Due to some scheduling conflicts at Museums and the Web this year we missed the workshop about STEVE, a tagging project for art museums, or to expand the acronymn, Social Terminology Enhancement through Vernacular Engagement. I’ve been scrounging around on the internet for notes on the presentation. All I found was this mention on the Powerhouse museum’s blog fresh + new. Luckily Günter posted a more complete set of notes earlier this year and there are two papers one on the project, one from D-Lib Magazine and one on the conference site
I does sound like a road we’ve been down before with the Word Association feature on our collection. Although that project was ahead of it’s time it remains sadly underused, for a variety of reasons. The STEVE project sounds like it has some real momentum and worth the extra reading, I’m sure you’ll see more on it here.
Edit:
Although the acronym mentioned above is fascinating, it is not official. The project itself remains officially acronym free.
What a great acronym! Despite the intent of “vernacular engagement,” the full name is far less inviting than STEVE.
Comment by Paul Schmelzer — 3/31/2006 @ 11:00 am
steve is not officially an acronym. For a while there, there was a campaign to make it into one, but it’s been done away with.
BTW, the Mambo base site at http://steve.museum is much more up to date.
Comment by Willy Lee — 3/31/2006 @ 2:06 pm
So where did the name STEVE come from if not the acronym? I guess it could be like the MX abbreviation from Macromedia. A cool way to brand a software or in this case an idea but with no inherent meaning of it’s own.
I guess if i went to the workshop i would know all this huh?
Comment by eric — 3/31/2006 @ 3:23 pm
Okay i just checked out the steve.museum site and saw the FAQ page which left me to wonder… is there a back story to that title choice? Was it seriously named after the name a cartoon raccoon gave to a hedge?
Comment by eric — 3/31/2006 @ 3:33 pm
Hi Eric,
Sorry you had to miss the MW session on steve, but if you’re at AAM or MCN this year, I’ll tell you a story about the name (well, maybe not THE story) and catch you up on steve activities as well. We love “Word Association” and can see interesting ways where steve might expand the concept. Do sign up for the steve discussion list (from the “Discussions” link at http://www.steve.museum) to keep up with latest developments.
Comment by Susan Chun — 3/31/2006 @ 6:59 pm
Hi Susan,
I actually just signed up for the list. I’m afraid I won’t be at MCN or AAM (although I think Brent is) but now I’m on the mail list and have the updated site so I can keep an eye from afar. I also clearly have a backlog of reading to do.
The “Word Association” predates my time at the Walker. I think it was a project started by Steve Dietz (no acronym there). It is interesting but has some issues beyond just the interface so I was thrilled to see other people pushing tagging even farther with museums.
Comment by eric — 3/31/2006 @ 9:56 pm
hi eric,
steve came first, the hedge came later, and while many of us know steve dietz, he wasn’t our inspiration for this one. imagine a group of people in a room, wondering what to call their really cool project …
/jt
[who should apologize for playing part in that d-lib article title]
Comment by j trant — 4/1/2006 @ 10:00 am
Hey I didn’t mean to get hung up on the name :) I figured Mr. Dietz wasn’t the inspiration, but the name adds a bit of unintentional humor when talking with folks at the Walker. I’ve discussed the project briefly with some coworkers and there are two questions that invariably come up although not necessarily in this order.
1) Why is it called STEVE?
2) Does it have anything to do with that thing Steve did here before?
Comment by eric — 4/1/2006 @ 3:52 pm
It looks like i mispoke (mistyped?) in a previous. Robin Dowden actually managed our earlier collections tagging project. Sorry Robin.
Comment by eric — 5/9/2006 @ 1:11 pm