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By Cèsar Carreras Monfort - October 2000
Cèsar Carreras Monfort reports on the current evaluation by Group Òliba, based at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, into how virtual exhibitions, exhibitions that are on-line, may improve the possibilities that museums have. This article describes the group’s main focus of research and the initial theoretical background proposed. It also discusses some of the exhibitions already set up by the group.
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These days it is imperative for museum collections to be digitalised in order to preserve original documents and cultural objects and make them accessible to the public and specialists. The organisation Group Òliba specialises in the long-term preservation of digital documents (image, video and audio) through the development and implementation of standard formats. Group Òliba believe that an on-line museum should not simply be a catalogue. They are approaching new ways of presenting the information in distributed collections whilst keeping in mind the need for a versatile simulated physical lay-out.
The research organisation Group Òliba, which means owl in English, was set up by the Department of Humanities of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya with the aim of evaluating the potential of new technologies for the dissemination and documentation of museums and cultural heritage. Their initial proposal was to test how virtual exhibitions could enhance the potential of “real” exhibitions in terms of more information access, public awareness and visits to the Museums.
The present research project covers four stages, beginning with an analysis of the theories behind Web museums then leading on to methodological and practical analysis of previous experiences of digitalisation in Museums in Europe and States. The third and most original part involves developing pilot experiences of virtual exhibitions together with local and regional museums from Barcelona and Catalonia [1].
The fourth and final stage evaluates the actual experience of virtual exhibitions in order to define standards for museum Web sites. These Web sites will act as a complementary platform for museum didactics and dissemination and analyse how people interact with different elements (3-D reconstructions, quizzes etc.) This stage looks at the technical advantages and potential for the museums.
Virtual exhibitions are referred to in this context as a complementary part of the real exhibitions, offering only a small part of what people can enjoy by visiting the real physical museum. The virtual platforms will give a taste of what people can see at the physical site, and will focus on displaying objects, information and images which cannot be accessed in the museum. Virtual exhibitions, as we understand them, should never compete with the real museums but work alongside them in a collaboratory role.
For the general public some cultural documents and objects can be obscured in meaning and need to be fully explained by providing background and context, that is, they need to be presented in a didactic way. Hypertext and Virtual Reality are two excellent tools for creating didactic contexts for our cultural heritage, similar to the ones employed in course materials of distance learning universities [2]. Both tools provide interactive environments for learning by experience, which can be adapted for a diverse type of users. For specialists, the hypertextual information provides access to all museum documentation.
The idea is that museum are a communicative medium and new technologies contribute in enhancing this idea. Therefore the use of Web resources and their effect on people’s attitude towards museum facilities should be another focus of the present research, using the methodology to evaluate programmes and exhibits in museums. Users’ itineraries through the Web will be evaluated, involving statistical analysis of users, time spent, geographic origin, particular interests and visitors profile. These statistical results from the user's navigation can then be compared with information provided by virtual and “real” questionnaires (both quantitative and qualitative) related to specific exhibitions.
One of the principle aims of the research is to define different kinds of museums and exhibitions, according to the way they display their collections and educate the general public. Museums in the future will have a more outstanding role in non-formal further education for diverse age groups, so didactics will have to be placed in the core of museums’ policies. Following G. Hein’s (1998) [3] model, educational theory applied to museums is also studied in the present project.
Virtual platforms can overcome the physical barriers that make it impossible to visit museum collections or particular exhibitions. They also break the constraints and limitations of display space available because objects can be digitalised and the incorporated into an exhibition as virtual elements. These days most museums have problems with lack of space in which to display objects from their collections, digitalising can be a solution. It is has been calculated that on average 80% of a collection in any museum remains in store without being displayed. Virtual platforms for museums allow people with diverse interests access to particular items in collections as well as to interact with exhibitions at different levels. Museum exhibitions can therefore be easily adapted to suit a wide variety of user's needs by using multilevel navigation to fulfil a myriad of requirements and providing access to all of a museum’s collections.
This research project represents a real innovation in terms of diffusion of cultural heritage to a wide range of the public as well as to specialists in particular subjects. The applications being developed on the Web aim to enhance the role of museums in leisure time hopefully increasing museums visits. The museum Web platform will usually complement an exhibition visit in most cases. Web contents should help to prepare the visit (i.e. background for exhibitions) or fill the gaps left after it (i.e. give more details about the original information). The museum Web therefore opens up new possibilities to cultural heritage diffusion and documentation.
With regard to the didactic potential of Web resources, new virtual environments may improve communication and the teaching of different topics. The project attempts to analyse how 3-D images, virtual objets, video or audio may enhance knowledge and the learning process of individual museum’s users.
The technological field is probably one of the most challenging aspects of this project. The research will be linked to the future developments of the telecom infrastructure since all the developed applications will be for on-line delivery. The project aims to test some of the conclusions obtained from the usage of multimedia content development (MHEG, MPEG, JPEG, XML [4]). Alongside other possible technological applications in networks the present project also will attempt to develop digital formats (video, image, audio, animation, 3-D etc.) as mean of on-line museum collection documentation. All documentation made accessible to users will therefore have to conform to a minimum quality standards.
For example 2-D and 3-D images should maintain high quality definition when zooming, without getting pixelisation effects [5]. The new generation of computer software seems to provide this high quality and the research project will test it out. With regard to 3-D images it is believed that interactive panoramic views that allow 360º navigation may be the best alternative. There have been a series of preliminary experiments using commercial software such as Live Picture and Quick Time Virtual Reality which have produced excellent outcomes so far. In this project, Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) will be combined with JAVA programming language (External Authoring Interface) to enable dynamic changes at very short notice therefore avoiding long delays in loading VRML files on-line. 3-D environments will be created where visitors can interact with each other (chats, forums) as well as add information to the original Website.
In the future video will also be a potential format as soon as the telecom infrastructure permits an increase in the volume of transmission (band width, ADSL technology or optic cable). Another technological focus of the research will be the development of sophisticated databases accessible on-line (related or object-oriented database), which should help in the management of museum collections as well as in remote access by users.
In the last year the Group Òliba have created three virtual exhibitions in collaboration with different local institutions. Despite the fact that it is still too early for a full evaluation of these experiences an initial account is described below.
This itinerant exhibition, funded by La Caixa Sa Nostra, began on the 9th December 1999 and travelled over all the Balearic islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Eivissa and Formentera) as well as a short stay in Barcelona [6]. The exhibition aimed to display the way Balearic people wish to preserve their signs of identity, maintaining some traditions and natural landscape without renouncing their economic development, which is mainly based in tourism.
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| Figure 1: The Eivissa and Formentera-forever Web site |
The virtual platform was ordered only one month before the real exhibition, so it was quite difficult to implement the Web page in such a short span of time. Nevertheless, the final virtual exhibition fulfilled the aims of the organizers, who wanted a complete dissemination of the exhibition contents to other Spanish people and foreigners (see figure 1).
With regards to design, the virtual exhibition is an exact reproduction of the real one, except for a small number of illustrations and a new virtual reality section. In this particular case the virtual exhibition was not really complementary to the real one, therefore not representing the desirable model. The navigation structure was kept as simple as possible, allowing a direct access to any section from any point in the site. However, some minor problems were detected due to the hierarchical structure of the exhibition (i.e. architecture, natural environment) which denied direct entry.
Comments by users suggested that the virtual exhibition was a good alternative for people who could not visit the real site and also a useful after visit resource. The response was, on the whole, positive, although there were also some suggestions for improvement. For example, clearer icons were desired to mark every single section and more animations were desired to make some screens more attractive. There were some complaints about the secondary level where the virtual reality was located. One of the problems not anticipated was font configuration depending on visitor, this was easily solved with dynamic HTML (.css files). The virtual reality section had an aesthetic effect on users, but failed to use its didactic potential; this was further attempted in other projects. Few visitors answered the virtual questionnaires, more participation was expected than occurred.
With regard to the content, no extra information was created apart from the virtual reality formatting. It was decided that perhaps a series of transversal sections may have fostered the hypertext potential, making available alternative navigation through the diverse pages. Interactive sections such as Archduke and Casa Schmela, which included clickable maps, were rated highly by visitors. The virtual reality reproduction shows how the temporary exhibition may become a definitive collection in a public space, such as the well known octagonal market of the city of Eivissa.
The dissemination of this exhibition provides quite interesting data. First of all, there have been 1788 accesses to this page up to the 15th June 2000, despite limited announcement of its existence. The virtual exhibition was announced in the local Balearic press, as well as the local Internet gateways such as Terra and VilaWeb. While the URL was in the local press a high number of visits were received, afterwards a downshift in visits was detected (see figure 2).
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| Figure 2: Access statistics for the Eivissa and Formentera-forever Web site |
People complain about how they can access virtual display since there are no specific gateways that are updated on museums and temporary exhibitions, except the Spanish version of museums WWW [7]. The only way to be aware these gateways is by the traditional press, museum information, the Catalunya University home page [8] or by word of mouth. Hopefully in the future, the matter will be overcome by creating an up-to-date museum gateway.
Most people who visited the Web site were of course Spanish
(more than 60%), though there were users from other countries.
Amongst them, United Kingdom stands out with 7%, USA with a 5%
and Germany 3%; the site was in three languages (English,
Spanish, Catalan).
The exhibition started on the 10th April 2000 and closed on the 6th June 2000, but the virtual display is still available on-line [9]. The Frederic Marès museum request for a Web site was given three months before the opening which provided ideal working conditions. The Group Òliba was therefore able to create a complementary exhibition, which is so far the best model. The exhibition showed a selection of Catalan books of collectionists, some of them very old, with wonderful illustrations, which are not even available in permanent museums collections.
Prior to the exhibition it was arranged with the museum staff which material could not be in the real display and therefore would only be available on-line. The potential audience was also considered and visitors who did not have any background in illustration techniques kept in mind. A preliminary section introducing Illustration techniques was developed as a complementary part to the exhibition. Two other transversal sections were created too, one provided information on illustrators and the other recommended Internet links referring to the same subject.
The navigation layout was kept as simple as possible with two frames for different menu levels. At the first level, the virtual reality area was incorporated, and at the second level, the diverse sections of the exhibition as well as the new transversal sections were added. The iconography used seemed to have pleased users and problems of fonts and screen configuration encountered in the previous exhibition were overcome.
One of the most useful things in the virtual exhibition was the possibility of digitalising all the books’ illustrations, since the displayed books were in closed cases allowing only one of the illustrations to be seen. It was decided to digitalise all the illustrations of a 10 book sample in two sizes (i.e. small and full screen), and then, one or two images from the remaining books. This digitalisation added a complementary role to the exhibition, its function was appreciated not only by the users but the organizers and curators as well.
Another complementary and didactic element was the virtual reality section, which in this case was a reconstruction of a XIXth century illustration workshop. The reconstruction on-line shows how the diverse machines (i.e. presses) work and links to the techniques section. After the virtual exhibition came out, a second version of this virtual reality section was added which included human beings in order to explain the illustration techniques in more detail [10].
Despite the positive comments about this virtual exhibition, people demanded more dynamic and interactive elements in the Web site. They also asked for more animations in some sections of the display.
With regard to the content, the virtual replica is an excellent complement to the real exhibition with new sections, which provide a minimum background previous to the visit as well as a resource for the after visit. The navigation structure allows an easy access to any book illustration, and also users can jump to other transversal sections. It is believed that this Web site took full advantage of the hypertextual format for no-linear access to information.
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| Figure 3: Visitors by country for the Aureum Web site |
The exhibition had a wide dissemination thanks to the local press as well as the University, ICUB and Instituto Cervantes gateways. Unfortunately, the international dissemination was again lacking since specialized museum gateways do not seem to attract many visitors. From the 10th April to 20th June, 1202 people had consulted the Web site, a daily average of 20 people (see figure 3).
This exhibition organized by the museum d’Art de Girona is focused on the history of letters and the way people communicate by mail [11]. It started on the 27th May 2000 and will close in October this year. The working conditions of this display were also difficult as the textual and image material arrived only two weeks before the opening. Neither the design nor content were fully elaborated, since there was never enough time.
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| Figure 4: M'escriuràs una carta? Web site |
A series of complementary sections were created, which include biographies of characters mentioned in the text as well as some recommended links on the subject. A few virtual reality clips were defined as an introduction to the diverse exhibition sections. In this case, the virtual reality section did not have a didactic function, but acted only as an illustration and alternative navigation menu.
One innovative aspect of this Web site is the employment of animations (created with Dreamweaver) for the main entrances of the diverse sections and the main page. These dynamic images have been received enthusiastically by the users, although they only have an aesthetic function.
With regards to dissemination, the Web site has a serious handicap because it is only available in Catalan as desired by the organisers. This means that it is chiefly used by local public. The Group Òliba believes that this was a mistake because Internet allows access to a wide number of people most of whom do not speak Catalan. The site is therefore unavailable for global access due to language and technical obstacles. So far more than 700 people have accessed to the Web site, however 95% of them are Catalan.
The Group Òliba now has some new on-line exhibitions under way in which they hope to apply knowledge learned from these previous experiences. The key points include:
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Cèsar Carreras Monfort
Group Òliba
Department of Humanitites
Universitat Oberta de
Catalunya
C/ Diputació, 219
08011 Barcelona
Spain
ccarreras@campus.uoc.es
<http://www.uoc.es/humfil/>
Phone: +34 93 2532426
Cèsar Carreras Monfort is lecturer in Archaeology and Computing applied to Humanities in the Department of Humanities at UOC. He is one of the directors of the research group Òliba, which evaluates how new technologies may improve dissemination and documentation of cultural heritage.
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For citation purposes:
Carreras Monfort, C. "Virtual Exhibitions: Extending Museum Potential", Cultivate Interactive, issue
2, 16 October 2000
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/virtual/>
Date of Article: 16 October 2000
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