Due to the development of Social Media which do not only focus on information distribution, but also on the users and their content, user behavior and needs influence the interface design and functions of online-image-databases. In addition to pre-produced content the user of online-collections expects more exploratory access points, personalization functions as well as the possibility to contribute content, to exchange Information and to communicate (KEIPER, 2009). The EUROPEANA, the Google Art Project and the platform ArtsConnectED of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Walker Art Center reveal many different ways of how to meet the above mentioned requirements and needs for individual learners and learning communities. Possibilities and challenges with social media for a participatory or collaborative experience in online-collections will also be emphasized. Most of the European cultural heritage belongs to the public domain but most of it is still not freely available for the public. Heritage communities already use the Internet to exchange and reuse digitized images and further freely available Information about different topics to create knowledge (MEIJER-VAN MENSCH, 2013). Therefore this paper also elaborates on the phenomena of hackathons and open data which show how openness can be a trigger for creative (learning) experiences in museums. What value the content of open data-concepts provides to a museum collection or the meaning of a particular artwork, or if this user-generated-content is useless for a museum, is an ongoing debate which will be discussed in this paper (MURPHY, 2012). Finally, the paper demonstrates how museums can start with open data, why museums should organize hack days, and what attitude the museum staff needs to implement open data-concepts successfully.
