Technology: The Modern Museum

The use of technology in museums today is imperative to the success and relativity of the organization. To bring a museum into the 21st century, it needs interactive entertainment as well as include great online resources for patrons and visitors.
   
Data Bases are a great resource for researchers and students. Museums who include an easily accessible online archive open themselves up to exposure from Internet researchers all over the world. When I was in London this past summer I attended an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. When I returned to the States the Museum's online archive  helped me complete the final project for the class I took while in the city. The data base allowed me to access the portraits and information  I needed from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Without that archive I would have had to recall almost 50 portraits from memory.

Interactive exhibits are so much more entertaining to audiences and museum goers. By including social media outlets such as, Twitter, Facebook, Texting and even FourSquare, throughout exhibits allows for the promotion of not only the exhibit but for the museum itself.  Interactive technologies engage the museum visitor in a completely different way than just staring at an object, reading its information and moving on. Instead the patron can take time to use up to all five senses to really understand the information they are being given through the object or exhibit.

However it is up the museum to decided how to incorporate that technology into either permanent collections or in changing exhibits. Technology in museums may also be a turn off for some museum patrons. Many go to museums to be transported to a place of history, art and culture. The museum must find the balance between technology advancements and retaining the peacefulness often associated with  it.


Works Cited

Rosenberg, Karen. "ART REVIEW; Art That Interacts If You Interface." The New York Times. The  New York Times, 29 July 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2012.  <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/arts/design/momas-talk-to-me-focuses-on-interface-review.html?_r=0>.