Thanks for the response. I would agree that ‘Web 2.0′ and ‘Social Web’ are broad and ambiguous terms and in order to gain a better understanding of how they can be used in a cultural context we need to explore not only “specific pieces of interface design” and the potential of specific services but also their intended purposes. And the results of these discussions may well challenge the “Social Contracts” of public sector services. These issues have been highlighted in the higher education sector in the recent “Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World” and “The Edgeless University” reports.

I’m also looking forward to joint work in this area.

Many thanks for this very useful and thought-provoking view both on the presentation and on the overall development of the Culture Grid. I think that the framework you suggest is a very beneficial angle to take on these things – not only in this context but more broadly in the strategic targeting of investment in digital services.

I do feel a strong need to disentangle the various concepts underpinning the ‘Social Web Environment’ to which you refer. As a concept (and similarly to Web 2.0 itself) it conflates things which are principles with others which range from specific pieces of interface design (wiki, for example) to named brands (Wikipeida, Flickr, LinkedIn etc).

If there is a slightly disjointed nature to the response to these things from the Cultural Heritage setor, I think it is because we still need some time critically to assess which of these disparate elements it is that we mean (although I do also agree that there is a need to get to grips with some much broader principles such as collaborative asignation of authority and meaning to things).

At heart, I think there is a basic process going on of re-coding the Social Contract with the users of public services, including museums, archives and libraries. I think that initiative such as the Culture Grid and your work with UKOLN are the very early stages of a process which I hope will lead to a transformational change in the public perception of what these institutions are for, and how they can be engaged with in future.

I look forward to working with UKOLN on this more soon.