Previous: how the phd in art history changed my life - when I blew it off (86)
Next: will eisner, 1917 - 2005 (2)
lacma blocking art blogs
Post #444 • January 4, 2005, 4:42 PM • 12 Comments
This sucks. I have popped an e-mail off to their press department asking for confirmation on the blacklist that Sean Bonner alleges. He has more information on his post.
If true, this compares to the Royal Ontario Museum drawing ban as an act of institutional hubris and know-nothingism.
2.
January 5, 2005, 2:55 AM
Next thing you know, they will tell their employees they can't visit porn sites.
3.
January 5, 2005, 4:18 AM
I'm a "peon" at lacma, and yes, for the past month or so I have had my access to many blogs blocked. However, it is not as strategic of an assault as it has been made out to be. I can still access about half of the blogs that I read regularly, yours included. I have heard that the Information Services department periodically does this to keep us all in line, so let's hope that soon they will relax their web controls again.
4.
January 5, 2005, 4:25 AM
They're blocking half the sites you look at to keep you in line? Where did they learn that, the Dadaist School of Management?
5.
January 5, 2005, 4:41 AM
Blogging is a form of anarchy isn't it?
All these unfettered opinions...
Why would any institution want that sort of interference?
6.
January 5, 2005, 5:25 AM
Franklin, I'm not saying this LACMA business isn't dubious, but the Royal Ontario Museum idiocy was much worse. Do you know if that situation remains the same, or did the ROM come to its senses?
7.
January 5, 2005, 5:44 AM
You know... goofing off on the internet is a pretty serious problem in the US today (i'm sure someone can cite a statistic of productivity lost annualy nationwide that's in the trillions). I myself has succubmed to the temptation of reading (this very blog!) while on the clock. In some instances the line between reading that is relevant to your job and the purely recreational may be so fine as to dissapear.
8.
January 5, 2005, 6:45 AM
Hey, I'm a museum peon, too (Carnegie Museum of Art) and I've used my own blog to dispel rumors about my own museum (err, the one I slave at). I think that traditionally-structured cultural institutions should be proud of having a potential "in" to the blog world--traditional means of P.R. and marketing don't work as they used to, whether anyone likes or cares to admit it or not. Spin is worth something, and so is having someone there to dispel nasty art rumors in real time!
9.
January 5, 2005, 6:52 AM
Jack, I agree. I never heard how the ROM resolved that issue. If I hear about them doing it again, I'm getting all over them.
Alesh - Reading the internet at work? I'm shocked, shocked! that you'd even consider it.
10.
January 5, 2005, 6:53 AM
Exactly, Sarah. Here's to the free flow of information.
11.
January 5, 2005, 7:36 AM
I don't have a clear picture of the facts of this matter, but if museums are actually blocking free access to the internet, particualrly art blogs, it is just another example of misguided, chickenshit management. Museum people are prone to this.
If they perceive it is a problem, they should talk it over, make a plan and go to the employees and solve it face to face, get together and work out an agreement, that kind of thing. All they are doing now is pissing everyone off and creating dissension in the ranks. It doesn't work, particularly with smart, educated people who are used to finding ways around the rules.
12.
January 7, 2005, 3:15 AM
"Why talk when you can paint"
1.
oldpro
January 5, 2005, 12:56 AM
I suspect this is not "anti-blog" but merely a clumsy attempt to keep the peons tending to their dutles.