Web 2.0, Second Life and Museums:
Visit or access to culture?
Panorea Gaitanou, Librarian MSc
(Phd Candidate, Ionian University), Benaki Museum Library
[email protected], [email protected]
Natassa Tsoubrakakou, Librarian MSc
ΟΤΕ, [email protected]
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Overview
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Museum Definition (ICOM)
Museums and WWW
The Web 2.0 phenomenon
Museum 2.0
Second Life – Characteristics, advantages-disadvantages
Conclusions-Future directions
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Museum (ICOM)
“A museum is a non-profit making, permanent institution
in the service of society and its development, open to the
public, which acquires, conserves, researches,
communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study,
education and enjoyment, material evidence of people
and their environment”.
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A new era for Museums!!!
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“Museums have a particular responsibility for making collections and all
relevant information available as freely as possible, having regard to
restraints arising for reasons of confidentiality and security” (ICOM code
of ethics for museums, 2006)
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They are active collecting institutions  must be continuously evolved
and renewed, as integral pieces of a continuously changing society
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They go through a phase of revision.
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Museums manage each country's cultural heritage  it's their duty to
accomplish successfully and prosperously this task
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Museums and WWW
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WWW offers a common place in which cultural heritage institutions
share similar challenges.
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There are no geographical restrictions  the digital content of
collections creates a common information environment.
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Museums already provide their communities with a plethora of resources
and services and are now required to offer them in a common global
place, expanding the existing communities.
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Why do museums make use of Internet?
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Worldwide publicity
Bi-directional communication between museums and visitors
New more challenging services
Improvement of provided services according to the visitors' demands and
wishes.
Creation of an effective and stable relation with individuals
Remote access to scholarly research of collections in online databases
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Web 2.0
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Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty of O'Reilly Media, 2004
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Web 2.0: a term describing changing trends in the use of WWW
technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, secure
information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web.
(Wikipedia)
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Web 2.0 technologies: enhance interaction among individuals and enable
people from diverse backgrounds to share their opinions and expertise
with thousands of others
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Web 2.0
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Museum 2.0 = Web 2.0 and Museums
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Museum 2.0: blog that started in November 2006 (by Nina Simon)
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Main goal: to explore the ways that the philosophies of Web 2.0 can be
applied in museums to make them more engaging, community-based.
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Web 2.0 technologies  static content of museums is transformed to
dynamic platforms (content generation and sharing is enhanced by the
visitors-users).
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Web 2.0  opens up new opportunities, demonstrating at the same time
their weaknesses.
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Museums and Virtual Worlds
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Museums have been exploring the use of Multi-User Virtual
Environments (MUVEs) for more than a decade.
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Virtual Reality (VR): technology which allows users to interact with a
computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one
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Second Life
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3D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using voice and
text chat”  enhance their environment
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Created by Linden Co USA.
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Users visit Second Life as an "avatar" and explore areas and features made by
other people or institutions, or create new environments or parts of themselves.
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What they do or where they go depends on their willing, curiosity and creativity.
They have a great sense of freedom, and experience situations that are impossible
in the real world (e.g. they can fly etc.).
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Signups 2005-2007
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Characteristics of Museums in Second Life
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Scale
Setting
Persistence and Evolution
Media Richness
Visitor Engagement
Social Interaction
Collection types
Target Audiences
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Second Life-Advantages
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Social nature.
Museums audience is expanded on a global level.
User-generated content is allowed.
Collaboration is enabled.
Virtual museums allow wandering, linking and searching activities that
promote discovery, offer evolving content and social networks that enable
interaction models.
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Second Life-Disadvantages
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The audience still remains limited (in comparison to other electronic
media)
Hardware and network requirements
Lack of integration with other virtual worlds.
Matters of openness to live content modification
Stability issues
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Museums in Second Life
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Art Center
Aho Museum
Crescent Moon Museum
Second Louvre Museum
Second Life Science Center
Museum of Flip Animation
SL Computer History Museum
SL Historical Museum
Bayside Beach Galleria-Museum
International Spaceflight Museum
Star Trek Museum of Science
Tarot Card Museum
Fort Malaya Malay History Museum
Virtual Starry Night-Vincent van Gogh Second Life
Avnet Technology Museum
Museum of Robots
Tech Museum of Innovations
Exploratorium
Kirsti Aho Art Museum on NMC Campus
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Conclusions-Future directions (1/2)
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Simply by providing the public with access to data is insufficient to satisfy
the goal of public education.
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Museums need to offer enriched, value-added content, so as to achieve
better quality services.
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They need to exceed their physical limits, adopt new perspectives,
enhance their role in changing socio-cultural and economic landscape, and
enable further promotion of the social significance of the industry’s
activities.
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The implementation of virtual environments could be really helpful
towards this direction  Global Museum
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Conclusions-Future directions (2/2)
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The virtual representation of museum (through Second Life) creates a new
role for the museums
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Their new, virtual nature is not a substitute for real world museums. On
the contrary, it will act complementary (new services and products for the
users-visitors.)
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New personalized services
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Many memory institutions have already used these new technologies
abroad. Greek memory institutions should be encouraged to do the same!!!
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Thank you for your attention!!!!!
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