Susan Chun: An Information Technologist with a Social Mission

Portrait of Susan Chun by Mel Stringer (January 2009)

Ada Lovelace Day provides the perfect occasion to launch this blog by reflecting on the qualities of a woman technologist I admire. Susan Chun is an independent consultant to museums and cultural institutions on information and technology policy. Before starting her own business, she worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for nearly 15 years, most recently as General Manager for Collection Planning. We first met at a course in Cataloguing by Crowd she taught at the University of Lugano. It was Susan who introduced me to the idea of social tagging artworks in museum collections, which became a central theme of my Masters thesis and the subject of my first grant-funded research project for the Rubin Museum of Art. There are many things I admire about Susan. Here are just a few:

Technology with a social mission

Susan is one of the few professionals I know who successfully blends her passionate idealism about open access to information with a grounded understanding of technology. Her unwavering belief that our cultural institutions should be inclusive in the broadest sense, and that they must cooperate rather than compete with one another, is at the heart of her many technology initiatives. I am continually inspired by her profoundly ethical vision of the role technology can play in improving our lives and transforming us into more responsible citizens.

Susan firmly believes that knowledge should be for the benefit of all, that culture needs to (and can) demonstrate its relevance to a wide and diverse populace, and that such a populace can in turn enrich our understanding of our cultural objects. -Peter Samis, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Advocating openness

Linked to this vision is her determined work to remove unnecessary copyright restrictions on cultural materials of all sorts effectively giving members of the public rightful access to their heritage. Before meeting Susan, I was ignorant of these issues as they pertain to museum information. I thought open source only applied to software and even then my notion of “open” was limited. Susan’s efforts to make students aware of copyright issues, and her support of Creative Commons and other key initiatives (e.g., Flickr Commons, publishing of archived exhibition catalogues) are desperately needed. On a personal level, she has taught me not just to appreciate information sharing, but to practice it.

Susan and students enjoying a class discussion at the University of Lugano (October 2007)

A generous educator and mentor

Her deep interest in building community translates into a wide variety of activities. Teaching is one of these. Susan seizes every opportunity to share knowledge, both through formal courses and informal discussions at conferences, panels and other venues. In the classroom, she is a skilful instructor, who takes a genuine interest in students’ individual needs. She does not dash off emails thoughtlessly, but responds to queries with care and alacrity. In an age of speed, such attentiveness is a rare gift. At the University of Lugano, Susan has been instrumental in shaping the curriculum and connecting it more closely with students’ abilities and the working world of museum professionals.

Susan is a passionate person both in her work, her causes, and also in sharing her knowledge through educating others. -Belinda Chu, Sports and Recreation New Zealand

Facilitating collaboration

Susan’s commitment to community also expresses itself through her efforts to promote collaborations between museum colleagues at different institutions. Projects such as the Museum Computer Network Registry where museum professionals can publish and exchange information about their current technical endeavors exemplify this. Susan’s recognition of the need for an easily parsable document allowing museum workers to think strategically about technology, led to the first-ever Horizon Report for Museums. The full report, scheduled for release in 2009 by the New Media Consortium, summarizes cutting-edge technology trends while encouraging museums to focus on the basics.

I most value Susan’s insistence that we behave as a community, not isolated institutions, and develop innovations that can be shared in an open environment. -Helen Abbott, Rubin Museum of Art

Susan presents the Steve project to students at the University of Lugano (October 2007)

Steve: The Museum Social Tagging Project

Perhaps no project better exemplifies Susan’s many talents than Steve: The Museum Social Tagging Project, which she founded and continues to direct. Originally begun at the Met, Susan obtained a generous grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to fund research into social tagging and its potential for increasing access to museum collections. To aid the investigation, Susan convened a capable team including programmers from Think Design and the Indianapolis Museum of Art who built an open source tagging platform. Steve tagger can be used freely by other institutions to collect and analyze tags on artworks in their collections. Though the project received press attention and accolades, the findings are perhaps its most significant success. Tagging, as Susan suspected, does offer an entirely new way of engaging visitors with the collections. It improves access by indexing with vernacular terms visitors are likely to search on rather than art historical jargon; and it offers a window onto what viewers perceive, informing the work of museum educators and interpreters.

I admire Susan’s never ending enthusiasm, especially the energy she puts into keeping herself aware of cutting-edge technology advances. -Amalia Sabiescu, TEC-CH Program, University of Lugano

Evangelizing for openness

Like many successful women technologists, Susan is simultaneously effective and self-effacing. She rarely talks about her own accomplishments and often it is only by working with her directly on something that I discover her pivotal role. I learned only recently that she created an innovative model for academic publishing of images from ARTstor during her time at the Met. Whether or not she actively promotes herself, Susan demonstrates a genuineness in everything she does.

Susan leads a group discussion about Web 2.0 for museums at the University of Lugano (January 2007)

One might speculate that she acquired this from the close-knit Hawaiian community where she grew up; from her elite education at Punahou School (which she attended with Barak Obama) and Bryn Mawr College; or her extensive work at other museums and cultural institutions.

I suspect, however, that it has little to do with external factors. Susan possesses an inner fire, a courageousness to speak her mind and do what she thinks is right. Often, this means evangelizing for openness and information sharing through technology in hostile environments. Combining a deep knowledge of the cultural domain, an intelligent approach to implementing technology, the ability to communicate with warmth and eloquence, and a tireless determination to facilitate universal access to culture, Susan is among the few role models for women in cultural technology.

This post is dedicated to Lucia Alyce Abeler Ballard (born 18th March 2009) and my goddaughter Maeline Rothan (age 6). May these young ladies feel free to choose, and have the opportunities to pursue, whatever career path interests them most.

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