Curation
The art of creating value by providing context and meaning to apparently disconnected information bits
Robin Good and
Curation
Trusted advisors don't pretend to know everything.
They know who to ask, what to read, where to look.
Curation is the infrastructure of advisory relationships.
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RG
The Seven Needs of Real-Time Curators
Link
This is a guide for how we can build “info molecules” that have a lot more value than the atomic world we live in now. First, what are info atoms? A tweet is an atom. A photo on Flickr is an atom. A conversation item on Google Buzz is an atom. A Facebook status message is an atom. A YouTube video is an atom.
Thousands of these atoms flow across our screens in tools like Seesmic, Google Reader, Tweetdeck, Tweetie, Simply Tweet, Twitroid, etc.
A curator is an information chemist. He or she mixes atoms together in a way to build an info-molecule. Then adds value to that molecule.
References
Ahn, A. (2013). “You are not a curator”. Bullett. Consulted February 4, 2013. http://bullettmedia.com/article/you-are-not-a-curator/
Arnold, K. (2006). Cabinets for the curious: Looking back at early English museums . Hants & Burlington, Ashgate Publishing.
Belk, R. (2013). Collecting in a consumer society . Abingdon, Oxfordshire, & New... See more
Ahn, A. (2013). “You are not a curator”. Bullett. Consulted February 4, 2013. http://bullettmedia.com/article/you-are-not-a-curator/
Arnold, K. (2006). Cabinets for the curious: Looking back at early English museums . Hants & Burlington, Ashgate Publishing.
Belk, R. (2013). Collecting in a consumer society . Abingdon, Oxfordshire, & New... See more
Curating the Digital World: Past Preconceptions, Present Problems, Possible Futures | MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013
Relevant Curation Articles - 2008-2013
Arguably, algorithms already curate the information that we encounter online. They are, as Kevin Slavin puts it, “like an invisible architecture that underpins almost everything that’s happening” (Slavin, 2011). In doing so, they reshape how our culture works and how we understand the world. Unlike Brand, whose view of the curating done by the... See more
Curating the Digital World: Past Preconceptions, Present Problems, Possible Futures | MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013
Can curation be algorithmic or should it be human?
In Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture , Eilean Hooper-Greenhill documents how museum work “has involved the establishment of a canon” through which order is created “by giving authority to certain texts, figures, ideas, problems, discursive strategies and historical narratives” (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000b, 20). This process of “boundary... See more
Curating the Digital World: Past Preconceptions, Present Problems, Possible Futures | MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013
Museums and the their role in developing culture - Boundary maintenance and the curation canon: can there be rules for what is of value and what is not?
Opportunity to update the museums and art gallery curation canons as well as those of who curates content and resources - of whatever kind - online
Museums act as filters for cultural abundance. Only so much can be kept within museum storerooms or displayed in exhibitions. Limited word counts on exhibition texts require the winnowing down of very large topics to the small and essential. Many core museum functions, from the selection of what objects and information should be kept through to... See more
Curating the Digital World: Past Preconceptions, Present Problems, Possible Futures | MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013
Influencing the world, by controlling the flow of information, is novel.
That an individual can him- or herself shape the way people understand the world is not itself radically new; however, concomitant with the rise in data has been what Clay Shirky has called a “cognitive surplus” (Shirky, 2010), whereby the connection and aggregation of humanity via the network also makes it possible to aggregate humankind’s time... See more
Curating the Digital World: Past Preconceptions, Present Problems, Possible Futures | MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013
Influencing the world, by controlling the flow of information, is novel.
Such proximity to information and audience gives the curator of the digital world an opportunity to wield substantial power. Influential online leaders gain credibility because, over time, they establish themselves as competent and credible through demonstrating a commitment to a group’s goals or purpose; by being centrally placed within a network... See more
Curating the Digital World: Past Preconceptions, Present Problems, Possible Futures | MW2013: Museums and the Web 2013
But why has the concept of curation risen to such prominence beyond the museum, and why now? For Steven Rosenbaum, curation “addresses two parallel trends: the explosive growth in data, and our need to be able to find information in coherent, reasonably contextual groupings” (Rosenbaum, 2011, 5). This latter need, to be able to find information,... See more