Monday April 3rd, 2023
Tuesday, April 4th
| Registration Tuesday April 4 2023 Located in the Lobby of Van Meter Hall at George Mason University (Mason Square). 3351 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22201. The Parking Garage is located off “Founders Drive.” When you park your car, look for the sign “Van Metre Hall Elevator.” *Please note George Mason University has several campuses. So please make sure you are using the correct address. Please pick up your name badge and reception ticket. Only full registers will receive the reception ticket for Tuesday night. Please coordinate at this registration desk for an extra ticket. An extra drink ticket is also available at the Registration Desk. We are not allowed for any cash exchanges at the reception. There will be no registration desk at the site. |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Continental Breakfast Enjoy a light breakfast of pastries, coffee, and tea. |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Demonstrations 1
As a teaching museum closely connected to the curriculum of our college, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art is always seeking ways to make our collections more relevant to our students and faculty. Our objects are well-organized and cataloged for museum use, but are far less defined in terms of subject matter. Lacking the internal resources to populate this new metadata for our collection of over 20,000 objects, the BCMA developed a crowd-sourced tagging system that allowed viewers of our online collections to suggest contextual keywords.
Monocle Prime, a 3D scanner using lidar for people and objects I would like to demonstrate the Monocle Prime software beta that works with the iPhone and built in Lidar camera in the iPhone 12 – 14 models. I have worked with Steampunk Digital in their development of Monocle Prime for years as a beta tester and I would like to show off the software by scanning people and things. I can then send a downloadable sample. Although Monocle is available on the Apple iTunes store I don\’t know that Monocle Prime beta is ready for a commercial booth yet. It is still early days for commercial AR and scanning. But something a lot of museums ask for is an inexpensive scanner that could work for them. They might already have the beginnings of th The Repository – Indian Textiles and Crafts (RTC), is a national knowledge portal being developed by NIFT under the Craft Cluster Initiative of the NHDP programme of DC (Handlooms & Handicrafts)Ministry of Textiles , Govt of India. This interactive digital platform will showcase the creativity and diversity of traditional Indian textiles, clothing and crafts thereby preserving and promoting the Indian textiles and crafts worldwide and benefit millions of craftsmen residing in all corners of the country. The repository will digitally archive both tangible and intangible knowledge resources on indigenous and contemporary textiles and crafts, research related to textiles and apparel, designer and artisan database, virtual museum, events an |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Paper Session 1: Engaging Audiences: Increasing Access and Improving Experiences
For many small and medium sized cultural heritage organisations, following the lead of larger institutions within the sector has been the only way to keep apace with burgeoning trends in digital audience engagement. These larger organisations tend to have the resources to ‘buy in’ appropriate technical and strategic expertise for all things digital, and so it makes sense that the case studies formed from such projects are packaged and promoted as ‘best practice’ for the sector. Or does it? Digital audience engagement has become markedly more important to cultural heritage organisations – and this was suddenly pushed to fore during the Coronavirus pandemic. The highlighted internally, the different levels of maturity in digital strateg
This paper will explore a number of qualitative practices that The Metropolitan Museum of Art\’s digital product design team employs to better understand its audiences, gauge the potential impact of its products, and iterate on its existing ones. Through multiple examples of research projects, it will present our learnings around the most effective methodologies to use per audience, product type, and project lifecycle stage. The paper will also discuss the practical application of these research projects: how our learnings gave rise to digital products and guided our process of ideation, design, and iteration.
To better understand the complex range of audiences that museums typically attract, The Met recently embarked on a seri
Since the summer of 2020, more than 1,000 fully accessible textual descriptions of works of art in the National Gallery of Art’s collection have gone live, and they cover 60% of traffic to museum’s collection pages. Learn how we leveraged a large-scale, interdepartmental project to make this a reality, from documenting the process through publishing description guidelines, and focusing on all users through an inclusive design approach that supports the National Gallery’s mission for universal access. Description is the cornerstone of scholarly interpretation, but in that context, description will be selective, and will always be in service to that interpretation. By developing a specific approach to composing descriptions for the sake of |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Paper Session 2: Rethinking How and Where Users Interact with your Collections and Video
MIT Museum’s new home is open and welcoming the diverse communities of Cambridge, Mass. This paper will detail how a new online home was delivered in parallel to the successful physical move to the museum’s new location at Kendall Square. With the aim of laying solid digital foundations for the museum’s programmes to thrive in the coming years, MIT Museum, in collaboration with Cogapp, have developed a modern, accessible, API-based, headless, web frontend. Presented in its fullest form to date, the museum’s collection interface enables casual browsing and research on a level that, until now, has not been possible online. In this paper we will describe the thinking behind this approach as well as the benefits and learnings that we hav
A collecting museum cannot deliver on its mission today without an online collection. This argument begins with the first curator’s indecipherable scrawl in a leather-bound ledger, traces the handed-down human poetics of collection data, and ends at digital transformation. Along the way, the online collection allows objects to circulate through cultural networks, while safely stored away. Museums must preserve not just physical objects, but their stories and context as well—the traces of objects and ideas in contact with people over time and through space. The online collection is where such traces are saved and shared. Moreover, it’s where new paths are made possible: the online collection allows new context to be generated, in new places,
Hammer Channel presents over 1,000 recordings of programs, performances, and artist interviews from the last decade, and is a repository for more than 100 videos produced each year by the museum. The website presents the videos with features that encourage engagement with the content, such as full, searchable transcripts for every video, and a clipping tool that allows users to create and share their favorite moments. Most videos in the archive are recordings of public programs held at the Hammer since 2005. They comprise a broad range of lectures and conversations featuring renowned artists, authors, musicians, scholars, and experts from a variety of fields. Compiling this wide-ranging collection together for the first time, the website |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Paper Session 3: Image and Sound – Beyond the word: experimenting with aural, immersive, and experimental experiences
Tell me about … , but wait, because as soon as you put fingertip to keyword and begin to write, you are throwing up barriers to access. Pre-readers – gone, early readers – intimidated, visitors who don\’t know your language – excluded. MOTAT is a science and technology museum in Auckland, New Zealand. Our audience is primarily local families and schoolchildren. Our city is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world with the fourth highest foreign born population. Our science and technology topics are frequently complex. Our collection is often unknowable without explanation. The success of our mission to educate and inspire relies upon our ability to communicate facts, concepts, and context. Are written words – the defaul
The Georgia Tech sonification lab defines sonification as representing data with nonspeech audio Studies show that sonification, combined with visual data displays increases accuracy for people with normal vision. Additionally, sonification, representing data with sound facilitates access for people who are blind. There is a growing community of researchers, scientists and educators developing software to create sonification. With the exception of the Harvard/Smithsonian, sonification has not been explored for museum contexts. This paper will give examples of sonification. Software can be developed using programing languages such as python. Sonification can be produced on websites using the SAS Graphics Accellerator or the IMAGE brows
What does it mean to have an open storage in the middle of the galleries? What opportunity does it pose for to exploring digital and interactive element within the galleries? In M+, there is a gallery where 40 panels displaying 200 paintings, posters, and photographs move in front of your eyes and are shuffled every two hours. There are no detailed work descriptions on wall labels, only questions on a screen asking what you think about what you see. It is The Cabinet, an open storage system and interactive digital experience that is distinctly different from the typical white cube gallery. The inspiration for The Cabinet came from sixteenth-century collections of wondrous and eclectic objects: the Wunderkammern, otherwise known as the |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Morning Coffee and Tea Break Enjoy a quick morning coffee and tea break! |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Crit Room |
Tuesday, April 4th
| How to Session 6: Best Practices for Developing Kiosk Style Interactive
Kevin Kane, Software Developer at the NC Museum of Art, will discuss all aspects of kiosk style touch interactives from conception to exhibition opening and ongoing maintenance. Discussion will start with interpretation ideas, then move to architectural, accessibility, and content planning, software design considerations and production flow control, information technology requirements such as networking, operating system and BIOS configurations, and ongoing tech maintenance. Special types of kiosks like split-screen interactive touch tables, and immersive multi-display setups will also be covered. This session is intended to be an overview of all requirements for interpretation technology development and maintenance. Ideal audience membe |
Tuesday, April 4th
| How to Session 7: How to Develop a Data-driven Strategy
This how-to session will focus on the topic of developing a data-driven strategy for digital engagement. The topic will be explored through a case study of the Natural History Museum of Utah’s Research Quest, a free collections- and classroom-based program for developing critical thinkers. Working with outside partners, the Museum developed a new data-driven strategy for digital engagement to expand the reach and impact of Research Quest. Based on personas, journey maps, experience maps, expanded success measures, and rich data analytics, the Museum was able to make surgically precise design decisions, track the efficacy of marketing campaigns, launch a new national community of Research Quest boosters, and more.
This presentat |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Professional Forum 7: Learning as a Benefit Speaker(s)
Intended Audience: Org leaders who are looking to lead with learning Session Content: This forum will inspire museum leaders to consider how they might leverage learning as a benefit to their institutions. Our message will encourage attendees to rethink their HR Learning and Development strategies by recognizing the unexpected inefficiencies that come from taking learning online rather than offering it synchronously offline. We will talk through the steps we took at Smithsonian Affiliations to prepare for innovation, the partnership with Desklight to build a learning hub for 200+ organizations, and our current work to build a community of practice that leverages the resources of the Smithsonian – all accomplished while meeting |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Professional Forum 8: Community Building in Digital Environments
Since 1994, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has offered a program for area high school students that introduces them to the history of the Holocaust and encourages them to share its lessons with their family, friends, and community. Hundreds of students in DC, Maryland and Virginia, have participated in this program, Bringing the Lessons Home: Holocaust Education for the Community (BTLH), since its inception. In 2020, the pivot to digital programming allowed the facilitators of BTLH to begin to conceive of how the program could be expanded nationwide. This session will share ideas on how museums can connect with students in digital environments in meaningful ways. The digital, national version of BTLH is currently in the prot |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Tuesday – Lunch Pick up your lunch box and meet up with your new friends! Check out the Emerging Professionals Networking & Mentoring table hosted by Linda Colet Senior Outreach Strategist, CollectionSpace (LYRASIS)! Pick up your lunch box and meet up with your new friends! Check out the Emerging Professionals Networking & Mentoring table hosted by Linda Colet Senior Outreach Strategist, CollectionSpace (LYRASIS)! |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Lunch Box Each Lunch with your colleagues |
Tuesday, April 4th
| How to Session 4: How-To Quire How-To Quire
Getty began development work on Quire, a multiformat digital publishing tool, in 2016. We have since produced 14 publications, with another 15 on the way. Each publication starts with a single set of files which we then output as an open-access website, a print-on-demand book, and a downloadable e-book, with the website serving as the primary version of the publication. Beyond our own success with the tool, we have a growing community of users within the arts and cultural heritage sector and have recently launched version 1.0 of Quire as fully open source. Because Quire is so feature-rich and extensible, our community has used it to publish everything from collection catalogues and conference proceedings to journals, student research, an |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Paper Session 4: Extending Reality – Technology as a Bridge I
Robots and robotics in museums first arrived at the end of the 20th century and comprise mostly a 21st-century development. Robots in museum settings can offer dynamic, constructive, educational, and communicative mechanisms between museums and their visitors. Robots have initially appeared as museum tour guides onsite and online. They then served as museum exhibits in the form of animatronics and within museum educational activities (Pang, Wong, & Seet, 2017). Also, as telepresence devices offering the opportunity to visit the museum remotely via a robot (Lupetti, Germak, & Giuliano, 2015). Studies on the role and integration of robots in exhibiting and promoting heritage in museums and cultural places are of particular i |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Paper Session 5: Extending Reality – Technology as a Bridge II
While museums have been providing distance learning opportunities for over thirty years, the demand for online education programs skyrocketed in the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic. Environmental organizations faced the added challenge of moving outdoor education to digital platforms. The Monterey Bay Aquarium responded by rapidly developing English and Spanish self-paced online courses for PK-12 students and their caregivers. In 2022, the Aquarium partnered with Audience Focus for an in-depth study of the online courses, uncovering the motivations and satisfaction of the courses’ main audiences. It also measured how well the courses met the intended learning outcomes, and how they impacted user affinity for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
To take full advantage of the potential offered by the digital space, museums and cultural institutions must be able to consistently apply User Experience (UX) methods to create enjoyable and understandable digital interfaces. Unfortunately, many of these organizations lack internal UX expertise, which means they need to partner with costly outside vendors to provide digital expertise, rely on internal staff and struggle through a process of trial and error, or do nothing and fall further behind in their digital offering. The COVID-19 crisis has intensified the digital transformation of museums. Although many museums are welcoming people back into their galleries, visitors’ demand for enjoyable digital experiences will persist. Absent a foc |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Paper Session 6: Emerging Stories and Technology
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum collaborated with the local Indigenous community in the area and researchers from the Universities of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier on Dibaajimowin: Stories from this Land. The impetus behind this exhibit began with the removal of a series of murals, The History of Waterloo County, from public display. These 1950 paintings depicted an industrial and capitalist interpretation of local history and emphasized the settler experience over that of Indigenous inhabitants. Public artwork hence provided the opportunity to create a museum exhibit that might reframe the region’s history and better engage with Indigenous perspectives and historical representations. The researc
This paper presents a case study on a decolonizing approach to creating an inclusive user interface, education, and content design. Witnessblanket.ca, a collaborative effort between Carey Newman, CMHR, Media One, Camosun College, and Animikii. A virtual extension that expands public access to the voices of the Survivors of Indian Residential Schools and emphasizes empathy through an inclusive content development process, trauma-informed design features, and various visual and auditory components. The case study reviews the technical and content choices, solutions, and impact measurement considerations while developing a relationship with the community. |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Afternoon Coffee and Tea Break Enjoy a quick afternoon coffee and tea break! |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Professional Forum 1: Future Museums: Who will benefit?
John Russick and Professor Geoffrey Alan Rhodes will moderate a forum of forward-thinking museum administrators, exhibition designers, and media technologists to workshop the image of a \’future museum\’. How can we imagine the future museum? This forum will continue an ongoing series of lectures, discussions, and symposia hosted by the Future Museum Studio at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (fmmis.org). Of particular focus are three essential questions: What is included in museums of the future? How will they operate and for who? Future Museum Studio discussants have included (and may include for this professional panel, depending on availability): Mona Kim /Award winning exhibition designer and Director of Mona Kim Projects, Par |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Professional Forum 2: The Evolution of Museums in Web3
Our conversation is about how Web3 innovations can help museums address mission critical problems, such as community building, educational impact and revenue streams. We’ll look at projects from three museums to consider resources investment, unique value, and potential longevity. Brad MacDonald/Exploratorium in San Francisco, will talk about how they are exploring ways to gradually adopt Web3 practices as they upgrade their website to Drupal 9. Alexis Rapo/Museum of Science in Boston, will describe why they decided to launch their Mission Mars game on the webXR platform Roblox. Gary Gonya/Toledo Museum of Art, will discuss their new Web3 designed artist residency. Robin White Owen/MediaCombo will describe educational opportunities in Web3. |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Professional Forum 3: The chatroom where it happens
Should museum professionals look to theatre for strategies for successful audience engagement? Why, or why not? This professional forum will be a highly active session. Four professionals with experience in both theatre and museums (Amanda Dearolph, Max Evjen, Alli Hartley-Kong, Scott Magelssen) will introduce themselves briefly, then lead four concurrent facilitated discussions around four provocative prompts designed to elicit knowledge production around the need for theatrical skills in digital museum practice. |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Marketing the Event Life Cycle: Digital Strategies and the Conversion Funnel
You want to sell as many tickets as possible to your special events and exhibits, but are you taking advantage of the natural ebbs and flows of an event life cycle? In this session, we’ll show you how to provide the greatest return on investment by leveraging customer touchpoints during different time periods. Move consumers down the conversion funnel, maximize audience reach, and ultimately sell more tickets. |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Afternoon Coffee and Tea Break Enjoy a quick afternoon coffee and tea break! |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Conference Reception Please join us at the National Museum of African American History and Culture to celebrate our 26th Annual Conference in DC. 1400 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20560 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm – drinks and light refreshments will be served. The bus is arranged from George Mason University at 5:30 pm and Residence Inn Marriott Arlington Ballston 6 pm. Please bring your name badge and entrance ticket. One Day registration packet does not include the Reception Ticket.  National Museum of African American History and Culture
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Tuesday, April 4th
| Reception NMAAHC National Museum of African American History and Culture
Please join us at the National Museum of African American History and Culture to celebrate our 26th Annual Conference in DC. 1400 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20560 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm – drinks and light refreshments will be served. The bus is arranged from George Mason University at 5:30 pm and Residence Inn Marriott Arlington Ballston 6 pm. Please bring your name badge and entrance ticket. One Day registration packet does not include the Reception Ticket. |
Tuesday, April 4th
| Program Committee Dinner Off Site |
