Online Museum

L’aumento dei canali di contatto e di comunicazione ha, per un museo, effetti anche di natura strettamente commerciale: l’aumento dell’utenza potenziale e, dunque, della domanda potenziale, può rendere il museo un ‘prodotto’ commercialmente più appetibile dal punto di vista degli investimenti o delle sponsorizzazioni, una ulteriore occasione per i finanziatori di pubblicizzare il proprio marchio o la propria azienda. Attraverso un'analisi 'empirica' dell'utenza remota di alcuni siti web museali italiani e stranieri a confronto, si analizzano criticità e potenzialità dell'uso del web per queste istituzioni museali.

On the 24 August 79 CE Mount Vesuvius erupted. The city of Pompeii was completely buried under pumice and ash. The exhibition A Day in Pompeii, presented by Museum Victoria, gives visitors the opportunity to understand what daily life in ancient Pompeii was really like, and to understand the process by which the city came to be destroyed, buried and eventually rediscovered. In contrast to the grim nature of Pompeii's history, the exhibition brings to life the town before the eruption through displays of a wide selection of artefacts that encapsulate various aspects of Pompeian society.

Virtual communities have become increasingly popular for the general public, using electronic mailing lists, newsgroups, WWeb-based forums, chat rooms, etc. However, it appears that online forums are not well integrated into the sphere of museums. Curators have therefore not capitalized on widening their mandate and engaging visitors as well as museum professionals themselves in effective online interaction.

This paper presents a survey of existing museum-related forums available for discussion by museum professionals and the general public with an interest in museums. Some of the software and facilities available to museums for the establishment and maintenance of mailing lists, WWeb-based discussion forums and more innovative service like WWeb logs, often freely available, are also explored. A museum discussion forum facility has been implemented experimentally (see under http://forums.museophile.net) using open source software. As well as local forums, this integrates topical information of interest to museum personnel from a wide range of online sources. Finally, some thoughts for the future are discussed.

Keywords: discussion forums, mailing lists, museums, newsgroups, online communities, WWeb logs, World Wide Web

Despite the vast amount of data at their disposal, museums struggle to measure the impact and value of their social-media activities due to the lack of standard metrics, consistent tools, and clear guidelines from funders. This paper attempts to define a performance measurement framework that may help museums define the set of measures and tools required to carry out this evaluation task. The evaluation tool proposed is an adaptation of the Balanced Scorecard, a framework developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton and presented in the Harvard Business Review in 1992. As the authors define it, the Balanced Scorecard "translates an organization’s mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures that provides the framework for a strategic measurement and management system." The framework was used at Tate in order to study its applicability. During this process, the Balanced Scorecard was demonstrated to be an efficient method for gathering strategic information and defining performance measures. The next step was to put the framework into action, assess its usefulness, and analyse the insights and challenges that stem from applying it. This fieldwork was a practice of trial and error to test various methods and tools for collecting, analysing, and visualising the data with the aim of measuring the interaction and conversation created on these social media platforms. Based on a series of case studies evaluating the social media activities at Tate, this research evaluated which are the best metrics to use in the framework and how the data can be presented and turned into visualisations and actionable pieces of information that inform the decision-making process. This paper also reflects on the implications for museums of establishing a performance measurement system in terms of processes, organisation structure, and resources

РЕЦЕНЗІЯ на методичну розробку «Методичні рекомендації щодо експозиційно-виставкового висвітлення політичних репресій та радянського тоталітаризму у Західному регіоні України (на прикладі музейних установ Львівської області)» Представлена до рецензування методична розробка на тему «Методичні рекомендації щодо експозиційно-виставкового висвітлення політичних репресій та радянського тоталітаризму у Західному регіоні України (на прикладі музейних установ Львівської області)» виконана завідувачем сектору методології музейної роботи Ведибідою Богданом Олександровичем. Робота обсягом 6 друкованих аркушів, складається з вступу, чотирьох розділів та висновків, списку використаної літератури. Представлена робота є високо актуальною, важливою, складною та якісно виконаною. Методичні рекомендації оформлені у науковому стилі та структурою, що може також її охарактеризувати ширше – як методичний посібник. Структура роботи є логічною, зміст охоплює низку важливих проблем музейної роботи. Праця виконана в оптимальному обсязі, ґрунтована на вагомому та вражаючому списку використаної літератури (160 одиниць) як вітчизняних, так і закордонних дослідників, в тому числі офіційних сторінок музеїв. Робота Ведибіди Б.О. логічно продовжує попередні праці автора, присвячені проблемам декомунізації в Україні, які є вагомим внеском у творення історії сьогодення та соціальної трансформації в Україні. В зазначених рекомендаціях вдало виділені методологія та характерні особливості висвітлення та комплексної оцінки, аналізу питань висвітлення в музейних експозиціях теми політичних репресій та тоталітаризму. Корисною є представлена в роботі повна законодавча база, подана із аналізом. Особливо корисними є дієві практичні поради з побудови експозиції на зазначену тематику в музеях України, підбору експонатів та забезпечення їх збереженості під час експонування. Приємно, що представлені в роботі висновки також якісно підкріплені прикладами із виставкової діяльності Національного музею історії України, зокрема затвердженої Концепції реекспозиції ІІІ поверху музею. Значною в роботі є подана історична довідка. Наглядним і показовим є ілюстративний матеріал. Цілком вдало автором наведені в роботі огляди та аналіз діяльності музеїв Львівщини, що демонструє вже існуючий практичний досвід висвітлення теми в музейній експозиції, що стало важливою та невід'ємною частиною роботи.

Online Museums, or Virtual Museums, are increasingly appearing on the contemporary art scene. Through an analysis of the historical perspective and the recent theories of scholars, the article aims to demonstrate how the Online Museum is a valid tool that can support or completely replace the traditional “physical” museum in carrying on research, enhancement and promotion of cultural heritage, above all the positive aspects of fruition
and relationship with a new public. After investigating different definitions and categories of Virtual Museum, and the type of users, there is a list of Online Museum sites, highlighting at the end critical and positive aspects of this trend, that is increasingly conquering the public of art.

In the context of digital humanities and access to cultural heritage online, this paper explores the discoverability of Late Antique material in some searchable museum collections and in some major archaeological and art historical image and object databases. It follows an exploratory approach by using simple keyword searches, such as ‘late antique’ or ‘byzantine’, and comparing the results with chronological searches when a date or period filter is available. Although Late Antique material often comprises a smaller number of objects compared to more popular periods like the Roman and the Renaissance, these are difficult to research due to inconsistent labelling practices and the frequent lack of a customizable date range filter. The ongoing debates on proper periodization and nomenclature also need to be taken into consideration.

-- The article is open access, available via the MDPI website: https://www.mdpi.com/1338610. --

-- "Trace the Untraceable: Online Image Search Tools for Researching Late Antique Art" Heritage 4, no. 4 (2021): 4076-4104. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage4040225.

Questo lavoro, che costituisce l’aggiornamento della ricerca della Tesi di Dottorato di Ricerca in Scienze Umanistiche e dei Beni Culturali (intitolato La valorizzazione digitale del ptrimonio culturale in Europa e in Italia. Forme di fruizione e valorizzazione museale attraverso le nuove tecnologie e i social media. Una proposta di turismo wireless per Catania, A.A. 2011-2013), si organizza in due parti. Nella Parte I, dopo un inquadramento generale su Internet, sulle nuove tecnologie e sul loro impatto nel settore dalla comunicazione e valorizzazione culturale, con una particolare attenzione al fenomeno del divario digitale in Italia e in Sicilia, agli sviluppi del Web 2.0 e alle forme di partecipazione digitale dell’utenza alla produzione di contenuti culturali, l’interesse si focalizza dapprima sulle politiche culturali di valorizzazione digitale del patrimonio culturale europeo, dunque sulle corrispondenti politiche culturali italiane e siciliane, valutando anche i dati statistici sulla penetrazione delle ICT nella popolazione (europea, italiana e siciliana), sull’uso di Internet e dei dispositivi portatili, per il consumo di beni e servizi culturali. La Parte II della ricerca si apre con una presentazione delle tecnologie digitali variamente utilizzate nel settore della comunicazione mobile e delle possibilità di interazione che le nuove piattaforme digitali offrono nel campo della comunicazione culturale, con un ampio repertorio di esempi di dispositivi ad applicativi per la fruizione in modalità mobile del patrimonio culturale, sia all’estero che, soprattutto, in Italia e in Sicilia.



INDICE

INTRODUZIONE
La rivoluzione digitale e il suo impatto sulla comunicazione culturale

PARTE I
La cultura e le politiche culturali nell’epoca di Internet

CAPITOLO PRIMO
Internet e le nuove tecnologie per la comunicazione e la cultura
1.1 La diffusione di Internet, il digital divide e il digibetismo
1.2 Internet e l’accessibilità linguistica alla rete
1.3 Prosumers e social network, netnografia e information on demand nell’era del Web 2.0
1.4 Il settore culturale fra ICT, Virtual heritage e web marketing
1.5 Avatar e consumo d’arte a domicilio: il caso di Second Life
1.6 La comunicazione culturale tra reale e virtuale e le indagini sull’utenza museale remota
1.7 Il museo partecipativo sul web e le forme di partecipazione dell’utente alla produzione culturale e alla creazione di valore culturale

CAPITOLO SECONDO
La valorizzazione digitale del patrimonio culturale in Europa
2.1 Politiche europee di valorizzazione digitale del patrimonio culturale
2.2 Le statistiche culturali europee

CAPITOLO TERZO
La valorizzazione digitale del patrimonio culturale in Italia e in Sicilia fra digital divide, potenzialità economiche inespresse e co-creazione di valore culturale
3.1 Politiche italiane di valorizzazione digitale del patrimonio culturale
3.2 Diffusione di Internet in Italia, fra digital divide e consumo digitale di cultura
3.3 Diffusione di Internet in Sicilia, fra digital divide e consumo digitale di cultura
3.4 Il gap infrastrutturale italiano fra Terzo Mondo digitale e Agenda Digitale Italiana
3.5 Il progetto di un Federalismo Digitale e Free Italia Wi-Fi
3.6 Il potenziale economico (inespresso) di Cultura e Internet in Italia
3.7 Gli italiani e l’adozione di mobile devices
3.8 Google e la comunicazione e valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale italiano
3.9 Il progetto #invasionidigitali 2013 e #siciliainvasa: forme di co-creazione di valore culturale in modalità crowd
3.10 Lo stato dell’arte in Sicilia: la visibilità sul web del patrimonio culturale siciliano

PARTE II
Tecnologie per la comunicazione culturale mobile

CAPITOLO QUARTO
Tecnologie per la comunicazione culturale in mobilità
4.1 L’interesse degli operatori alle tecnologie per la comunicazione culturale in mobilità
4.2 Wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Tag RFId, QR code e tecnologia NFC
4.3 Storie sulle Geografie tra web e mobile: forme digitali di appartenenza territoriale fra geo-blog, geo-social tagging, tagging emozionale e urban digital storytelling
4.4 Soluzioni di visita multimediali su PDA e visitatori wireless
4.5 iPod, smartphone e tablet: la rivoluzione nella comunicazione culturale mobile
4.6 Esempi di guided tour app nei musei e nelle biblioteche internazionali
4.7 Esempi di guided tour app per la fruizione mobile del patrimonio culturale italiano
4.7.1 Le i-MiBAC app
4.7.2 App per cultura e turismo nelle regioni e città italiane
4.7.3 Le app dei musei e delle biblioteche italiane
4.7.4 Le mostre temporanee e le app
4.7.5 Touring e gli altri
4.8 Le ultime frontiere delle guided tour apps fra Augmented reality, Bubble Viewer e emotional browsing
4.8.1 Augmented reality e Bubble Viewer: modalità aumentate di comunicazione culturale mobile del patrimonio culturale italiano
4.8.2 La frontiera emozionale nella comunicazione culturale mobile del patrimonio culturale italiano

CAPITOLO QUINTO
Tecnologie per la comunicazione culturale in mobilità in Sicilia: una panoramica
5.1 Esempi di guided tour per la fruizione mobile del patrimonio culturale siciliano
5.1.1 Guided tour in mp3
5.1.2 Guided tour con i Qr Code
5.1.3 Guide tour multimediali con PDA, smartphone e iPod, tra Qr Code, RFiD e NFC
5.2 Esempi di guided tour app per la fruizione mobile del patrimonio culturale siciliano
5.2.1 Le app istituzionali sulla Sicilia e i beni culturali siciliani
5.2.2 Le app istituzionali dei Comuni siciliani
5.2.3 Le app sulla Sicilia dal Touring agli operatori turistici
5.2.4 App per cultura e turismo nelle città siciliane
5.2.4.1 App per cultura e turismo a Palermo e provincia
5.2.4.2 App per cultura e turismo a Trapani e provincia
5.2.4.3 App per cultura e turismo a Caltanissetta e provincia
5.2.4.4 App per cultura e turismo a Enna e provincia
5.2.4.5 App per cultura e turismo a Agrigento e provincia
5.2.4.6 App per cultura e turismo a Siracusa e provincia
5.2.4.7 App per cultura e turismo a Ragusa e provincia
5.2.4.8 App per cultura e turismo a Messina e provincia
5.2.4.9 App per cultura e turismo a Catania e provincia
5.2.5 Le app dei musei
5.3 Soluzioni tecnologiche per il monitoraggio dell’utenza e la customer satisfaction: il caso di WiFiguide
5.4 Per una breve conclusione

BIBLIOGRAFIA E SITOGRAFIA

Dopo un inquadramento generale sul potenziale economico inespresso del nostro patrimonio culturale, il contributo approfondisce il ‘peso’ economico di Internet e l’arretratezza digitale dell’Italia, che corre il rischio di entrare a far parte di un Terzo Mondo Digitale anche a causa di una serie di impedimenti legislativi allo sviluppo. Infine, si anticipano alcuni risultati di una ricerca in c.d.s. (La visibilit@ sul web del patrimonio culturale siciliano: criticità e prospettive attraverso un survey on-line. Con Guida multimediale ai musei siciliani sul web) nella quale si evidenzia come, tranne alcune rare eccezioni, sia ancora scadente la qualità della comunicazione del patrimonio culturale siciliano.

L’applicazione delle nuove tecnologie e l’utilizzo dei social media in campo museale si è evoluta in modo esponenziale negli ultimi anni. La consapevolezza delle opportunità fornite dai social networks è divenuta un concetto radicato nella nostra cultura ed anche nella comunicazione e nel marketing museale. In questo articolo viene evidenziato il ruolo rivestito dai social networks più importanti, a livello di comunicazione e di marketing culturale, fino alla più recente adozione dei geo-social networks come soluzione di promozione dell’attività museale e di rafforzamento del rapporto museo-pubblico.

This document presents the findings of Mobile X, a project devised by Blink and Northampton Museums, which examined techniques for engaging young people with museum collections through the use of mobile technology.

The primary research aim was to evaluate the pros and cons of using mobile phones in combination with everyday distribution technology (e.g., Bluetooth, YouTube, etc.) as a method of interpretation.

The project found that there were very few obstacles to using mobile-phone film-making to engage participants with objects from the museum's collection. Film-making support was inexpensive and required only basic video-editing skills.

Mobile X provided an interesting case study for the museum sector, exploring a relatively new form of public access to collections and a low-cost approach to community participation.

Museums are concerned with the care and interpretation of natural and man-made objects from the geological past to the present-day. Many of these objects have a geographical association. In the case of geological, biological and archaeological items it is 'place in which found or collected'; in the case of topographic pictures 'place depicted'; in the case of social history it might be 'place in which manufactured or used'.

E-learning has the potential to be a very personalized experience and can be tailored to the individual involved. So far science museums have yet to tap into this potential to any great extent, partly due to the relative newness of the technology involved and  partly due to the expense. This chapter covers some of the speculative efforts that may improve the situation for the future, including the SAGRES project and the  Ingenious website among other examples. It is hoped that this will be helpful to science museums and centers that are considering the addition of personalization features to their own website. Currently website personalization should be used with caution, but larger organizations should be considering the potential if they have not already started to do so.

Keywords: Accessibility; Digital Collections; E-Learning; Electronic Database;Electronic Resources; Information Access; Internet Access; Internet-Based Technologies; Metadata Creation; Online Community; Online Resources; Personal Use of IT; User Expectations; User Experience; User Interface; User Needs; Virtual Community Building; Web Development; Web Resources; Web-Based Services

Si presentano i risultati dell'indagine sulla visibilità online del patrimonio culturale siciliano (realizzata nel volume "La visibilit@ sul web del patrimonio culturale siciliano. Criticità e prospettive attraverso un survey on-line con Guida multimediale ai musei siciliani sul web"), soffermandosi sulle principali criticità e illustrando le potenzialità non adeguatamente sfruttate della comunicazione culturale sul web.

Este texto viene a recoger las conclusiones extraídas de una experiencia
didáctica que surge del proyecto de innovación educativa Nuevas
tecnologías aplicadas a la evaluación de la enseñanza-aprendizaje en los
grupos de trabajo cooperativo para la adquisición de competencias en
patrimonio cultural (PATINN-UCO). Se plantea el uso de las TIC
para crear espacios de enseñanza-aprendizaje virtuales para la adquisición
de las competencias marcadas en los planes de estudio del
Grado de Historia del Arte de la Universidad de Córdoba, donde la
visita a espacios museísticos es clave para la aprehensión de contenidos
prácticos, tales como Museología y Museografía y Terminología
y Técnicas Artísticas. En este caso, la metodología propuesta para la
enseñanza-aprendizaje se apoya en el uso de las TIC. Emana de un
proceso de planificación de la asignatura en el que la evaluación va
a marcar la estrategia docente a seguir así como el planteamiento de
unos objetivos.

Understanding our audiences is a key element in the design of the digital experiences we offer. Our digital strategy principles aim for an approach that is audiencecentered and insightdriven. But what does this mean in practice? How can we move from the data and insights to inform our digital plan and decide on priorities? As part of my role as a digital analyst, I act as an audience advocate, championing the voice of our visitors among the digital team and across the gallery, allowing us to respond to their needs. Here is an example of how we are applying our most recent audience research data to our digital plans.

In the last decade a new way of communicating archaeology is taking place, due to the developing of the web and the diffusion of on-line journals and forum dedicated to anthropology and archaeology. The meeting “Dalla nascita alla morte: antropologia e archeologia a confronto” has in the Poster and Forum on-line section some of his main peculiarities, both intended as tools for the improvement for an innovative way of dialogue between archaeologists and anthropologists.

"La valorizzazione culturale e museale attraverso le nuove tecnologie costituisce un tema innovativo ed in costante evoluzione per chi si occupi, oggi, sia di economia, marketing e gestione museale che di comunicazione, fruizione e valorizzazione museale, all’interno di una più ampia strategia per il rilancio economico territoriale. Partendo da un inquadramento teorico sulla "Economia della cultura e della comunicazione", il volume pone una particolare attenzione agli investimenti e ai progetti realizzati, in particolare nell’ultimo decennio, dall'Unione Europea e dal Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali italiano nella valorizzazione della cultura e delle istituzioni museali. Dopo un’analisi dell’evoluzione del "museo" ed un inquadramento sulla sua storia legislativa italiana, con un respiro ampiamente interdisciplinare la ricerca si concentra dapprima sugli aspetti di economia, comunicazione e marketing museale poi sulle nuove tecnologie, di cui si parla diffusamente, e sulle potenzialità espresse (o ancora da esprimere) nel campo dell'offerta museale. Sono analizzati numerosi esempi di musei, di siti web museali, di musei virtuali e vengono evidenziate molte "eccellenze" tecnologiche prodotte in Italia (eccellenze che ricadono essenzialmente nell'ambito dei musei virtuali archeologici), poi, nello specifico, descritte tutte le tecnologie applicabili nel settore dei beni culturali (dai multitouch screen ai dispositivi portatili) e, nello specifico, rivolte sia alla fruizione museale remota, che alla fruizione in mobilità (tra cui i dispositivi legati all'applicazione dell'augmented reality, sfruttata in molti esempi di archeologia virtuale). Vengono analizzate, infine, le grandi potenzialità, comunicative ed economiche, fornite dai siti web e dai social networks, con le più recenti tendenze di comunicazione legate al social-tagging o al geo-social tagging.


Museum and cultural development through new technologies is an innovative and constantly evolving issue. Starting from a theoretical framework on the "Economics of Culture and Communication", this volume pays particular attention to investments and projects, particularly in the last decade, that the European Union and the Ministry of Heritage and Culture Italian has been making for the enhancement of culture and museums. With a widely-ranging interdisciplinary this research focuses on the aspects of economy, marketing, communications and new technologies for museums. There are analyzed numerous examples of museums, museum websites, virtual museums and many "excellent" technologies produced in Italy (expecially within the virtual archaeological museums), then, specifically, are described all the technologies used in the field of cultural heritage (from the multitouch screen to mobile devices, including devices relating to the application of augmented reality, used in many examples of virtual archaeology). Finally the volume analyzes the great potential provided by museum web sites and by social networks, with the latest trends of communication, as social-tagging or geo-social tagging."

Through advancing new technology, perspective of museum institution and museum profession is changed. The content analysis and analyze of used terminology by online users will show us which term is the most used between frequently used terms such are: online, electronic, web, internet, digital, virtual and cyber museums. This scientific paper suggests that online users don't differ mentioned terms while they search for museums on Web. Using the appropriate »prefix« in order to better describe the typology of a museum on the Web is the first step in designing the future of the museums and certainly encourages serious approach in to the study of the new museum »entities«.

In the past decade, museums have experienced a revolution with the arrival of new technologies, capable of enhancing their visitors’ experiences by introducing multimedia content. Amid these new technologies, website and computer-based interactives in the gallery have augmented exhibitions to provide additional educational material. However, the web is mainly suitable for access to information before, after or often even instead of visiting an exhibition or museum. A kiosk provides a physically fixed facility that can be used during a visit to an exhibition, but only for part of it generally. In contrast, a multimedia tour delivered through a handheld device allows the visitor to gain information at any point during the visit and in any order, without interfering with the aesthetics of the gallery. This means it has some unique properties that could be beneficial, if used suitably.

http://www.readinglists.manchester.ac.uk/items/19385D8F-E893-267A-33DD-20742D8A4F8B.html

"Proponendosi come naturale ‘evoluzione’ del precedente lavoro intitolato “Il museo contemporaneo, fra tradizione, marketing e nuove tecnologie” (Aracne, Roma 2011), il volume inquadra inizialmente le problematiche riguardanti le ICT e il loro utilizzo nella fruizione e valorizzazione culturale. Si esaminano il fenomeno di Internet, le molteplici forme di digital divide ed il ruolo delle tecnologie del Web 2.0 a livello socio-culturale, con una particolare attenzione al sorgere della nuova branca di studi definita netnografia. Dopo un’analisi degli investimenti e dei progetti realizzati dall'Unione Europea e dal Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali italiano nella valorizzazione della cultura e delle istituzioni museali attraverso le tecnologie digitali, la ricerca si concentra sulle nuove tecnologie e sulle loro potenzialità nel campo dell'offerta culturale e museale. Partendo dalla classificazione delle molteplici definizioni di museo virtuale e di mostra virtuale, sono analizzati numerosi esempi di musei, di siti web museali, di musei e mostre virtuali; si affrontano, poi, il concetto di ‘museo partecipativo’, il ruolo dei social networks nella comunicazione culturale e quello dell’utente (prosumer) nella partecipazione alla produzione culturale. Sono descritti i dispositivi e le tecnologie applicabili nel settore dei beni culturali, utilizzati sia nel campo della fruizione museale remota ed in presenza (dal sito web ai palmari, dalle installazioni multimediali agli effetti speciali), che nella fruizione di tipo mobile. In quest’ultimo caso, si analizzano le tecnologie delle ‘etichette’ intelligenti (dalle tags RFId, ai QR codes, alle Microsoft e Custom tags, per finire con la tecnologia NFC). Sono analizzate, inoltre, le potenzialità, comunicative ed economiche, fornite dai social networks e dai geo-social networks. Il volume si conclude con un’ampia rassegna delle molteplici attività svolte dal motore di ricerca Google nel settore della digitalizzazione del patrimonio culturale, dei suoi softwares e delle loro applicazioni ed interazioni nel settore, da Google Maps a Google Art Project.

This volume is the natural 'evolution' of the previous work entitled "The contemporary museum, between tradition, marketing and new technologies" (Aracne, Rome 2011). The volume initially examines the phenomenon of the Internet, the multiple forms of digital divide and the role of Web 2.0 technologies in social-cultural life, with particular attention to the rise of a new branch of studies called netnografia. The research focuses on new technologies and their potential in field of cultural comunication and valorisation. Starting from the definitions of virtual museum and virtual exhibition, numerous examples of museums, museum websites, virtual museums and exhibitions are analyzed; then, the concept of 'participatory museum', the role of social networks in cultural communications and the user's (prosumer) participation in cultural production. The book describes devices and technologies applicable in the field of cultural heritage, from the website to handhelds, from multimedia installations to special effects. Technologies of 'intelligent labels' (RFID tags, QR codes, MS tags, Custom tags, ending with the NFC) are also analyzed and, in addition, the potential provided by social networks and geo-social networks. The volume concludes with an extensive review of many activities carried out by the Google in digitization of cultural heritage, from Google Maps to Google Art Project."

Art online knows no borders, no boundaries or limits. The presence of our digital collection is not only confined to our website but actually, due to the viral aspect of social media, our artworks are in a continuous online tour, travelling far away across different networks.

Writing about art and the teaching of art writing are becoming important issues in the art world. Furthering our understanding of art texts can inform the practice and teaching of art writing. In an effort to expand linguistic understanding of art writing, this study examines a corpus of 180 online explanatory art museum texts from the online collections of nine US museums with a functional profiles perspective. Cluster analysis is used to group the 180 texts into functional profiles based on their use of 21 linguistic features. The cluster analysis resulted in five clusters that are interpreted functionally: Cluster 1 (n=56), descriptive information; Cluster 2 (n=30), expanded form-adding interpretation and process; Cluster 3 (n=40), contextualizing; Cluster 4 (n=8), process and interpretation with agency; and Cluster 5 (n-46), narrative focus. It is posited that this understanding of online explanatory art museum texts can inform the teaching of future museum professionals.

E-learning has the potential to be a very personalized experience and can be tailored to the individual involved. So far science museums have yet to tap into this potential to any great extent, partly due to the relative newness of the technology involved and partly due to the expense. This chapter covers some of the speculative efforts that may improve the situation for the future, including the SAGRES project and the Ingenious website among other examples. It is hoped that this will be helpful to science museums and centers that are considering the addition of personalization features to their own website. Currently website personalization should be used with caution, but larger organizations should be considering the potential if they have not already started to do so.

We can consider Web browsing as a similar experience to visiting a museum, when we take decisions about where to stop and where to skip over the exhibited objects. This is the same in museums; there are some tools available to help people select what they want to see such as maps, brochures, etc. Just as in a real museum, where maps and brochures help people organize their visit, search engines support the user in their navigation on the Web by assisting them in finding the most relevant material, while ignoring the rest. The Web is a unique "museum" where there are all sorts of data, including multimedia objects, so it is particularly crucial to respect the potentially different attitudes of users that may have various interests and different perspectives. (This is once again the same in museums.) The role of search engines is particularly problematic because they have to guarantee the efficiency of the service without betraying the multiplicity of users' purposes.

The aim of this paper is to show the result of testing the difficulty of access to useful museum-related resources that are not very well known, but contain relevant information when search engines and other query techniques are used. We will show that many museum Web sites and databases belong to the hidden part of the Web that is not accessible unless the precise URL is known. We will discuss some practical issues on finding museum information and how museums could improve their search rankings and their own searching facilities, especially with respect to the widely used Google search engine.

Further, we will introduce some promising solutions for finding museums' Web sites and searching within them, such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) search tools, intelligent agents that are specialized for information retrieval using "clustering" strategies based on user preferences, as well as systems of collaborative filtering and collaborative categorization from user experiences and judgments, allowing a personalized search.

All these alternative methods have only a little in common, but share the characteristics of respecting the decentralized and dynamic topology of the Web, while search engines are based on traditional techniques of information retrieval; namely, strategies to access pre-structured data using the appropriate pre-established queries. The Web cannot be compared to a repository of structured data; it requires the development of innovative approaches and methods that take into account its chaotic nature. For all these reasons we do not consider the metadata solution here in detail, despite its role in searching specific museum collections on-line; we believe that there are interesting alternative methods to investigate for the future.

Keywords: search engines, queries, mapping on the Web, the hidden part of the Web

Draft research review paper, written within the context of a PhD class about the Web 2.0 strategies that museums can adopt to further engage with the public—the Brooklyn Museum case study is addressed here. More about this on my personal blog: http://wp.me/p4vwP-KS

(Abstract in portuguese only)
Revisão das estratégias de adoção das tecnologias da web colaborativa – a Web 2.0 – por parte das instituições culturais, com especial interesse nos Museus.

Perceber e classificar diferentes estratégias para melhor avaliar a necessidade das instituições locais poderem beneficiar da participação da comunidade de utilizadores na era da Web 2.0. Salientar os benefícios destas tecnologias, face aos potenciais perigos.
Faz uso de um estudo de caso – o Museu de Brooklyn. 

Museus 2.0: Estratégias de Colaboração em Instituições Artísticas e Culturais.

I first encountered EVA London in 1995 through my establishment of the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp), part of the World Wide Web Virtual Library. In 2003, I was invited back as a keynote speaker on the subject of website accessibility for cultural heritage resources. Since then I have been involved with every EVA London conference either as an author or since 2007 as a proceedings editor. This paper summarises the developments of the EVA London conference over the past 25 years from a personal viewpoint and celebrates the 30th anniversary of EVA London and the whole family of international EVA conferences. The development of the community around EVA (Electronic Visualisation and the Arts) is evaluated in the context of a Community of Practice. The paper also considers possible future directions for EVA.

Keywords: EVA London. EVA International. Online museums. Digital culture. Community of Practice.

Information and Communication Technologies offer considerable possibilities for supporting cultural institutions, in terms of conservation, dissemination and communication with different audiences. One of the most widespread technological developments has been the creation of institutional museum websites. However, simple static websites are proving insufficient for fulfilling the expectations of digital users, as these increasingly ask for wider inclusion and greater versatility in the presentation of collections and related information. The current trend for cultural organisations is to move in this direction, providing web access to their collection information systems, as part of a wider effort to increase public access to collections for diverse audiences. However, the effectiveness of these tools has not been tested so far, nor has its use been examined in depth. This paper is part of a wider research project, aiming at studying how digital cultural collections are used by end users and identifying some clearer patterns of use. This will be related with the various communication and technological approaches adopted by museums in presenting their collections on the web. The results presented here are part of a broader discussion about accessibility, dissemination, and use of cultural information by different users in various contexts.

The Web has changed how we interact with the World's information and knowledge. As a result there have been several changes to the education sector, especially in online distance learning. Nevertheless, most of the e-Learning activities struggle to break the GUI paradigm. The HCI community has focused on the use of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) for pedagogic purposes thus producing some evidence of the potential that embodied cognition might bring to constructivist learning. New education movements such as the Edupunk movement argue for an empowerment of independent learners, following the constructivist perspective where learners have to have a more active role by experimenting and discovering concepts on their own. However, we think that accessing TUI systems via Web can lead to pedagogic activities that break the GUI paradigm in education on the Web. This paper presents a case study: three prototypes of TUIs for online learning and exploration were developed and tested, investigating the usability and engagement provided by this kind of interactive tools.

Cultural heritage institutions are currently rethinking access to their collections to allow the public to interpret and contribute to their collections. In this work, we present the Agora project, an interdisciplinary project in which Web technology and theory of interpretation meet. This we call digital hermeneutics. The Agora project facilitates the understanding of historical events and improves the access to integrated online history collections. In this contribution, we focus on defining and modeling prototypical object-event and event-event relationships that support the interpretation of objects in cultural heritage collections. We present a use case in which we model historical events as well as relations between objects and events for a set of paintings from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam collection. Our use case shows how Web technology and theory of interpretation meet in the present, and what technological hurdles still need to be taken to fully support digital hermeneutics.

Cultural heritage institutions are currently rethinking access to their collections to allow the public to interpret and contribute to their collections. In this work, we present the Agora project, an interdisciplinary project in which Web technology and theory of interpretation meet. This we call digital hermeneutics. The Agora project facilitates the understanding of historical events and improves the access to integrated online history collections. In this contribution, we focus on defining and modeling prototypical object-event and event-event relationships that support the interpretation of objects in cultural heritage collections. We present a use case in which we model historical events as well as relations between objects and events for a set of paintings from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam collection. Our use case shows how Web technology and theory of interpretation meet in the present, and what technological hurdles still need to be taken to fully support digital hermeneutics.