Practicalities of developing and deploying a handheld multimedia guide for museum visitors

Linge, N; Booth, KM; Parsons, DJ

Abstract

Museums and galleries provide a context for people’s lives regardless of the nature of their collections, subject coverage, size, or location. Collectively they offer an enormous educational resource and are increasingly repositioning themselves as both formal and informal learning environments. However, a limitation in physical space inevitably creates a conflict between displaying artifacts in an appealing manner and providing sufficient supporting material to stimulate learning. Equally, the collections which museums and galleries hold are generally much larger than can be put on public display, resulting in a significant amount of this valuable resource remaining hidden from view. Consequently, museums and galleries have been turning to technology to enhance the visitor experience, whether for education or pleasure. In this chapter we discuss some of the challenges museums and galleries face when designing handheld technologies with learning purposes, such as museum guides.

Citation

Linge, N., Booth, K., & Parsons, D. Practicalities of developing and deploying a handheld multimedia guide for museum visitors. In Place-Based Spaces for Networked Learning (160-176). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315724485

• Deposit Date: Jul 26, 2016
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 160-176
• Book Title: Place-Based Spaces for Networked Learning
• ISBN: 9781138850880
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315724485
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315724485
• Related Public URLs: http://www.tandfebooks.com/
• Additional Information: Funders : Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)