch and ask. At minimum, you can be sure that if you’ve supported us, we’ll support you in return…

3) Gift Shop – 10% off everything in our gift shop for our Twitter followers, Facebook fans and blog readers until October 15th.

In the next few months, we’ve got some cool new things planned with FourSquare, podcasting and geocaching. Since you follow us here, you’ll be the first to know.

Thanks again for your assistance and we hope we can return the favour in our own small way. You guys are awesome, keep it up!

Many of you have said some very kind things about how we’ve embraced technology here at the Police Museum. Today, we’re happy to tell everyone that we’ve now got a partner to help us do even more innovative things!

Here’s the press release that’s just going out now:

NEWS RELEASE

ZERO ONE DESIGN SELECTS THE “ECLECTIC” VANCOUVER POLICE MUSEUM FOR THEIR POPULAR “SPONSOR A MUSEUM” PROGRAM

After evaluating 31 applications from museums across Canada, Zero One Design of Victoria BC congratulates the Vancouver Police Museum on being selected in the Sponsor a Museum program which will upgrade their online presence, collection management system, and website.

<<June 9, 2009. VICTORIA & VANCOUVER BC, CANADA.>> Zero One Design of Victoria, British Columbia, is pleased to announce the Vancouver Police Museum has been selected in their Sponsor a Museum program for 2009. The museum, dedicated to portraying the history of lawlessness and law enforcement in Vancouver will work with Zero One to expand and renew their online presence and collection management system.

The Vancouver Police Museum is already considered a cutting-edge user of technology with an up-to-date blog (www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/weblog/), an informative website (www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca), and the active use of social marketing tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. “We’re thrilled to be selected this year,” said Chris Mathieson, Executive Director of the museum. “This sponsorship will let us continue to find new ways to use technology and take advantage of opportunities we could not afford on our own.”

The Sponsor a Museum program offers one Canadian museum the chance to take their museum—whether it be via their website, online gallery, or collection management tools—to the next level with the assistance, skills and grunt work from the self-confessed museum tech “geeks” at Zero One Design. “We have been working exclusively with museums, galleries and cultural institutions for twelve years, and we enjoy sharing what we’ve learned,” explains David Alexander, CEO of Zero One Design. “The Vancouver Police Museum has an incredibly diverse and eclectic collection. We’re keen to find new ways to share it with the public online.”

Thirty-one applications were received from museums across Canada, wanting to take part in Sponsor a Museum. Each application was reviewed by an independent panel of museum advisors. “Our advisors had a hard time deciding. It seems as if most museums have a website now, but everyone wants to spotlight their collections more effectively online,” notes Alexander. (To support this desire, Zero One is launching an online collection management system for museums, galleries and private collections this fall. For details visit www.arbutuspro.com)

Watch for the final results of the Sponsor a Museum program to be unveiled on both www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca and www.zeroonedesign.ca in 2010.

About Zero One Design
Founded in 1997, Zero One Design has made a name for itself guiding cultural institutions into the world of new media. Composed of three partners, the company has carved out a niche creating experience-rich websites for the culture and educational sectors that focus on telling the compelling stories that these institutions have to offer. Watch for their launch of a new open source online collection management system for museums this fall. For details visit: www.zeroonedesign.com and www.arbutuspro.com.

About the Vancouver Police Museum
The Vancouver Police Museum is a small non-profit museum dedicated to portraying the history of the Vancouver Police Department. Established in 1983 and operated by the Vancouver Police Historical Society, the museum collects, preserves and interprets the history of the Vancouver Police Department and its context within policing in Vancouver, provides a resource for those examining the role of the Vancouver Police Department across time and across cultures, and provides educational opportunities to explore the science of police work. It is located in the former Coroner’s Courtroom at 240 E. Cordova Street in Vancouver (a designated heritage building) and is open to the public. Visit: www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca

–end—

Contact:
David Alexander
Principal, Zero One Design
Tel: (250) 885-8665
E-mail: david@zeroonedesign.com

Chris Mathieson
Executive Director, Vancouver Police Museum
Tel: (604) 665-2207
E-mail: chris@vancouverpolicemuseum.ca

The people who came out include: @mojaveband, @gusf, @russbystarlite, @abc4, @gusgreeper, @staciebee, @rott1058, @bluey037, @emmerogers, @trishussey, @raincoaster, @hummingbird604, @dale42, @atomicfez, @jonjennings, @tofufighting, @anthonyfloyd, @owlex, @jpadamson, @johnbiehler, @mdiane_rogers, @JenniferPriest, @faustsid67 and @petequily. Also, @thedarkerside and @operagal19 joined us later at the Irish Heather (@theirishheather). (I’m sure we’ve missed someone… sorry!)

Image by John Biehler. Some rights reserved.

Rather than duplicate the work of others, we’ll just point you to what others are saying about the tour. Hummingbird604, a fantastic local blogger, has already posted his impressions, along with a great little video. Dale McGladdery and Corrina Carlson have also posted his thoughts and included a number of great photos from the event.

Stacie Biehler,  John Biehler,  Ian A. Martin, Jon Jennings, and Corrina Carlson have all uploaded photosets from the event to Flickr.

Thanks to everyone for a fantastic event! I look forward to seeing you all at the next one.

(This post will continue to be updated as additional blog posts or photosets come online from our Tweetup. If you know of something we’ve missed, let us know in the comments below.)

(Don’t forget about our Flickr Pool, too!)

It’s because of this idea of a sense of place that I love the idea of geotagging museum content. What is geotagging? Basically, noting accurate location data for objects, photos and ideas: THIS is connected with HERE. It’s especially exciting when one considers the possibilities associated with the novel modes of presentation and interaction this could allow with a museum collection. (Imagine being able to roam the city with your iPhone and walk the old police beats, find photos in our collection of the area you’re in, read old police reports, etc.)

In December of 2007, I had a chance to visit the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia–I wish I’d known at the time about all the interesting things they were up to. I stumbled upon these two interesting links in one of their blogs just a few weeks ago:

The first article discusses how geotagging may serve to turn the traditional museum inside-out; instead of being central repositories of artifacts, effective use of location information gives a museum the opportunity to

• share authority and interpretation
• repatriate ’stolen’ museum objects virtually rather than physically
• engage communities in new ways far away from our museum sites
• re-contextualise objects and collection in time and place
• allow for the recombination of objects from one museum with another to restore temporal and spatial relevance to groups of objects

For a museum like ours with very location-specific material (every officer has a patrol area, every crime has a scene) I expect that this will be something we become very involved with over the next few years. This sort of initiative may be necessary for us if we are to continue to grow at the pace we have been; we are already outgrowing our space so we have two choices: add additional space, or do more outside our space. Current and up-and-coming technologies will be able to help push our collection and interpretation outside our walls over the next few years.

Imagine being able to collect and preserve, just as we do now, but also being able to expand ourselves into the streets, into the homes and even into the spaces our objects are about. I’ve long said that some museums are really bad at explaining what makes their stories so compelling; you can’t get much more compelling than when something relates back to your exact, current location.

The second article on the Powerhouse blog goes into significant detail about a project where the Powerhouse Museum recently uploaded some of their historical images to the popular photo-sharing website Flickr. In only a few months, they’ve already noticed that the public has interacted significantly with that collection, most notably in new and interesting ways, some of which are not possible with traditional modes of archival access. Those ways include:

1. Viewing
2. Favouriting (”bookmarking”)
3. Friending (”I am interested in seeing more/connect with me”)
4. Social commenting (”here I am”)
5. Tagging (”let me help”)
6. Image content tagging (”here’s something interesting”)
7. Content commenting (”let me tell you more about this”)
8. Content embedding (”I’ve stuck this on my site/blog/profile”)
9. Content remixing and connecting (”here’s my images that fit with yours”)

We’ve been working hard to digitize our own photographic collection; over 15,000 images detailing events whose scope ranges from broadly historic to singularly personal are already in digital format. Additionally, we’ve just applied for funding to digitize our object collection as well–taking high quality photographs to document our three dimensional objects as well. With all that content in ready, digital format, we’ll be ready to take the next step–to turn this museum inside-out.

Being a small museum–with a forever-tight budget–we will never be able to invest the sort of time, energy or technology that a large museum could. Running lean, though, makes it easier to respond to changing conditions. We’re nimble, we’re not afraid to try new things–and there are just so many new things to try!