My lost museum: User expectations and motivations for creating personal digital collections on museum websites

Abstract

The recent development of personal digital collections systems on museum websites has prompted researchers to examine the motivations and expectations of museum visitors as they interact with those systems. Results from an online survey completed by visitors to six different museum websites show that users of personal digital collections systems are primarily motivated by a desire to create simple collections of objects and images, and are less influenced by the more complicated features museums have implemented to encourage user participation. The significance of these findings is explored through a discussion of user expectations and motivations with respect to creating personal digital collections, and an attempt is made to reconcile some of the disparities between the perceptions of survey respondents and the experiences of museum professionals developing and implementing personal digital collections systems.