Digital Futures I: Museum Collections,Digital Technologies,and the Cultural Construction of Knowledge

Digital technologies and their uses within museum collections have until recently been explored primarily from a technical viewpoint. Increasingly, museum professionals are moving beyond technologically‐driven reasoning to entertain new ways of conceptualizing both collections and information. This is leading to knowledge models beyond those already imagined. This paper considers the synergy between theoretical ideas in the academy and the computer ontologies that have been brought to bear on collections information. Drawing on user research findings from the Themescaping Virtual Collections project and the work of leading literary and media theorists, the paper examines how user needs and digital technologies are reformulating our understanding of museum collections and the relationships between museums and audiences.     

At Hospitality's Threshold: From Social Inclusion to Exilic Education

Abstract Describing actual museum‐wide events developed for the culturally charged arena of the Brooklyn Children's Museum, this article explores the philosophical and pedagogical double binds that have brought multiculturalism to a political impasse. Museums have strived to be valued resources in an increasingly diverse society. In aspiring to broaden their audience base, their work has shifted from developing educational policies that are “object‐centered” to those that are “community‐centered” — a change of strategy affecting everything from programs to exhibit design. Children's museums — distinct (if not marginalized) from the serious work of the traditional art or ethnographic or natural history museum — know and indeed say in their very name — “children's museum” — that they are for the sake of someone and not about something. They have always already been attuned to the visitor at the threshold.     

Museums and Virtuality

Abstract This paper investigates issues of museums and virtuality. In considering the diverse ways that museums are approaching virtuality, the focus here is on the common ground and shared objectives, rather than the differences between museums and their virtual re‐creations. Put simply, on‐site museums and their online counterparts are merely two ways of exhibiting cultures. In this sense, “virtuality” is a fundamental exhibition practice. The World Wide Web has become increasingly relevant to such core museum tasks as collecting, preserving, and exhibiting. Digitization of objects in digital heritage programs has led to new forms of collection management and unparalleled access to virtual replicas of museum artifacts. This transformation is inspiring new forms of preserving and displaying cultures both on‐ and off‐line. A successful digital expansion will largely influence whether museums can sustain their cultural authority and position in the 21st century.     

Crafting Museum Experiences in Light of Research on Learning: Implications of the National Research Council’s Report on Informal Science Education

Abstract In this article, the editors of the recent National Research Council report Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits discuss the report’s implications for museum professionals. The report is a synthesis of some 2,000 studies and evaluations of learning in non‐school settings such as museums. Here we focus on three specific topics discussed in the full report, which we see as particularly important for museum professionals. These are: a framework for developing and studying science learning experiences; cultural diversity as an integral resource for learning; and assessment of learning. Many museums include “learning” among their goals and many researchers concern themselves with how museums and other settings can be organized to support learning. Yet this wealth of research is rarely brought into focus and offered as guidance to the museum community.     

From Knowing to Not Knowing: Moving Beyond “Outcomes”

The ways that museums measure the success of their exhibitions reveal their attitudes and values. Are they striving to control visitors so that people will experience what the museum wants? Or are they working to support visitors, who seek to find their own path? The type of approach known as “outcome‐based evaluation” weighs in on the side of control. These outcomes are sometimes codified and limited to some half‐dozen or so “learning objectives” or “impact categories.” In essence, those who follow this approach are committed to creating exhibitions that will tell visitors what they must experience. Yet people come to museums to construct something new and personally meaningful (and perhaps unexpected or unpredictable) for themselves. They come for their own reasons, see the world through their own frameworks, and may resist (and even resent) attempts to shape their experience. How can museums design and evaluate exhibitions that seek to support visitors rather than control them? How can museum professionals cultivate “not knowing” as a motivation for improving what they do?     

视觉设计在数字博物馆中的应用价值

数字博物馆不同于传统的实体博物馆,随着新媒体技术的发展与应用,博物馆中展品展示对于视觉上的要求更加多元化,视觉设计在数字博物馆的建设中成为尤为重要的一个环节。文章阐述了视觉设计在数字博物馆中的价值、功能及作用,从数字博物馆网站用户界面、展品展示、互动娱乐三方面分析了视觉设计的应用价值,并提出了数字博物馆视觉设计中应该注意的问题。     

Museums as Restorative Environments

Abstract Restorative environments possess a combination of attributes that facilitate recovery from mental fatigue. Most previous research in this regard has focused on natural environments, but this paper explores the extent to which museum environments also provide access to restorative experiences. Visitors (307 tourists and 274 local residents) to a history museum, an art museum, an aquarium, and a botanic garden completed a questionnaire regarding the restorative qualities and benefits of the environment they visited. The findings indicate that for some people, museums are at least as restorative as natural environments. The paper contributes to the development of a theoretical understanding of museums as restorative environments and provides insights into the factors that facilitate and enhance restorative experiences. Such experiences have the potential to contribute to visitors’ well‐being and satisfaction.     

Chapter 19. Electronic Information and Digitization

Abstract

This chapter considers obstacles and solutions ahead for administrators who seek to preserve intellectual property in digital form, with an emphasis on museums and libraries. Although museum and library professionals have always assumed that preservation of the evidence of the past is our primary responsibility, that assumption is being mightily tested by the advent of digital media. The three main obstacles such administrators confront are: our instinctive devotion to preserving all artworks and intellectual property at any cost, the instability of a digital platform, and the fluid and seemingly infinite permutations of any digital experience. This chapter reviews some of the implications for stewards of cultural resources of this new borderless language of human expression.     

Children's Museum Experiences: Identifying Powerful Mediators of Learning

This article reports on a study of young children and the nature of their learning through museum experiences. Environments such as museums are physical and social spaces where visitors encounter objects and ideas which they interpret through their own experiences, customs, beliefs, and values. The study was conducted in four different museum environments: a natural and social history museum, an art gallery, a science center, and a hybrid art/social history museum. The subjects were four‐ to seven‐year old children. At the conclusion of a ten‐week, multi‐visit museum program, interviews were conducted with children to probe the saliency of their experiences and the ways in which they came to understand the museums they visited. Emergent from this study, we address several findings that indicate that museum‐based exhibits and programmatic experiences embedded in the common and familiar socio‐cultural context of the child's world, such as play and story, provide greater impact and meaning than do museum exhibits and experiences that are decontexualized in nature.     

The Models of Architeuthis

Models of the giant squid (Architeuthis spp.) are probably unique in natural history exhibition: they are representations of a giant living animal that has never been seen in a healthy state by a human being. Since its discovery in the mid-nineteenth century, the giant squid has remained one of the world's great zoological mysteries. In the attempt to introduce this fabulous creature, museums around the world have resorted to life-sized models. Yale teuthologist A.E. Verrill was responsible for the first such models in 1882; then Ward's Natural Science Establishment in Rochester, New York, manufactured and sold them. In this century, various museums (and one zoo) have made their own models of these ten-armed monsters of the deep. Their disparate attempts to re-create Architeuthis for the museum public represent one of the most intriguing case histories in the annals of museum exhibition.     

The Mindful Museum

Abstract The convergence of global issues—ranging from climate change to the erosion of cultural diversity—has created a watershed of opportunity or an unprecedented crisis for museums. The contemporary museum business model based on consumption, entertainment and ancillary education is increasingly unsustainable and irrelevant in this context. This article explores the concept of a more responsible museum and the need for a heightened sense of social, environmental and economic stewardship as the foundation for a sustainable future, in a time of profound social and environmental change for society at large. Obstacles to organizational effectiveness are discussed, as are methods for enhancing greater organizational awareness of societal issues. Examples of progressive museum practice are also presented by way of illustration. The possible consequences of inaction suggest the need for museums to transform their culture‐and‐industry business model into one of a locally‐embedded problem‐solver, in tune with the challenges and aspirations of their communities.     

我国图情档学科关于文化信息数字资源整合的研究——以博物馆研究为视角

我国图情档学科认为博物馆是文化信息数字资源整合的主体之一。博物馆中以其展品为代表的文化信息资源对满足公众多样化的文化需求、增强中华文化竞争力起着重要作用。本文借助Citespace分析软件,通过对作者、机构、关键词可视化图谱的绘制,识别出我国图情档学科下以博物馆为主题词的科研文献成果概况、科研机构分布及研究热点词与其研究发展趋势。经分析得知,该学科下以博物馆为主题的研究可以分为两个阶段:第一阶段(1996-2008年)主要是博物馆文献资源的开发与利用、博物馆与图书馆文献资源的开发与利用、博物馆古籍保护管理工作以及古籍文献等主题。第二阶段(2009-2019年)主要探讨三馆馆际合作的资源整合路径、数字资源整合理论模式与合作机制等的研究,并结合相关文献内容,深入探讨以博物馆为主题的研究重点,基于此,我国图情档学科应以博物馆中丰富多样的文化信息资源为视角,开展涵盖档案馆、图书馆、博物馆的全种类、全范围的全文化信息数字资源整合。最后,本文围绕数字资源整合这一具有影响力的研究热点,探讨如何从图情档学科的角度出发,有效地涵盖博物馆,构建以图书馆、档案馆、博物馆三馆为主体的数字资源整合模式与机制,建立为公众文化精神需求服务的信息共享平台。     

How Popular Music is Exhibited by Museums in Portugal at the Beginning of the Twenty‐First Century: A Case Study

Popular music is deeply embedded in the dynamics of the contemporary world by means of its capacity to engender modes of privacy and publicness, to communicate emotion, and to enable us to create connections—and so to work within communities. Museums have traditionally addressed art‐music through the exhibition of musical instruments. But now that the exhibition of popular music has presented new challenges and opportunities worldwide for museum professionals, examining popular music discourses in museums is of the utmost importance in order for it to be meaningfully celebrated as instances of heritage. This paper expands on the representation of Popular Music in museums in Portugal at the beginning of the twenty‐first century by discussing a case study: the exhibition No Tempo do Gira‐Discos: Um Percurso Pela Produção Fonográfica Portuguesa at Museu Nacional da Música, Lisbon, Portugal, in 2007. Two methods of analysis are deployed: interviews with the curators, which revealed insights on their understanding of popular music, and analysis of the exhibition through discourse analysis, specifically through the lens of the analytical concepts genre and register. Although the curators had themselves previously developed insightful and innovative concepts with regard to popular music, discourse analysis reveals how, in this instance, the museum practices were primarily inherited from past traditions, and so failed to convey the meanings previously envisioned by the curators. In order for genuine public engagement with museum exhibitions about music, a collaboration is required between the music studies and museum studies professionals. Only through such a collaboration can it be ensured that those contemporary dynamics are present and meaningful.     

Personal Beliefs and National Stories: Theater in Museums as a Tool for Exploring Historical Memory

How does what we remember about history relate to true historical understanding, and how can the museum become a location for these conversations? During the summer of 2011, the National Museum of American History challenged audiences to consider issues of historical memory and national history through the performance of an interactive museum theater program, The Time Trial of John Brown. Using the Time Trial approach as a case study, this article reveals that interactive theater in museums can provide a platform from which audiences assert their own historical understanding while learning firsthand about their role in creating a shared knowledge of American history. As the role of museums evolves in the twenty‐first century, new attention must be paid to this personal process of examining and creating history and memory through performance. It is through performance and participation that history and memory are both examined and created by the audience.     

Improving the Museum Experiences of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Families: An Exploratory Examination of Their Motivations and Needs and Using Web‐based Resources to Meet Them

Through a partnership with a local school, the Smithsonian Institution and the Information Policy and Access Center at the University of Maryland conducted an exploratory study to examine the motivations and needs of families visiting museums with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). This study represents one of the first undertakings to study visitors with ASDs, especially children, through a primarily qualitative data collection. Interest‐driven enjoyment emerged as a primary motivation, though to relax and to socialize outside of the family boundaries were not ranked as important motives for visiting museums. Children, who were directly interviewed, gave positive assessments of their museum experiences, while parents commented that challenges, both museum‐ and family‐related (crowds, loud noise, not feeling welcome, and a child's unpredictable behavior) surfaced in public settings like museums. Parents desired a “typical family outing” with their ASDs child, stating that manageable and safe environments helped families experience a museum.     

The Gift of the ISE Frameworks: A Better Language for Museum Learning

Abstract The publication of Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits has garnered well‐deserved attention from the whole museum profession. It has become a point of discussion and debate, as well as a new tool for museum leadership and advocacy. Thinking of it only as a landmark report for science‐based museums, however, would be a mistake and a lost opportunity. This report has important content for cross‐disciplinary impact. It offers the gift of new language and thoughtful frameworks through which we can tell our individual stories more compellingly while supporting a shared definition of museums as valid places of learning. It gives fresh substance to the role of museums as effective learning resources.     

The Museum Profession: Protecting and Promoting Professional Commitments

Throughout their history, museums have performed diverse public services: from preservation, collection, and exhibition, to interpretation, education, and civic engagement. As Stephen E. Weil ( 2002 ) explains, since the mid‐twentieth century, museums have experienced two major revolutions. First, a revolution in focus from collection‐oriented to visitor‐oriented practices, and second, a revolution in public expectations as museums secured a position within the nonprofit sector (81–82). With competition for public, private, and philanthropic support resting upon measurable results, the evaluation of museums depends upon its ability to “accomplish its purpose” (5). However, the question remains: what is the museum's purpose? Which is the more important: collection and artifact preservation, or public engagement and education? An overview of museum practices reveals a multiplicity of professional tasks distributed among three imperatives: preservation, scholarship, and programming (Weil 2002 , 11). The competition for resources devoted to each of these imperatives can spark controversy—particularly if museum professionals answer the question of the purpose of museums differently. Organizational communication scholar, Janie M. Harden Fritz, developed a theoretical framework that seeks to respond to such controversies in Professional Civility: Communicating Virtue at Work. This essay considers Fritz's “professional civility” in the context of the American museum sector, lending insight to the question of museum purpose and function.     

Objects in Focus: Museum Visitors and Instagram

While there is increasingly widespread use of social media by those visiting museum exhibitions relatively little is understood about this practice. Further still, the focus of such practices is unknown yet research in this area can reveal much about how visitors using applications driven by smart phone technology are engaging with exhibition content, space, design, architecture and people. This article draws on a case study of one exhibition using visual content analysis to frame, explore and interpret visual and text based posts by visitors using the social media application, Instagram, as part of their experience. Findings suggest that museum visitors using this application do so to account for and record details of their experience that draws attention to exhibition content, specifically objects. The implications are extensive for cultural institutions given the uptake of social media in all corners of life, with museums and galleries being a lively context for social media use via mobile technologies.     

Why Do They Come? Listening to Visitors at a Decorative Arts Museum

This article presents the background, methodology, and results of a yearlong study of visitor motivation conducted by the Visitor Research Team (VRT) of Winterthur, a Delaware decorative arts museum. The article details the VRT's use of focus groups to determine what really motivates visitors to attend museums. Study results are consistent with recent work in the field showing that learning and recreation are the primary motivations behind museum visitation. Visitors valued museums as places for active, personal learning through the observation of objects and as outlets for physical and mental relaxation and escapism. Results also show that Winterthur visitors ascribe meanings to the words learning and recreation that are different from education and entertainment. The author calls on museums to discover the needs of their audiences and to design marketing and programming using visitors' vocabularies to promote and provide meaningful museum experiences.     

Writing the History of Humanity: The Role of Museums in Defining Origins and Ancestors in a Transnational World

This article explores the question of how transnational audiences experience anthropology exhibitions in particular, and the natural history museum overall. Of interest are the ways in which natural history museums reconcile anthropological notions of humanity's shared evolutionary history—in particular, African origins accounts—with visitors' complex cultural identities. Through case studies of British, American, and Kenyan museum audiences, this research probed the cultural preconceptions that museum visitors bring to the museum and use to interpret their evolutionary heritage. The research took special notice of audiences of African descent, and their experiences in origins exhibitions and the natural history museums that house them. The article aims to draw connections between natural history museums and the dynamic ways in which museum visitors make meaning. As museums play an increasing role in the transnational homogenization of cultures, human origins exhibitions are increasingly challenged to communicate an evolutionary prehistory that we collectively share, while validating the cultural histories that make us unique.