On-site Museum Research Articles

Authenticity matters: investigating virtual tours’ impact on curiosity and museum visit intentions

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact of virtual museum tours on intentions to visit on-site museums. Furthermore, the role of an authentic virtual tour experience and its drivers is examined.Design/methodology/approachThe results of two studies, a field study in collaboration with one of the most renowned museums in Austria (n = 227) and an online survey (n = 153), were analyzed with a series of mediation models.FindingsVisual appeal and narrative quality were significant drivers of an authentic virtual tour experience. Curiosity mediated the positive effect of virtual tour usage intention on on-site museum visit intention.Originality/valueAlthough virtual reality has been considered a promising marketing tool in tourism, no research has explored the drivers of an authentic virtual tour experience. The findings of this study not only add new insights into the role of a virtual tour’s visual appeal and narrative quality in generating authentic experience and thus prompting virtual tour usage intentions but also demonstrate that virtual tours positively impact on-site visit intentions driven by curiosity.

Interpretive Strata at Tijeras Pueblo

Tijeras Pueblo Archaeological Site (LA 581) offers a variety of integrated resources encouraging appreciation of and respect for traditional Pueblo lifeways. Interpretive strata at the site are comprised of a self-guided trail, on-site museum, Tiwa World mural/map, Pueblo garden, and native plant identification. Educational outreach and programming include classroom visits, lectures, workshops, demonstrations, and a summer archaeology day camp. This paper discusses the challenges of creating text and exhibits with volunteers, and the approaches used to increase visibility at a buried site. Assessments of the relative success and shortfalls of these efforts are presented. These include detailed examinations of the elements and structure of interpretive efforts, impacts, and consequences based on descriptive and anecdotal observations.

THE ON-SITE VOLCANIC CAVE CONSERVATION MUSEUM AT THE DAK NONG UNESCOGLOBAL GEOPARK

The Krong No volcanic caves at the Dak Nong UNESCO Global Geopark (Dak Nong UGGp) were discovered in 2007. Between 2017 and the present, they were comprehensively studied and evaluated for heritage value from the perspectives of geology, biology and cultural studies. These primitive, endogenic caves are characterized by rich and diverse interior formations, representing seven types of geological heritage as classified by the UNESCO and its GILGES classification system. The applicable types are A (Paleontology), B (Geomorphology), C (Paleo-Environment), D (Rock), E (Stratigraphy), F (Minerals), and I (Tectonics). The cave system’s wildlife is highly diverse and includes a number of newly discovered species endemic to Krong No. Thanks to research and excavation work, many types of archaeological artifacts have been discovered in the Krong No volcanic caves, including relics of residence, a tool-making site, burial artifacts, a makeshift hunting camp, and some artifacts possibly expressive of religious ritual. All of these are unique, valuable and rare. The various types of heritage discovered in the Krong No volcanic caves constitute the premise of an on-site conservation museum, established to promote heritage of value, teaching and scholarship, as well as community education and recreation. This article introduces a new direction for further research, related to the development of an on-site conservation museum of the volcanic cave heritage in the context of sustainable socio-economic development.

“What Does It Matter Where My Body Happens to Be?” A Personal View of Online Art Museum Tours

ABSTRACT When the pandemic temporarily closed U.S. museums in March 2020, it also halted on-site museum tours. Some museums responded by developing or expanding their virtual programs, including online tours. The author, an in-gallery docent at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, trained during the pandemic to give virtual tours. Comparing in-person with computer-mediated art museum tours, she acknowledges that virtual tours are an essential part of museum outreach and education, enabling those who are unable to travel to an art museum to strengthen their critical thinking skills and learn more about American art and culture. But she also advocates for in-person museum-going, arguing that our bodies play a key role in viewing art objects and in experiencing their spatial locations.

A lesson from our institute; Why do veterinary schools need an anatomy museum?

Anatomy has always been a key discipline in the field of veterinary medicine, as this fundamental scientific discipline offers vital foundational knowledge on how the structure of an organ relates to its function and health. It demonstrates how the three-dimensional structure of an organism relates to the physical diagnosis of a disease, as well as to help shed light on how surgical and medical approaches can be employed to treat various diseases. This review provides supportive evidence on the importance and usefulness of the anatomy museum located within our veterinary institute. Furthermore, our outcomes will encourage all veterinary schools to consider having their own on-site anatomy museum. From our experience, the practical usefulness of an anatomy museum can be divided into 4 categories that include the study of anatomy, the study of histology, elemental study, and social education. The samples housed in an anatomy museum can increase the publishing potential of all staff members of the parent institute, as well as to elevate the reputation and general recognition of the institute. Moreover, an anatomy museum can facilitate out-of-class learning opportunities for non-university educational facilities such as kindergartens, and primary or secondary schools.

O Projeto gastronômico da Amazônia

A gestão do patrimônio histórico-cultural e os direitos humanos são a temática central deste artigo, que analisa o projeto de criação do Polo Gastronômico da Amazônia na cidade de Belém, apresentado pelo Governo do Estado do Pará em 2016. Ante o projeto, é destacada a ampla mobilização da sociedade em reação a irregularidades relacionadas à falta de transparência e acesso a informação, desmobilização de um museu que existia no local e a ausência de consulta prévia, livre e informada aos detentores de conhecimento tradicional atingidos direta e indiretamente pelo empreendimento. São apresentadas reflexões sobre a tutela jurídica do conhecimento tradicional, o direito à consulta prévia e sobre as lutas de resistência na Amazônia. Conclui-se que este projeto nasceu desconectado da compreensão de desenvolvimento da comunidade local, em um cenário em que se evidenciaram mobilizações coletivas de resistência que podem ser capazes de modificar a situação, em prol de compreensões outras de desenvolvimento para a cidade.

The Ruins of Ani: A Journey to Armenia’s Medieval Capital and its Legacy by Krikor Balakian

Reviewed by: The Ruins of Ani: A Journey to Armenia’s Medieval Capital and its Legacy by Krikor Balakian Jesse Siragan Arlen Krikor Balakian, The Ruins of Ani: A Journey to Armenia’s Medieval Capital and its Legacy, translated and with an introduction by Peter Balakian with Aram Arkun (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press 2019) xxxix + 120 pp. The medieval Armenian city of Ani, located in the Armenian highlands in the Kars province of present-day Turkey, was formerly one of the important nodes along the Silk Road and capital of the autonomous Bagratuni dynasty from the mid-tenth to mid-eleventh century. Its architectural ruins have attracted the attention and spurred the imagination of scholars and non-specialists alike for well over a hundred years, resulting in a number of archaeological, art historical, and other scholarly and non-scholarly publications. Known as the “city of one thousand and one churches,” Ani has over the years become one of the most studied and well known sites of medieval Armenia. The fact that it has also been subject to looting, vandalism, and cultural destruction as well as appropriation over those same years has heightened the urgency that accompanies studies of the site. This short book provides a translation from Western Armenian of the Ottoman Armenian clergyman Krikor (Grigoris) Balakian’s Illustrated Description of the Ruins of Ani (Նկարագրութիւն Անիի աւերակներուն պատկերազարդ) published in 1910 in Constantinople/Istanbul. This short but significant work has been largely overlooked until very recent years by [End Page 210] scholars concerned with Ani. Balakian, who after the genocide of 1915 became a bishop of the Armenian Apostolic Church in southern France, is best known for his voluminous two-volume genocide survivor-witness memoir, which was also translated into English (in abridged form) by his grandnephew Peter Balakian, English professor at Colgate University and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, along with Aris Sevag in 2010 as Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1918 (New York: Vintage Books). The present volume on Ani was Krikor Balakian’s first monograph, and it blurs the boundaries between travel account, history, scholarly study, and travel guide. It was composed after his 1909 visit to Ani in the retinue of Catholicos Matteos II Izmerlian. At the time, Ani was under Russian imperial rule, and being excavated by Nicholas Marr. Part of Balakian’s goal in writing the monograph was to raise awareness of the ongoing excavations and newly founded on-site museum (later looted and destroyed) in order to procure financial backing for those enterprises at Ani from wealthy Constantinopolitan Armenians, and also to provide an illustrated and scholarly travel guide for future Armenian visitors (or itself to serve as a substitute for a visit). After a brief preface (pp. 5–10) that outlines the project, the book is divided into four chapters. The first chapter (pp. 11–24) charts the history of the city from its founding in the ninth century up until its depopulation at the end of the fourteenth, and largely follows the grand three-volume national history of the eighteenth-century Mkhit‘arist scholar, Mik‘ayel Ch‘amch‘ian. In so doing, Balakian makes no attempt to maintain scholarly distance from his subject, instead infusing his writing with traditional laments over the series of external invasions that led to the destruction and desertion of the city, censuring both the invaders themselves as well as the inability of Armenians to present a united front in order to defend their land. The brief second chapter (pp. 25–28) focuses upon the topography and geography of the site, while the third and lengthiest chapter (pp. 29–77) provides a detailed study with illustrations of the surviving walls, main churches, palace, catholicosal residence, citadel, and the nearby monastery of Hoṙomos. The fourth and final chapter (pp. 78–103) reviews past scholarship on Ani by western European, Russian, and Armenian scholars from the nineteenth century up until Balakian’s own day, culminating in praise of Nicholas Marr’s work of excavation. The chapter closes with Balakian’s description of his brief visit to the site with the Catholicos. The translators, Peter Balakian and Aram Arkun, have also provided a helpful glossary (pp. 107–111...

A cyclical learning model to promote children’s online and on-site museum learning

PurposeThis paper aims to propose an online and on-site cyclical learning model (OOCLM). It considers how combining digital applications can promote a museum’s virtuous learning cycle between online and on-site spaces for children.Design/methodology/approachA practical cyclical learning service has been successfully implemented in a science museum in Taiwan. This provides a thematic game-based learning environment, allowing all the children to create their unique museum experiences before, during and after their visit. A questionnaire was developed to examine the children’s perceptions of the OOCLM to ascertain whether they were satisfied with the pre-visit, on-site visit and post-visit services offered.FindingsThe learning model considered the contextual factors that influence digital applications in museums. The digital and physical resources are well integrated, and the museum’s online and on-site services are linked to effectively promote children’s cyclical learning.Practical implicationsThe results show that most of the children highly appreciated the learning model. The model presents an interactive learning environment for children’s cyclical learning and repeat visits.Originality/valueThe OOCLM considers the related contextual influences of digital applications in museum learning; it effectively bridges the museum’s online and on-site services to promote the museum’s virtuous learning cycle and long-term museum learning resource management. This study provides a benchmark example to develop sustainable cyclical learning services for target visitor groups and to motivate their long-term interaction with the museum.

A content service deployment plan for metaverse museum exhibitions—Centering on the combination of beacons and HMDs

Today, methods of museum exhibition are rapidly changing. While focusing on visitors’ museum experience, new display methods employ a variety of digital technologies to provide exhibition content in ways that allow visitors to better understand artifacts on display. However, the majority of such methods rely on one-way means of delivering information. The lack of interaction with visitors and the use of lighting that clearly separates real and virtual spaces have made museums inadequate as experiential spaces. To resolve those problems, this article suggests a plan to deploy content services for visitors’ museum experiences by combining beacons and HMDs. This study establishes the concept of a service, which provides a virtual world experience by connecting a beacon installed in real space, that is, an exhibition room, to an HMD (head-mounted display). Furthermore, the service also incorporates a storytelling feature to diversify user experience by presenting the characteristics of and stories about artifacts. The service design will make both online and on-site museum experiences meaningful. Ultimately, this article presents the exhibition content thus created as Metaverse exhibition content made through an effective combination of augmented reality and a virtual world.

An interactive user interface prototype design for enhancing on-site museum and art gallery experience through digital technology

Digital curation is an emerging topic of interest in museum studies. On-site museum experience enhanced by digital technology can not only promote the social and educational roles of traditional museums in the digital era but also boost the value of cultural heritage. Our objective is to design an on-site personalized museum recommendation system to extend the connection between visitors and collections, focusing on the user experience. The prototype is made up of two different functional components, a mobile user interface (UI) at the front-end for visitors to interact with the collections during their visit, and an object database in the back-end where information is stored and accessed using semantic technology. In this article, we discuss the design of the UI for the collection of Australian paintings in the National Gallery of Australia, and evaluate the framework for visitor behaviour capture and analysis using the interface, thereby proposing a system for establishing a personalized tour trajectory.

Palazzo Valentini: Archaeological discoveries and redevelopment projects

Palazzo Valentini, a historical site of Rome׳s Provincial Administration, is located at the heart of the city. The building was purchased in 1827 by Vincenzo Valentini, a banker and consul general of the Prussian Crown. In 1939, with the outbreak of World War II, a fully self-contained, air-raid shelter was built under the courtyard, with an exit tunnel heading onto the Trajan׳s Forum. Archaeological investigations started in 2005 in view of a simple rehabilitation work of the underground level. As work progressed, the sample-plots brought to light new archaeological findings: relics of a huge temple and what remained of two residential houses with thermal baths. We therefore designed an exhibition space with glass surfaces to allow visitors to appreciate the findings while following a path through historical ages: from the 16th-century courtyard to the underground Roman domus (the sumptuous houses of senators and dignitaries of the Roman Empire), with private baths, to the remains of a Roman temple, and all the way to the Trajan׳s Column pedestal by way of the air-raid shelter. Virtual reconstructions, graphic effects, and movies are the means used to revive the hypothetical original appearance of the environments and the daily life of that epoch in order to help us build a prototype of an on-site museum of the third millennium.

Comunicación cultural y TIC: La representación accesible de la cultura Chimú

This research addresses the question of how to increase knowledge and make it accessible to all people relying on the information and communication technologies. Basic research is applied to the Chimú culture contained in the Museo de América in Madrid. On-site museum and network museum are taken as an interactive whole which is completed and complemented through a narrative database that integrates and shares media distributing it in all kinds of interfaces. The on-site specificity is marked by unique edutainment immersive interactive systems and interactive applications for mobile devices.

Issues of In Situ Conservation at Jinsha, People’s Republic of China

The archaeological site of Jinsha, in Sichuan Province, China, was excavated in 2001, revealing extensive evidence of a substantial 3000 years old settlement. The site was subsequently sheltered and in 2007 an on-site museum was constructed. The shelter’s performance, in terms of environmental control, public interpretation and site management, is assessed. The need for more scientific research on site material science is highlighted.

Interconnections

Virtual reality (VR) transports the mind beyond the two-dimensional bounds of text and photographs; it engages the imagination and forms visual and cognitive links. VR can free participants from stereotyped bounds projected by society. Interconnections: Revisiting the Future applies these innate qualities of virtual worlds to weave together individual threads of singular disciplines into a multidisciplinary tapestry of exploration. The authors are creating an accurately modeled 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair where users can freely explore 140+ pavilions set on 660 virtual square acres. The myriad of pavilions offer links to multiple disciplines—science, engineering, technology, national and international political/cultural affairs, art, history, and architecture. The project provides on-site museum experiences with its partners, the New York Hall of Science and Queens Museum of Art. The three-dimensional virtual Fair environment serves as a central portal that links together not only subjects within that environment but also experiences at these partnering institutions.

A column by Lee Lawyer with stories about geophysics and geophysicists

At 4:00 p.m. on 20 November, 1947, 108 geophysicists met in the Houston Engineers Club for the formation of SEG's Houston Section. (Ten years later the name was changed to the Geophysical Society of Houston.) The meeting was called to order by L. W. Blau, the same man who cautioned us to be skeptical of doodlebuggers using bogus methods to find oil in the first article in the first issue of Geophysics in 1936. We have softened our appraisal of doodlebuggers since then. In fact, we have a big statue dedicated to doodlebuggers in Tulsa. The Houston area is “blessed” with a plethora of geophysicists, including many past presidents of SEG and other honorees. We (I am a member of the GSH, proudly) have been publishing a newsletter for a long time. It is mostly a meeting notice, some pictures, and reports from committees. Unlike SEG, GSH is determined to maintain an on-site physical museum even though getting funding for that effort is difficult, which is another story.

Characterization of winter airborne particles at Emperor Qin's Terra-cotta Museum, China

Daytime and nighttime total suspended particulate matters (TSP) were collected inside and outside Emperor Qin's Terra-cotta Museum, the most popular on-site museum in China, in winter 2008. The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of visitors to indoor airborne particles in two display halls with different architectural and ventilating conditions, including Exhibition Hall and Pit No.1. Morphological and elemental analyses of 7-day individual particle samples were performed with scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (SEM-EDX). Particle mass concentrations in Exhibition Hall and Pit No.1 were in a range of 54.7–291.7 μg m − 3 and 95.3–285.4 μg m − 3 with maximum diameters of 17.5 μm and 26.0 μm, respectively. In most sampling days, daytime/nighttime particle mass ratios in Exhibition Hall (1.30–3.12) were higher than those in Pit No.1 (0.96–2.59), indicating more contribution of the tourist flow in Exhibition Hall than in Pit No. 1. The maximum of particle size distributions were in a range of 0.5–1.0 μm, with the highest abundance (43.4%) occurred in Exhibition Hall at night. The majority of airborne particles at the Museum was composed of soil dust, S-containing particles, and low-Z particles like soot aggregate and biogenic particles. Both size distributions and particle types were found to be associated with visitor numbers in Exhibition Hall and with natural ventilation in Pit No.1. No significant influence of visitors on indoor temperature and relative humidity (RH) was found in either display halls. Those baseline data on the nature of the airborne particles inside the Museum can be incorporated into the maintenance criteria, display management, and ventilation strategy by conservators of the museum.

The Challenge of Presenting Cultural Artifacts in a Museum Setting

This article is a self-reflection that followed my on-site museum presentation to a group of graduate students. The goal of the presentation was to help students understand and appreciate artifacts from the collection of the Asian Art Gallery at a midwestern university's art museum. The purpose of this self-reflection is twofold: first, to describe existing and emerging problems related to multicultural art appreciation and criticism activities conducted in museum settings, and second, to offer some insights into the presentation of cultural heritage in educational environments. This personal reflection is intended to serve as a catalyst for art and museum educators, helping them to examine their own practices that utilize museum cultural objects.