museumsandtheweb.com - online collections

Exploring Affective Computing for Enhancing the Museum Experience with Online Collections

Gunho — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:12:21 +0000

MW2012

Gunho Chae, KAIST, Republic of Korea / S. Joon Park, Drexel University, USA / Robert Stein, Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA / Jungwha Kim, KAIST, Republic of Korea / Susan Wiedenbeck, Drexel University, USA

Abstract

Program Item Reference:

Exploring Affective Computing for Enhancing the Museum Experience with Online Collections

National Park Service Museum Collections website

mfreem12 — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:33:01 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

online collections

Keywords:

website rebuild

Keywords:

Museum Websites

Keywords:

National Park Service

Abstract:

A collaborative effort, between the Museum Management Program of the National Park Service and the University of Tennessee (UTK), has lead to a completely redesigned website for the National Park Service (NPS) museum collections.

The previous site had a dated design and statistics showed that most visitors failed to get past the home page. In addition, only a small number of parks contributed data to the site. The huge variety of data in the parks' collections, the low incidence of images, and the fact that objects had been cataloged to different standards in different systems over many decades, all presented challenges to the new design.

Starting in 2010, a small team at UTK has worked with parks to increase the number of records, images, and other media in the database. A review of user feedback and statistics, NPS needs and practices, other museum collections websites, and target audience needs led to the new design.

The new site enables easier visitor access the collections. Although visitors can perform simple or advanced searches by keyword, park name, object name, people, places, and date, the intent was to make the site more exploratory, without over-reliance on the search box.

A database, including summary collection information, was added for all parks, whether or not they had submitted object records. This database provides a basic discovery tool for all the total park collections, and also a top level contextual hierarchy of information. A second level of context was provided by a new "collections highlights" tool. This allows parks to create and describe significant parts of their collections. These highlights provide both easy access to the site and thematic context for the selected objects. Also collection, park and object "highlights of the week" give easy access to the site from the home page.

The site backend was built around ICMS, the NPS collections management system. It went live at the end of 2011.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations I

Site:

http://museum.nps.gov

Authors:

Mark Freeman

Collections Online

dbear — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:23:31 +0000

Type:

Session

Chair:

Nate Solas

Programs:

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection – building a community of objects with the National Vending Machine

Art & Artists

Rhizomatic Art Stories – balancing between innovation and usability

Reprogamming the Museum

Date & Time:

April 9, 2011 - 1:30pm - 3:30pm

Location:

Congress

online collections

collections

accessibility

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

Access to collections takes on many hues. What do we mean and how do we enable it?

Tag! You’re It! What value do folksonomies bring to the online museum collection?

Susan Cairns — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:09:27 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Tag! You're It! What Value Do Folksonomies Bring To The Online Museum Collection?

Keywords:

taxonomies

Keywords:

online collections

Keywords:

collections documentation

Keywords:

meaning-making

Keywords:

folksonomies

Keywords:

tagging

Abstract:

As growing numbers of museums invite users to digitally tag online collection objects with key words, it is timely to examine the value that this practice can bring to the sector. These tags in their aggregate are known as ‘folksonomies’ and are broad user-derived classifications that are, at their heart, a form of communication.[1] As a collaborative process with no hierarchical structure,[2] folksonomies stand in opposition to traditional museum taxonomies, and present museums with new opportunities for gaining insight into, and interacting with, audiences. Further, folksonomies give the museum the opportunity to track historical public contributions to museum collection documentation, providing the sector with a possible new avenue for historical document analysis. Through recording evolving language and tag behaviour, folksonomies have the potential to become autonomously important to the museum in its study of people and written historical documentation.

Folksonomies can also provide the museum with a new method for gaining insight into the polysemic nature of online collection objects and for uniting disparate theoretical and practical frameworks of meaning in the online collection. This conceptual paper will present an exploratory examination of the value that folksonomies provide to the museum and gallery sector. Using Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and the fully Internet-based steve.museum as examples, it will demonstrate that incorporating folksonomies with traditional taxonomic museum classification systems provides the museum with an important new way through which to maintain and grow its relevance in the digital age.

The growing incorporation of folksonomies and other Web2.0 technologies into museum collections practice is a current and important issue for the sector to address and understand. Changes in the technological landscape occur more quickly than the associated theoretical analysis. Therefore investigation into the value that folksonomies provide the online museum collection gives important and timely context for this practice. This research offers an original perspective on these issues.

[1] Andrea Wei-Ching Huang and Tyng-Ruey Chuang, "Social Tagging, Online Communication, and Peircean Semiotics: A Conceptual Framework," Journal of Information Science 35(2009): 341.

[2] Fiona Cameron and Sarah Mengler, “Complexity, Transdisciplinarity and Museum Collections Documentation: Emergent Metaphors for a Complex World,” Journal of Material Culture, 14 (2009): 195

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Tagging

Authors:

Susan Cairns

Scholarly Information Seeking Behaviour in the British Museum Online Collection

clairey.ross — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:49:55 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Scholarly Information-Seeking Behaviour in the British Museum Online Collection

Keywords:

online collections

Keywords:

information seeking

Keywords:

user studies

Keywords:

usability

Keywords:

scholarly searching

Keywords:

search strategies

Keywords:

Abstract:

The vast amounts of digital museum resources available to support scholarship are changing the ways researchers work, offering convenient quick access to a wide selection of cultural heritage content. However, finding information in museums, as well as libraries and archives, is not an easy task. Collections database information systems can be overwhelming and daunting to many users. Designing intuitive systems that meet researcher’s needs requires a thorough understanding of the information seeking behaviour of collection database users. A proper understanding of how museum visitors use digital museum resources is critical for the success of museums in the information age. As museums cope with the challenges of ‘being digital’ (Hamma 2004), meeting the information requirements of online visitors has become an important part of the museum’s role (Marty 2004) and it is now critical for researchers and museum professionals to explore the use of museum digital resources, both in-house and online (Booth 1998; Sarraf 1999).

The British Museum shows continuing commitment to providing as wide virtual and physical access to their collections as possible, utilising different mediums to open up the museum collections to a wider, more diverse audience. This commitment is expressed in the British Museum’s online collection database. In October 2007, the British Museum launched Collection Online (COL[1]), an online version of the collection database. By the end of 2009, nearly 2 million records from the museum collections had been made available to the public worldwide. Despite the online availability of the British Museum Collection, very little is known about the COL’s users and whether and how they utilise the material provided, or if the online collection makes possible new kinds of engagement with museum objects.

This paper presents a collaborative study between UCL Centre for Digital Humanities[2] and the British Museum. This study considers the use and information seeking behaviour by scholars of the British Museum’s Collection Online. From May to September 2010 a series of analyses of users of the British Museum’s COL was undertaken: including log analysis and targeted surveys. This paper is predominately focused on the results of the survey of academic users. The online survey concentrated on gathering data specifically on users of the British Museum’s Collection Online; focusing on user perspectives of their use of the Collection Online, search strategies and general use of museum digital resources.

This paper explores the findings of the research so far, highlights the scholarly value of museum digital resources, examines the existing structures of presentation and representation of the British Museum Collection Online for aiding academic information seeking. This study provides an example of how a thorough detailed analysis of user survey data museums can acquire an awareness of the perceptions that academic user groups hold of the museum collection information environment, as well as understanding how the functionality and usability of museum's digital collection aids individual’s information searching. Additionally, we show how such user studies can provide concrete evidence to improve the functionality of online collections databases.

Booth, B. 1999. Understanding the information needs of visitors to museums. Museum Management and Curatorship 17:2, pp. 139-157.

Hamma, K. 2004. Becoming digital. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 30:5 , pp. 11-13.

Marty, P. F. 2008. Museum websites and museum visitors: digital museum resources and their use. Museum Management and Curatorship, 23:1, 81 – 99

Sarraf, S. (1999) A survey of museums on the web: Who uses museum websites?. Curator 42 , pp. 231-243.

[1] http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_c...

[2] http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dh/

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Info-Seeking

Site:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database.aspx

Authors:

Claire Ross

Melissa Terras