Museum Content Research Articles

Museums, Challenging Heritage and Social Media During COVID-19

In this opinion piece I reflect upon museum social media trends during COVID-19 and consider what it could mean in terms of future online engagement and the (mis)alignment of practices with institutional social missions. In opposition to the recent focus on uplifting museum content and activities online, I investigate an overlooked question regarding the role of challenging heritage on social media during the pandemic. I end with a call for the sector to consider the complexities of including or excluding challenging heritage from current museum online activities and in turn, the opening or foreclosure of critical reflections at a pivotal time in history.

Beneficial Learning Observation of a Virtual Museum for Ancient History

For a long time, cultural heritage has been preserved in archiving institutions such as museums, libraries, galleries, and restoration laboratories, resulting in access and review limitations. Digital technologies are introducing new solutions for documentation, maintenance and distribution of this valuable treasure. Among these new technologies are virtual museums, which have already proven their worth as a contemporary solution for attractive presentation of cultural archives. This article aims to present an innovative virtual museum, managing diverse collections of digital objects, organized in various ways by a complex specialized functionality. We focus on tools for improved content observation and enhanced learning experience, giving new solutions for effective use of virtual museum content for learning purposes.

Gauging human visual interest using multiscale entropy analysis of EEG signals

Gauging human emotion can be of great benefit in many applications, such as marketing, gaming, and medicine. In this paper, we build a machine learning model that estimates the enjoyment and visual interest level of individuals experiencing museum content. The input to the model is comprised of 8-channel electroencephalogram signals, which we processed using multiscale entropy analysis to extract three features: the mean, slope of the curve, and complexity index (i.e., the area under the curve). Then, the number of features was drastically reduced using principle component analysis without a notable loss of accuracy. Multivariate analysis of variance showed that there exists a statistically significant correlation (i.e., $$p < 0.05$$ ) between the extracted features and the enjoyment level. Moreover, the classification model was able to predict the enjoyment level with a mean squared error of 0.1474 and an accuracy of 98.0%, which outperforms methods in the existing literature.

Designing 3-D Prints for Blind and Partially Sighted Audiences in Museums: Exploring the Needs of Those Living with Sight Loss

Modern museum practice embraces equal access for all, but access for blind and partially-sighted (BPS) audience remains problematic given the ocularcentricity of museums. Many museum professionals and BPS visitors remain frustrated by the degree of accessibility on offer. The use of 3-D printed replicas as a handling surrogate represents a solution, allowing BPS visitors to engage tactually with museum content while minimizing risk. However, the design of such replicas is poorly researched. This exploratory examination of the design of 3-D printed replicas utilizes semi-structured interviews, sensory observations and content analysis to examine BPS perceptions of museum objects in the absence of interpretational support. Interpretation was dominantly multisensory, while participants found it easier to determine material traits than object traits, with textual, geometrical and optical properties being of use. Assistive approaches rather than major alterations were favored. Overall, museum professionals should consider how the process of 3-D printing influences BPS perception.

A Study on the Ways of Museums’ Using VR Technology

본 연구는 디지털 기술이 고도로 발달하고 가상현실(VR)의 기술이 상용화되면서, 유물의 보존과 연구 및 전시에 중점을 두었던 전통적인 개념의 박물관이 직면하게 된 여러 가지 쟁점에 주목하여 가상현실 기술이 박물관을 어떻게 변화시키고 있으며 변화의 주된 동인은 무엇인지 고찰해 보는 것을 목적으로 한다. 어느 장소에서나 실제 공간에서 보고 느끼는 것과 같은 가상현실을 체험할 수 있는 기기는 게임 산업을 필두로 하여 문화콘텐츠 산업의 전반에서 본격적으로 대중들에게 상용화되기 시작되었으며, 이런 현실에 맞추어 세계의 유수 박물관들은 2015년을 전후로 앞 다투어 새로운 형식의 전시를 제안하거나 사이버 박물관의 콘텐츠를 새롭게 다듬고 있는 실정이다. 본 연구는 박물관에 가상현실 기술이 본격적으로 활용되기 시작한 2015년 이후 박물관에 나타나고 새로운 시도와 전략을 중심으로, 기술의 발전으로 인해 박물관의 역할이 어떻게 달라질 것인지에 대해 학제적인 관점을 통해 고찰해본다. 본 연구는 세계 주요박물관들의 주목할 만한 VR기술 활용 방식을 분석하여, VR영상 콘텐츠가 유물 및 박물관이라는 공간과 맺는 관계에 따라 활용 유형을 네 가지로 분류하였다. ①박물관의 공간을 모두 VR로 체험할 수 있게 하는 사이버 뮤지엄의 전략 ②유물의 시대를 가상으로 재현하여 전시 오브제를 재맥락화 ③전시 작품 혹은 콘텐츠를 확장시키는 새로운 작품으로서 VR ④가상의 공간을 재현하는 사례가 그것이다. 0차원의 디지털로 기술적 형상을 구현함으로써, 다시 라스코 동굴벽화의 시대와 같은 마술적, 제의적 이미지가 도래할 것이라 예견했던 빌렘 플루서의 이론은 오늘날 VR기술이 보여주는 마법과 같은 공간의 재현에 정확히 부합하는 듯이 보인다. 본 연구는 VR기술의 상용화는 박물관이 선사했던 원작의 아우라를 새로운 방식으로 확장시킬 것임을 보여주며, 앞으로 박물관에서는 플루서가 말하는 현대적 ‘뮈토스’의 체험을 가능케 하는 새로운 VR 전시콘텐츠의 기획이 불가피하다는 점을 보여준다.This study focuses on the ways of using VR technology by museums, one of the important issues faced by traditional museums. With rapid development of digital technology including virtual reality(VR) technology, many museums of the world presented new forms of exhibitions or refined cyber museum contents especially since 2015. This study tries to examine theses new attempts and strategies through the interdisciplinary perspective. According to our case studies, the ways of using VR technology could be classified by 4 types of strategy. ① Cyber museum s strategy to give experience of visiting virtually all the spaces of museum such as VR guide tour ② Recontextualization strategy by reproducing virtually the era and the environments where exhibits originally existed ③ VR content as a new media art to expand existing exhibition ④ Virtual exhibition by making virtual space through gamification. By embodying a technical dimension in zero-dimensional digital form, Vil&#233;m Flusser s theory predicted that magical and ritual images’ era, such as the era of Lasco s cave painting, would come again. Based on the theory of Flusser, this study shows that the development of ways of using VR technology will continue to expand the aura of original exhibits in a new way, and allow us to experience modern mythos.

판소리 감상을 위한 박물관 콘텐츠 연구 : 판소리의 민속적 소재들이 갖는 인지적·미적 기능을 중심으로

판소리 감상을 위한 박물관 콘텐츠 연구 : 판소리의 민속적 소재들이 갖는 인지적·미적 기능을 중심으로

Resilience of museum contents

The relationship between exhibitions and museum audiences has strongly changed in recent years. In an ongoing attempt to engage people and maintain audiences, new museums as well as those under renovation have acknowledged the importance of offering creative spaces. The pendulum has swung from the museum as a temple to keep treasures to the museum as an active space, a toolbox. Today’s audiences are no longer looking for a cold ‘white cube’ museum experience. Instead, they are looking for warmer, shared experiences, i.e. people can be closer to the artefact and even touch it. This has induced attempts to exhibit museum artefacts in different ways. Nevertheless the exhibition devices for museums ought to be designed or strengthened to comply with the need of safety not only for the artefact but also for the visitors, in the sense established by current codes and regulations. Unfortunately the actions to which the artefacts are actually subjected are of different types. In addition to those related to the climate and environment changes, there are those due to the actions typical of the museum site, like the earthquakes, and those related to the political and cultural changes. The roots of the problem dates back to the first years of the sixties and only recently has been applied to the museum contents. An artefact can be in fact considered a rigid object placed on a shaking base that may enter a rocking motion and result in overturning.

Towards a Sustainable Future: Ubiquitous Knowledge Mixed Reality Museum.

An Intelligent Museum built under the Ubiquitous Computing paradigm, where services follow the user seamlessly across different environments, emerges as a new type of digital institution present beyond its physical limits: the Ubiquitous Museum. Mixed Reality provides the means of harvesting knowledge from memory institutions and smart devices connected to the Internet of Things. At the same time, it enables embedding multimodal contents from the Museum across the Intelligent Environment. We research the user experience of knowledge dissemination through the Ubiquitous Museum. We exemplify how our work aims to help achieve this. We also discuss how using embedded Museum contents helps sustainable development.

Designing a History Museum Based Outreach Program with Digital Content

Abstract This study expands on the concept of outreach programs: museum initiatives that look for ways to reach and share knowledge outside their installations, often to schools. We aim to study approaches for the development of content for a history museum outreach program using digital technologies. The significance of this lies in investigating ways to bring the knowledge of the museum to schools that cannot have easy access to them. Three different content approaches were developed and tested. The first was an Assemblable walls exhibition, consisting of a modular structure in which three different exhibition methods were presented: object, video and interactive. Second, was a Hands-on interactive exhibition, consisting of a portable system that includes digital and analogue activities in an application developed for a smart projector. Lastly, the third approach was an interactive experience, which incorporated the various approaches tested previously and expanded upon them. In our conclusions, we stress the significance of this research regarding offering museum content to schools without easy access and offer a list of suggestions based on our findings that museum curators could follow when considering the development of an outreach program with digital content.

Exploring the Possibility of Convergence Education for Developing Youth's Character Competencies of the Future Society: Focused on Literature Museum Experience

이 연구의 목적은 미래사회의 청소년 인성역량 개발을 위한 융·복합교육의 가능성을 탐색하고, ‘문학공간’ 연계 체험중심 인성교육을 위하여 지역문학관 활성화 방안을 이론적으로 탐색하는 것이다. 연구의 이론적 기초로서 미래사회의 핵심역량, 융·복합교육을 실천하기 위한 교육환경, 교사의 역할, 문학공간과 관련된 연구를 중점적으로 고찰하였다. 연구의 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 문학공간과 연계한 체험중심 인성교육은 학생들에게 친숙한 학습 환경을 제공해줄 뿐만 아니라 학습에 필요한 자원들을 지역사회로부터 제공받음으로써 교육공간이 확장되는 효과를 종합할 수 있었다. 둘째, 문학공간의 문학 콘텐츠에 주목하고 활용 양상을 국내·외 사례를 통해 밝힘으로써 청소년의 인성역량 신장을 위한 교과 연계 융·복합교육의 실천 가능성을 확인하였다. 결론적으로 미래사회의 역량 개발을 위한 융·복합교육의 일환으로 ‘문학공간’을 활용한 체험중심의 인성교육은 청소년에게 다양한 인성 덕목을 체화할 수 있을 것으로 판단되며, 융·복합교육 측면에서 긍정적인 효과가 도출될 것으로 기대된다. 후속연구로는 테크놀로지를 활용한 가상 문학공간 조성과 활성화 방안, 그 효과를 검증하는 평가 연구를 제안하였다.The purpose of the study was to explore the possibility of convergence education for developing youth’s character competencies of the future society, and to theoretically seek ways to revitalize regional literature museums for experience-centered character education linked to ‘literature space.’ As a theoretical basis of the study, we reviewed a literature review on the core competencies of the future society, the educational environment for practicing convergence education, the role of teachers, and the literature space. The results of the study were as follows. Firstly, experience-based character education in connection with literature museum not only provided students with a familiar learning environment, but also explored the effect of expanding educational space by providing resources for learning from the community. Secondly, focused on the literary contents of the literature museum and clarifying the usage patterns through domestic and international cases, the possibility of practical convergence education for the development of the character of youth was confirmed. In conclusion, experience-based character education using the literature space as a part of convergence education for the future development of future society is expected to embody various virtues for adolescents, and was expected to have a positive effect on the aspect of convergence education. As a follow-up study, the researcher proposed a method of creating and activating a virtual literary space using technologies, and proposed an evaluation study to verify the effectiveness of technology utilization.

“Museum as a medium” concept: problem setting

The article deals with the main tasks of modern museums and the intersection of these tasks with the activities of the mass media. Creative museum spaces are becoming part of the media space, which necessitates their new positioning and study within the framework of the scientific specialization “journalism (philological sciences)”. The authors consider the functionality of museums as a new medium of communication, identify the most successful forms of presenting information, identify criteria identical with new media for evaluating the effectiveness of museum content. The authors emphasize the importance of the “museum as a medium” concept in terms of cross-platform and digitalization.

THE EFFECT OF ILLUSTRATIONS ON CHILD PERCEPTION THROUGH DESIGNING INFORMATION DISPLAY SYSTEMS IN MUSEUMS OF ALL KINDS

Museums in most countries of the world are a platform for culture, science and art throughout the ages, and it is one of theeducational and cultural means of communication that provides the visitor with an abundant experience of information, ideas, andscientific, artistic and aesthetic values. The Children's Museum is the laboratory in which a young child can satisfy his naturalinterests with arts, sciences, beauty and creativity. The International Museums Council has adopted the idea of children's museums.Therefore, we must pay attention to introducing the Egyptian child to his identity and the history of his ancestors. All these museumsaim in the interest of children in the first place, as they help them to acquire facts, experiences and skills that are not achieved forthem outside it through automatic learning and free play, and to achieve learning through exploration and provide an encouragingenvironment. With the rapid technological advancements that have occurred in the field of computers, so-called virtual museumshave emerged, which provide children with digital information in a way that suits their abilities and needs by exploring andpresenting multiple sources of information, through which the child learns self-learning that will allow them to learn about othermuseums in all countries of the world. Without them having to go to it, because of the importance of realistic and virtual museumsin the lives of our children and considering them a basic source for increasing their historical, geographical, artistic, literary andscientific information, and because it is the source of their formal and informal education, the study confirms the need to trainspecialists who have the ability to educational and artistic production of electronic or virtual museum content, and to createCooperative frameworks in educational institutions through which museum gates can be opened to be windows to many museums.

Utility of Digital Technologies for the Sustainability of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in Korea

The importance of preserving intangible cultural heritage (ICH) for sustainable development has been widely acknowledged by the international society. Various forms of cooperation have taken place to prevent deterioration and destruction due to its inherent characteristic of ‘intangibleness’. Public engagement, however, has largely been excluded from the system in spite of its significance in safeguarding ICH by inducing people to be trained as successors. In this respect, this paper discusses and emphasises the necessity of public engagement in safeguarding ICH. To this end, it suggests the use of digital technologies to create museum content to encourage public involvement with and learning about ICH. Focusing on ICH in Korea, digital exhibitions on Jultagi and Daemokjang utilising virtual reality technology are proposed. The ultimate aim of this article is to contribute to the sustainability of world ICH for humanity through digital exhibitions.

Analysis on Social Media Marketing Contents of Museums - Focused on Modern Art Museums -

Analysis on Social Media Marketing Contents of Museums - Focused on Modern Art Museums -

RF Energy Harvesting IoT System for Museum Ambience Control with Deep Learning.

Museum contents are vulnerable to bad ambience conditions and human vandalization. Preserving the contents of museums is a duty towards humanity. In this paper, we develop an Internet of Things (IoT)-based system for museum monitoring and control. The developed system does not only autonomously set the museum ambience to levels that preserve the health of the artifacts and provide alarms upon intended or unintended vandalization attempts, but also allows for remote ambience control through authorized Internet-enabled devices. A key differentiating aspect of the proposed system is the use of always-on and power-hungry sensors for comprehensive and precise museum monitoring, while being powered by harvesting the Radio Frequency (RF) energy freely available within the museum. This contrasts with technologies proposed in the literature, which use RF energy harvesting to power simple IoT sensing devices. We use rectenna arrays that collect RF energy and convert it to electric power to prolong the lifetime of the sensor nodes. Another important feature of the proposed system is the use of deep learning to find daily trends in the collected environment data. Accordingly, the museum ambience is further optimized, and the system becomes more resilient to faults in the sensed data.

Bringing a peripheral, traditional venue to the digital era with targeted narratives

The current work presents a method of enhancing museum content with narratives targeting history reflection in a personalized manner, delivered by an especially designed mobile app. The mobile app is a part of a technology ecosystem that supports the visitor before, during and after her visit. Within the framework of the European H2020 CrossCult project, a method was designed, implemented and tested to enhance museum content with digital material, enriched narratives and means to actively engage visitors. In particular, the method was implemented and tested for the content of the Archaeological Museum of Tripolis (Greece) and specific content examples are presented here, together with data from visitor evaluation. The results showed that content was significantly and qualitatively enhanced and visitors recognized the potential of the app in triggering visitor curiosity, new forms of engagement, and the ability to reflect on the connections between historical and social phenomena.

Ask Dr. Discovery: the impact of a casual mobile game on visitor engagement with science museum content

This study examines the impact of a mobile game app on science museum visitors’ level of engagement with exhibit content, compared to a non game-based version of the same app. Ask Dr. Discovery (Dr. D) is a question-asking app containing two versions: a Game Mode employing casual game mechanics and an Ask Mode providing a baseline version. We implemented both versions of Dr. D at two science museums located in the Southwestern United States with 1539 participants. In both conditions, participants could type or speak questions to receive vetted answers about museum content, but only Game Mode embedded question-asking within a simple game. Participants’ level of engagement was represented by the number of questions asked about exhibit content in Dr. D. Additionally, we explored the relationship between app engagement and participants’ self-reported level of interest in science. All participants completed pre- and post-questionnaires with questions related to science interest, impressions of the Dr. D app, and demographic information. Results in both museums indicated that users of Game Mode asked nearly twice as many questions on average as participants using Ask Mode. Science interest predicted engagement at one of two sites. Demographic variables, including gender, age, and race/ethnicity were not found to influence the rate of question asking in either mode. These results indicate that employing simple game mechanics in apps for museum visitors may lead to strong positive impacts on visitor engagement with museum content.

Digital gatekeepers and website visitors of the Acropolis Museum: revisiting gatekeeping theory in the cultural domain

ABSTRACT Gatekeeping theory has evolved in recent years to encompass new patterns and influences in a rapidly changing digital environment. The boundary between creating and disseminating digital content is increasingly blurred, as organizations adapt both content and services to the shifting needs of their audiences. In the current case study, viewing museums as content and cultural news providers, we examine digital gatekeeping influences that lead online visitors to museum websites. Recognizing vast changes in gatekeeping patterns, we revisit Shoemaker and Reese's hierarchical gatekeeping model, but in a cultural news context where consumers have evolved as gatekeepers and gate checkers. As we survey a multitude of data in this descriptive endeavor, we trace various gatekeeping nodes that lead users toward museum content.

Exposing the Dark Data of Undigitized Collections: A TDWG global standard for collection descriptions

Aggregating content of museum and scientific collections worldwide offers us the opportunity to realize a virtual museum of our planet and the life upon it through space and time. By mapping specimen-level data records to standards and publishing this information, an increasing number of collections contribute to a digitally accessible wealth of knowledge. Visualizing these digital records by parameters such as collection type and geographic origin, helps collections and institutions to better understand their digital holdings and compare them to other such collections, as well as enabling researchers to find specimens and specimen data quickly (Singer et al. 2018). At the higher level of collections, related people and their activities, and especially the great majority of material that is yet to be digitised, we know much less. Many collections hold material not yet digitally discoverable in any form. For those that do publish collection-level data, it is commonly text-based data without the Global Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) or the controlled vocabularies that would support quantitative collection metrics and aid discovery of related expertise and publications. To best understand and plan for our world’s bio- and geodiversity represented in collections, we need standardised, quantitative collections-level metadata. Various groups planet-wide are actively developing tools to capture this much-needed metadata, including information about the backlog, and more detailed information about institutions and their activities (e.g. staffing, space, species-level inventories, geographic and taxonomic expertise, and related publications) (Smith et al. 2018). The Biodiversity Information Standards organization (TDWG) Collection Descriptions (CD) Data Standard Task Group aims to provide a data standard for describing natural scientific collections, which enables the ability to provide: automated metrics, using standardised collection descriptions and/or data derived from specimen datasets (e.g., counts of specimens) and a global registry of physical collections (either digitised or non-digitised). automated metrics, using standardised collection descriptions and/or data derived from specimen datasets (e.g., counts of specimens) and a global registry of physical collections (either digitised or non-digitised). The group will also produce a data model to underpin the new standard, and provide guidance and reference implementations for the practical use of the standard in institutional and collaborative data infrastructures. Our task group includes members from a myriad of groups with a stake in mobilizing such data at local, regional, domain-specific and global levels. With such a standard adopted, it will be possible to effectively share data across different community resources. So far, we have carried out landscape analyses of existing collection description frameworks, and amassed a portfolio of use cases from the group as well as from a range of other sources, including the Collection Descriptions Dashboard working group of ICEDIG ("Innovation and consolidation for large scale digitisation of natural heritage"), iDigBio (Integrated Digitized Biocollections), Smithsonian, Index Herbariorum, the Field Museum, GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), GRBio (Global Registry of Biodiversity Repositories) and fishfindR.net. These were used to develop a draft data model, and between them inform the first iteration of CD draft data standard. A variety of challenges present themselves in developing this standard. Some relate to the standard development process itself, such as identifying (often learning) effective tools and methods for collaborative working and communication across globally distributed volunteers. Others concern the scope and gaining consensus from stakeholders, across a wide range of disciplines, while maintaining achievable goals. Further challenges arise from the requirement to develop a data model and standard that support such a variety of use cases and priorities, while retaining interoperability and manageability of the data. We will present some of these challenges and methods for addressing them, and summarise the progress and draft outputs of the group so far. We will also discuss the vision of how the new standard may be adopted and its potential impact on collections discoverability across the natural science collections community.

Visualising and revitalising traditional Chinese martial arts

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how the emergent 3D interactive media technologies are used as a viable tool for enhancing visitors’ overall experiences at an exhibition entitled, 300 Years of Hakka Kungfu – Digital Vision of Its Legacy and Future (Hakka Kungfu Exhibition) – presented and co-organized by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of Hong Kong, International Guoshu Association and the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire survey in both online and paper-based formats was used for identifying visitors’ experiences in the interactions with the multimedia technologies. For this research study, a questionnaire, consisting of 26 items, was set out to measure the visitors’ experiences at the Exhibition. Since the Exhibition was about presenting a centuries-old Chinese cultural heritage, Hakka Kungfu via the use multimedia technologies, in the context of establishing a dialogue between the past and present, the researchers included questionnaire items that were devoted to enquire about the level of understanding, knowledge and enjoyment, and visitors’ new knowledge about Hong Kong history and culture was successfully disseminated to the respondents at the end of the questionnaire. Findings A total of 209 completed questionnaires were collected at this Hakka Kungfu Exhibition. The findings reveal that the exhibits did attract people at all ages. This Exhibition gave the visitors a sense of interest and wonder in the object and information presented in the Exhibition. Findings of this study also reveal that this Exhibition has successfully attracted a large number of female visitors, as well as visitors who have never taken any martial arts training. In addition, visitors’ Exhibition experience was found to be memorable, as well as enjoyable. Furthermore, visitors’ experience within the Exhibition suggested that it was entertaining, as well as educational. By creating a long-lasting impact on the minds of these Exhibition visitors about the connections between and relevance of traditional Chinese Kungfu, their collective cultural identity, as well as the contemporary society we live in. The Exhibition exemplified the successful integration of the presentation of Kungfu as a form of cultural heritage with engagement-creating technology, in which technology is unobtrusive but effective. Originality/value Although it is already a global trend for the museums to integrate multimedia technologies into their exhibitions, research on the situation and feedback of multimedia technology used in the museum exhibitions in Hong Kong is scarce as well as scattered. Findings of this study could help identify various factors involved in audience participation, thereby exploring the possibility of building a contact point/space for traditional Chinese Kungfu as an intangible cultural heritage, via the integration of the latest media technologies. In particular, the development of multimedia technologies has become increasingly important to museums, and museum professionals have been exploring how digital and communication technologies can be developed to offer visitors a more interactive, personalized museum experience. In general, despite the growing interest in deploying digital technology as interpretation devices in museums and galleries, there are relatively few studies that examine how visitors, both alone and with others, use new technologies when exploring the museum contents.