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01/08/2003
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Ross Parry and Frances Lloyd-Baynes discuss the future at the Brighton Semantic Web Thinktank meeting at 24 HMOn this page you can find out how to get a password to put listings in our database, and then send us a press release. You can find out how to sign up for our email newsletter, and how to link to 24 Hour Museum. It's easy to use our facilities, but if you feel daunted - here's a step-by-step guide. Finally - if you'd like to know more about our sector-leading research work, read our papers.
Why work with the 24 Hour Museum?
The 24 Hour Museum website is the only facility of its kind specific to our sector. Our sites currently attract well over one million visits per month, with Show Me (our kids site) reaching around 200,000 children per month.
In our recent user survey over 85% of respondents said using the 24 Hour Museum had made them more likely to visit a museum or gallery.
As well as publishing to the general public 24 Hour Museum has a substantial museum and gallery sector audience. In our last audience survey around 15 to 20% of our readers who responded said they worked in the museum sector.
So 24 Hour Museum is a very effective way to reach fellow museum and arts professionals, and to read about the latest projects, conferences, case studies and best practice.
Does the 24 Hour Museum compete for audience with your website?
24 Hour Museum, as an MLA-funded public sector organisation, has an important part to play in the network of interlinked sites that the DCMS and MLA see as an important part of the future cultural web in the UK.
24 Hour Museum's role is to be a cultural broker for the sector. This means using simple, accessible journalistically-based content to attract large numbers of readers and potential museum visitors, who are then passed on to your museum websites and venues.
It's key to realise that 24 Hour Museum content doesn't compete with your collections info, minisites or own content. Our stories will usually be shorter than content found on your sites, with less detail, and will not attempt to assume authority over your collections. Museums we link to in our stories are the experts, not us.
We work hard to present new museum websites to our audience, and we have found that these links often become substantial routes to readers - the Natural History Museum tells us that the link to thier kids content from Show Me is the biggest external referrer to the content.
Image: photo shows a computer screenshot of the 24 Hour Museum website being edited.
This is what this page looks like at our end of things - the Index + editing system in action.
Our Direct Data Entry system (DDE) enables staff in institutions on our database to update their 24 Hour Museum info themselves. Click here to register for our DDE system: you'll be sent your own user name and password.
Don't forget to send us your news. We’re always on the look out for stories. Independent and regional museums are often overlooked by the media, but we’re every bit as interested in news from small museums as we are from the nationals. Tell us about your discoveries, your hidden treasures, your triumphs, your disasters and just what it is that makes your collection unique.
Send your press releases to newsdesk@culture24.org.uk or by snail mail to:
24 Hour Museum
PO BOX 3470
Brighton
BN1 1DA
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Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.