Live Blogging from CAM part 2: Conference Documentation

Sitting here in the Web 2.0 part I session, most people around me are furiously scribbling on pad and paper; my keystrokes are the only ones to be heard. And yet, the speaker is recording everything via a microphone in his shirt pocket, with the thought of eventually turning excerpts into a podcast. The presentations will be uploaded to the CAM website for download to attendees. And, perhaps most interesting to me, there is one man in the very front who systematically takes photos of each and every PowerPoint slide. The contrast of the multitude of a singular form of documenting the session--pen and paper--with the few examples of a variety of higher tech forms of documentation seems to accurately reflect the current state and approach to technology in museums. Most museums are still using the same lo-tech methods, while a very few are exploring a wide variety of high-tech options. Eventually, the numbers will change a bit as some of the new tech options of today become the standard options of tomorrow.