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>.

The Museum Professional Standards of Excellence

For any profession there must exist at some time, a set of rules or guidelines pertaining to the carrying out of the said profession. The same must be for those wishing to be part the vocation that finds themselves within the museum. But who are these people that make up the Standards of Excellence that all Museum Professionals must be trained under and preform to their utmost ability?
      The Committee on Museum Professional Training is the answer. This is the document that sets down the guide lines in which all museums should aspire to meet.
       The Committee on Museum Professional Training has developed this document to serve many purposes:

• Function as guidelines for members of the community of museum professional educators, learners, and professionals in the field.

• Recognize common responsibilities and objectives.

• Identify appropriate content, teaching methodologies, measures for outcomes and assessment.

• Be adaptable to a variety of learning programs.

From these ideas, The ICTOP Curricula Guidelines for Museum Development, breaks the down the five areas in which a museum needs to adhere to in order to function efficiently and successfully. This is displayed in a wonderful informative image of a tree. 

1. General Competencies being the key figures or the roots of the tree symbolize the very basics of professionalism general knowledge of the work environment and the museum as a workplace.
2. Museology Competencies involves knowledge of and skills in the application of the intellectual foundations of museum work
3. Management Competencies knowledge of and skills in the theory and practice of museum operations. Basically what it takes to run the museum not only from educational point of view but also as a business and as a credible community source. 
4. Public programming competencies, knowledge of and skills in serving the museum's communities. How to make the Museum a place that the community will feel apart of and take interest in. This goes past the tourism aspect of it and into making the Museum place for the community in which it is placed. 
5. Information and collections management and care competencies. having the knowledge of and skills in creating, preserving and sharing museum resources. How to affectively have an impact on the visitors and create a museum exhibit that will engage vistors and have a fun learning environment.

Cited Works

"Committee on Museum Professional Training." Committee on Museum Professional Training. The American Alliance of Museums, n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2012. <http://www.compt-aam.org/resources/standardsguidelines.html>.

"ICTOP Museum Career Development Tree." ICTOP Museum Career Development Tree. Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, 29 Aug. 2009. Web. 11 Sept. 2012. <http://museumstudies.si.edu/ICOM-ICTOP/index.htm>.