Renewal of the Museum in the Digital Epoch

Abstract

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, digital technologies are radically changing the way young people communicate, learn and spend their free time. Museums, in order not to lose the next generations as visitors, must conform to the new expectations and needs. On a large scale, the museum must address young people, provide a forum for self-expression and participation and advertise itself by new means. On a smaller scale, the style and means of individual exhibitions must change, providing space for activity, emotions and multiple modalities besides text, personalized visits, interactive explorations and self-expression, evoking emotions but meanwhile also fulfilling educational objectives. Digital technologies—by the yet smaller, cheaper and more and more pervasive devices and services—provide ample means to reach these goals. In our article first we provide a conceptual framework, focussing on the Internet generation as new audience and traditional and new functions of museums. We show how digital technologies may be used to reach six major and general goals. For each issue, we discuss concrete recent examples, from international and own projects. Finally, we address the roles in the complex process of design, development and daily operation of digital applications, in the context of a digital strategy for the museum.