Digital HeritageThe Museum Visit – On and off

Merel van der Vaart - @MerelVaartAmsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture

Allard Pierson Museum

Today’s session

Part 1: The Museum Visit (Disrupted)

Part 2: Smartphones as gamechangers

Part 3: Extending the visit online

What is a Museum?

A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of

society and its development, open to the public, which acquires,

conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible

and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the

purposes of education, study and enjoyment.

ICOM International Council of Museums

What is a Museum Visit?

John H. Falk & Lynn D. Dierking‘The Museum Experience’ (Whaleback Books: 1992)

The Interactive Experience Model

Physical context

Social Context

Personal Context

Interactive

Experience

Aside:

According to Falk and Dierking, the museum visit is being created as it happens as an interplay of physical context, personal context and social context. The museum visit is created as a collaboration between museum and visitor, where the museum can usually only ‘control’ the physical context.

“Visitors are under no obligation to engage with free-choice exhibition environments…

… and yet they do.”

Tiina Roppola‘Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience’ (Routledge: 2012)

Aside:

Tiina Roppola als emphasises the importance of the bodily experience. The museum visit is a physical activity.

“attention is selective(…)attention has focusing power (…)the capacity of attention is limited.”

Stephen Bitgood‘The role of attention in designing effective interpretive labels’ in Journal of Interpretation Research 5/2 (National Association for Interpretation: 2000)

Visitors decide when and how they want to visit the museum.

Visitors have their own agenda when visiting the museum.

Visitors decide how to engage with exhibits & displays.

Some visitors like being guided, some don’t.

Visiting museums is exhausting & people know it.

Smartphones as gamechangers

Technology & Museums

Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)

online offline

off-site

on-site

Technology & Museums

Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)

websites 'outreach'

in-gallery internet connections / live

labels

traditional museum visit

online offline

off-site

on-site

Technology & Museums

Ross Parry & Nadia ArbachIn: Cameron & Kenderine (eds.) ‘Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage’ (MIT Press: 2007)

Responsive websites

'outreach'

in-gallery internet connections / live

labels

traditional museum visit

Apps / social media

online offline

off-site

on-site

Visitors decide when and how they want to visit the museum.

Visitors have their own agenda when visiting the museum.

Visitors decide how to engage with exhibits & displays.

Some visitors like being guided, some don’t.

Visiting museums is exhausting & people know it.

Smartphones changed everything!

What is the role of smartphonesduring the museum visit?

The results of the Smartphone exercise

Extending the visit

Museon: More info: http://mesch-project.eu/after-the-visit/

Openluchtmuseum: Video: http://www.koffietijd.nl/winter-in-het-openluchtmuseum

More and more museums want to build up a long term

relationship with their visitors.

They want people to return.

And they want to connect the online and the on-site.

However, encouraging people to extend the visit, after they left

the physical building can be challenging.

Challenge

You work at the Allard Pierson Museum (or museum of choice).

Develop a proposal for an extended museum visit:

- Who’s your target audience?

- What does the experience look/feel like?

- What is your call to action/bridge between on-site and off-site?

- How will you measure success?

Challenge

Present your proposal:

- Who’s your target audience?

- What does the experience look/feel like?

- What is your call to action/bridge between on-site and off-site?

- How will you measure success?

Feedback: “Yes, but” – “Yes, and”

mesch-project.eumesch@shu.ac.uk

m.j.vandervaart@uva.nl