Here’s a bit from my THATCamp application:

Many of the tools of Web 2.0 and social media offer opportunities for collaboration, between institutions as well as individuals, yet the opportunities are not taken. Museums, archives, and universities could make use of tools like Google Wave, wikis, etc to share information. I would like to be part of a discussion the stumbling blocks that prevent collaboration, and possible solutions or routes which could be taken, even if they’re small steps. I’d also love to hear other people’s ideas for collaborative projects.

Here’s where I started from: I work in a historic house museum, and I have friends who are professors, grad students, librarians, and fellow museos. We have great conversations and a lot of our work overlaps. We share the info informally but there isn’t an officially sanctioned way for us to combine and collaborate and make the resulting information available to everyone.

My personal dream-project is some sort of shared wiki or webpage for all the Early American Republic sites and scholars in Virginia. There are so many overlaps in individuals and events; rather than every place recreating the wheel we could benefit from shared ideas.

I’d like to have a conversation about collaborations between different kinds of institutions, both ones which have worked and ones which failed (and the whys of both).  It would also be helpful to discuss strategies to encourage TPTB to engage in collaboration.

I may also join in the conversations proposed by Jeffrey McClurken and Chad Black, to raise the questions of where and how libraries and museums fit in to classrooms and academic scholarship.