If you have been to a museum recently you may have notice the use of technology with the exhibitions. As part of a class assignment, Elisabeth Brantley writes about the uses of technology in museums and how it is connected to growth of museum globalization.
Elizabeth Brantley is the Director/Curator of the Iberville Museum in Plaquemine, Louisiana. Prior to returning to Louisiana, she worked at the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas where she served as Curator of Collections & Exhibitions. Ms. Brantley holds a Master of Science degree from LSU focusing on historic costume and textiles and has also completed internships at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Williamsburg, VA. She is currently a first semester student in SUNO’s Museum Studies M.A. program. Her essay is entitiled Technology and the Gobal Museum and the next few paragraphs is that work....
Technology and the Global Museum
Museum visitors are more sophisticated than ever and most attend a museum with a smart phone or tablet in their possession. Museums are beginning to take advantage of this change by developing new programs and digital apps that engage the visitor in new ways. These apps are responsible for the growing trend of the “global museum.”
In April 2014, Alain Dupuy of InnoVision presented a paper at the Museums and the Web Conference entitled,“Digital Extension of the Museum of Marseilles-Towards a Global Museum built both in the real and the digital world" (Dupuy, 2014). This paper describes the development of a new “Augmented Reality”tool that the Marseilles History Museum has introduced to illustrate the history of the site that is no longer visible to visitors. The history of Marseilles begins with the founding by the ancient Greeks and spans to the present day; many of the buildings and foundations have been lost to time but with this app each era can be uncovered and explored. The program centers on a walking tour; the visitor can control the route taken and what artifacts are highlighted and 3-D models are shown to illustrate what the town looked like during selected time periods. One of the key elements of the tour is the emotional tie that the visitor feels in relation to the content. According to Dupuy,“not a single point of interest was included in the application unless some“historical emotion” could be linked to it (Dupuy, 2014).”
A website was also developed to use in conjunction with this application. Visitors can log on prior to their visit to prepare for and plan their tour or after they return home if they wish to“revisit” a point of interest. The website has been designed to be easily updated by staff and changes are live within seconds. Designers of the website are hopeful that teachers will employ it in their classrooms.
Other museums have developed similar apps that can be used in conjunction with their exhibits and galleries. One very similar program has been adopted by the Cleveland Museum of Art. “ArtLens”allows a visitor to explore artworks, uncover more information about a piece and design their own tours (Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014). This program can make an art museum seem more comfortable for visitors who before may have been intimidated by a traditional art museum, especially young people who already rely on technology for most of their interactions. But as reporter Steven Litt notes, this technology can also serve as somewhat of a distraction as the user becomes more interested in the features of the program rather than the artwork itself (Litt, 2013). There are glitches associated with “ArtLens” that are still to be worked out, but the advantages of the program seem to outweigh the negative. The Cleveland Museum of Art is able to track data on users and the artwork that is most popular enabling them to see who is taking advantage of the new technology. Future plans for the program include an interpretive system that includes the entire museum collection (Goeser, 2013).
A different perspective is taken by Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum. The museum launched a walking tour app as part of their “Exploring Old Sydney” series. The app launched in June of 2010 and as of March 2012 it had been downloaded 4,000 times. While this number of downloads seems impressive, tour completion rates are only around 30%. The main factor attributed to this low completion rate is the lack of updated content. Offline marketing and staff training have also been pinpointed as issues that should not be overlooked when developing these types of apps and programs (Earnshaw, 2012).
While the end result of the Marseilles Museum of History’s “Augmented Reality” application is a successful platform that can enhance any participant’s experience, there are a few issues here that also must be overcome. Dupuy states that one obstacle is “innovative syndrome (Dupuy, 2014).” Basically, some visitors are hesitant to use technologies that are unfamiliar to them and need coaxing to try this new experience. A museum also needs to be able to identify users of these programs at the door as well as online users of the website. This would enable the museum to know exactly who is using the program, how they are using it and determine any changes that can be made to improve the system.
The use of technology in museums will continue to become more widespread and programs like these will improve as time goes on. The most important lesson that can be learned from these institutions is that content is key! Online content must have an emotional element and it must be updated frequently to keep visitors interested; a long term content strategy, appropriately resourced is also important (Earnshaw, 2012). The development of these types of tours and the Digital Extension of the Marseilles History Museum is a big step towards the “globalization” of museums and what can be expected in the future as technology moves forward (Dupuy, 2014).
Bibliography
Cleveland Museum of Art. (2014). ArtLens.
Retrieved September 8, 2014, from Cleveland Museum of Art:
www.clevelandart.org/gallery-one/artlens
Dupuy, A. (2014). Digital
Extensions of the Museum of Marseilles-Towards a Global Museum built both in
the real and the digital world. Retrieved September 8, 2014, from Museums
and the Web:
http://mw2014.museumsandtheweb.com/proposals/digital-extension-of-the-museum-of-history-of-marseilles-towards-a-global-museum-built-both-in-the-real-and-in-the-digital-world/
Earnshaw, N. (2012,
March 21). Self Guided walking tour mobile app reviewed. Retrieved
September 8, 2014, from Powerhouse Museum:
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/insidethecollection/2012/03/self-guided-walking-tour-mobile-app-reviewed/
Goeser, C. (2013,
April). Blending Art, Technology & Interpretation: Cleveland Museum of
Art's Gallery One & ArtLens. Retrieved September 8, 2014, from Art
Museum Teaching:
http://artmuseumteaching.com/2013/04/15/blending-art-technology-interpretation-cleveland-museum-of-arts-gallery-one-artlens/
Litt, S. (2013, January
20). ArtLens App at the Cleveland Museum of Art is impressive, but it has a
few glitches. Retrieved September 8, 2014, from Cleveland.Com:
http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2013/01/artlens_app_at_the_cleveland_m.html
