Abstract
The Pavia University History Museum, which houses historic items mainly connected to the physics and medicine fields, has focused in the past years on new ways to involve its public and to attract new audiences. Among different approaches, digital technologies have proven important to both external and internal communication. Lately, an Augmented Reality application has been made available to visitors, offering in one tool multimedia material of a historical-scientific nature: stories, 3D animations, images and user-generated video storytelling (developed mainly by University students, one of our least present demographics before the App, and younger students, who typically participate in the annual co-creative project). The App was designed to be as non-intrusive and discreet as possible, to preserve the historic ambiance of the museum, to unite social and educational aspects, to register user behaviour and to make the museum experience more vibrant and active and therefore captivating.
Highlights
The Pavia University History Museum, which houses historic items mainly connected to the physics and medicine fields, has focused in the past years on new ways to involve its public and to attract new audiences
Digital game, asking young visitors—students of an elementary class—to develop both the story and the actual structure2. With help from their teacher and from an industry expert, the students did generate a functioning final product, and learnt a lot in the process: they grew their logic and analysis skills and acquired a thorough knowledge of museum contents and of the history of physics
The MSU team was enriched by the self-awareness resulting from the process of critically analysing the best approaches to implementing the new technology in the museum and was able to formulate new ways of introducing the collections to the visitors and to the students directly involved in the production of the storytelling videos
Summary
Offering visitors an outstanding and involving experience is one of the fundamental purposes of museums, and a task which may be difficult to accomplish in some cases. All the more reason to pay special attention, in a university museum, to the visitors’ need to share experiences, for example through participatory storytelling: student visitors, from the media, communication and literature fields, should be allowed to express their fresh takes on the contents and incited to explore current media formats and storytelling methods. All the more reason to pay special attention, in a university museum, to the visitors’ need to share experiences, for example through participatory storytelling: student visitors, from the media, communication and literature fields, should be allowed to express their fresh takes on the contents and incited to explore current media formats and storytelling methods1 These visitors, possess specific skills and know-how that lend themselves beautifully to the creation of digital materials: other visitors may be guided by them in their museum exploration, and their experience may be enriched. What kind of technology could accomplish all of this and still leave room for upgrading and improvement?
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