cultural heritage

For small specialised museums it can be quite hard to engage new audiences, especially those that are often not really interested in cultural heritage. We report on a “Do-It-Yourself” approach, in which youngsters create their own mobile game for two small city museums in Flanders (Belgium): the National Museum of Cycling and the City Museums of Izegem - covering local industrial history.

Museum visitors have different perspectives and interests based on how they relate their personal experiences and knowledge to the objects on display in the museum. Many museums and cultural institutions would like to collect these perspectives to complement and augment the content of the museum’s official interpretation.

New Zealand’s Puke Ariki Museum, Library and Visitor Center in New Plymouth recently used two different formats for collecting and displaying visitor comments in recent (2010-2011) exhibits. Both formats challenge online visitors to weigh multiple perspectives on history and the future of New Zealand.

In the summer of 2009 the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS, www.rcahms.gov.uk) launched an upgraded version of its online archive, Canmore.

In a digitalised and globalised world, what are the challenges the museum faces when users increasingly experience knowledge as something created through blogs, wikis and other social platforms?