Research Roundup
November 9, 2009

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Tools for the Future
The Near Future
Social Trends, etc.
Refresh and Reflect

Tools for the Future: 

• From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation comes a two-part radio program on the future of museums. "The way we interact with museums and their collections is changing fast, and so too is the way they're now engaging with us." Part 1 is a panel discussion about global trends in museums; part 2 focuses on specific  technologies in museums (especially the digitization of collections).

• Inspiring the Technological Imagination: Museums and Libraries in a Digital Age is a detailed review of the literature related to new media and learning in museums (and libraries). A few months old but still timely—and extremely useful.
  

• A recent blog posting on SmartPlanet argues that Random acts of innovation need not be so random: here’s how. "We’ve been preaching innovative thinking since the inception of this blogsite as the best path to more enlightened management, sustainability, and growth. But innovative thinking isn’t just based on random acts of brilliance—it can be forged into a systematic process that can be learned and built into all organizational operations."

The Near Future:

• Over one third of world species face extinction: but it is not too late. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species has confirmed the continued strain that human-induced factors such as climate change, forest clearing, hunting, fishing and pollution are having on  the survival of thousands of species of amphibians, birds, mammals, fish and plants."
  

• According to ABI Research,  Personal Robot Sales to Exceed $5 Billion by 2015.  As they note, "Recent  years have seen the development of a significant personal robot market beyond just toys, although even in entertainment robots (toys), there has been substantial improvement over the wind-up robots of the past. A wider range of task robots is on the market and in development, and entertainment robots have expanded in capability and fallen in price as well."

Social Trends, etc.: 

• AdWeek offers a detailed analysis—with projections—of the Hispanic market in the United States: "Hispanic Americans continue to grow in number at a rate four times that of the general population, with the 2010  Census expected to show their total rising to nearly 50 million, from 38 million in 2000. And second-generation Hispanics are fast becoming the driver of the group's growth, with 88 percent of Hispanic children born in America, versus 61 percent of adults." The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., offers a wealth of complementary data on population trends in its Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States.
  

• Two new takes on the social impact of the Internet. According to researchers at the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Americans Are Lonelier, but Don't Blame the Internet (this according to a summary in the Chronicle of Higher Education: "the Internet and other new communication technologies have, if anything, a modestly positive effect on the size and diversity of people's friendship networks"); download the full report. But London Times critic Ben Mcintyre still complains that the internet is killing storytelling:  "Narratives are a staple of every culture the world over. They are disappearing in an online blizzard of tiny bytes of  information."  
  

Refresh and Reflect:

• 11 European Museums You Should See In Your Lifetime (according to Fodor's).
  

• Mapping Main Street is "a collaborative documentary media project that creates a new map of the country through stories, photos and videos recorded on actual Main Streets. The goal is to document all of the more than 10,000 streets named Main in the United States."