Esplanade Museum 2.0

This past week, the Esplanade Museum in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, took the leap into Social Media.

I know what you’re thinking—“big whup. Everybody and their dog is into Social Media these days.”

And, you’d be right. According to statistics, 2 in 5 Canadians are on Facebook, 65 million tweets are made every day, and 22% of all online time is spent on social network related sites.

But, museums tend to be rather conservative—it’s part of our nature. In some cases being slow to engage in a course of action works well for us, such as for ensuring the preservation of artifacts (tip: never resort to using masking tape, Scotch tape, Crazy Glue or elastic bands to hold together something you value; over the course of months and years, it will cause irreparable damage to what you were trying to keep safe). Worse than that, though, is that museums have too often regarded themselves as the “experts” and “content specialists,” and there’s been a general reluctance to share that authority in the content free-for-all that is the social media scene. Museums Spoke, and Visitors Listened; that was the extent of the dialogue. I offer this not by way of excuse, but rather by way of explanation.

It never should have been that way. It’s a holdover from ancient empires where the first “museums” were state showcases of treasure stolen from conquered enemies. Those spaces were designed to be elitist, and to remind the people of the power of their rulers. Museums got (mostly) away from that a long time ago. Our most important job now is to preserve the experience of people. Sure, sometimes it’s about famous people, and sometimes it’s about powerful people. But it’s also about Charles Colter, a stonemason who in the 1890s rigged up some of Medicine Hat’s first gas lines to light a neighbourhood skating rink. Or Annie Carson, Medicine Hat’s relief officer during the Great Depression, who didn’t have a car so walked miles and miles to distribute food and clothing to people in need. Or the employees of Medalta or Altaglass, who made products that were known all across Canada; or the gas and oil workers of the 1970s petroleum boom; or you, reading this now—today—and participating in an extraordinary communications revolution.

Museums are social institutions; we’re about people. We can’t do our job if we aren’t where the people are. It’s in this spirit that we’ve set about creating a social media presence. We’re starting slowly—daily tweets on Twitter (look for us as EsplanadeMuseum), and this weekly blog. Our aim is to learn more about our community, and enable our community to learn more about us. We’re looking forward to joining the conversation.