Guided Tours Across a Collection of Historical Digital Images

We propose the use of short lectures, called narratives, embedded in a digital archive as a personalization method to support and guide users within a collection of historical material. The effectiveness of the approach has been evaluated with two groups of users. An analysis of the results has been conducted enabling the presentation of preliminary results

Art and the Human Condition: Incorporating Visual Analysis of Artworks into a Undergraduate Pre-Medicine Curriculum

This thesis project presents a sample class session for the course, The Human Condition: An Arts Perpective (ARTH 361), which will be a part of the optional Medical Humanities minor for the pre-medicine students at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Dr. Margaret Lindauer, Associate Professor of Art History at VCU has directed the development of this course. She oversaw the creation of the preliminary syllabus, which includes readings and assignments relevant to the course. The Tour presented in this thesis project provides a model for planning other class sessions, some of which will be developed by Museum Studies graduate students, some of whom might not have previous experience facilitating gallery tours. I assert that tours such as the one proposed in this project provide pre-medicine students with the opportunity to practice observational skills outside of the clinical setting. In looking at art, pre-medicine students approach the act of observation from a different angle and discussion about art objects often have valuable insight about the medical profession they are entering into. This thesis report accordingly offers brief summaries of research studies that were consulted while the aforementioned tour was developed. It also includes the author\u27s experiences working with a group of pre-nursing undergraduate student at VCU, and it includes a summary of the devloped tour as well as feedback provided by a VMFA Education Department staff member

Collections for people: museums' stored collections as a public resource

Collections in UK museums grew enormously in the latter half of the 20th century yet museum collections, mostly maintained at public expense, are perceived as an underused resource. The Museums Association’s 2005 report, Collections for the Future1, together with press comments and books such as Treasures on Earth (2002)2 and Fragments of the World (2005)3, brought this issue into sharp focus. Collections for People set out to understand the scale of museum stored collections, and the main parameters of their access and use: • What is the size and nature of collections as a resource? How are they distributed, geographically and among different types of museum? • How much are different types of collection used by people other than museum staff? What sort of people use collections? What do they use them for: research, teaching and learning, creative activities, visits for enjoyment such as store tours? • How do users perceive this service? Do museums actively market collections access? Do they publicise what is in their collections? • How do museums facilitate collections use? What are the factors associated with greater use of collections? What do museums see as the barriers to more use

City2 Buffalo: a smartphone app designed to establish a mobile museum without walls, exhibiting the living city of Buffalo, NY and its rich history and environment, with a purpose to inform and inspire all toward global cultural awareness and civic engagement, in order to collectively create a better future.

ABSTRACT OF THESIS City2 Buffalo: a smartphone app designed to establish a mobile museum without walls, exhibiting the living city of Buffalo, NY and its rich history and environment, with a purpose to inform and inspire all toward global cultural awareness and civic engagement, in order to collectively create a better future. The present environment, including the technological capabilities inspired by the Information Revolution, requires American museums to reconsider their traditional practices. American history museums are specially challenged to address future possibilities and difficulties resulting from social, economic and demographic change. This paper proposes a new type of history museum of the future, one that utilizes the resources of the Internet and related technologies to practice the new kind of history demanded by the current environment, one that is inclusive, open-ended and relevant to the public. City2 Buffalo is a smartphone application (app), intended to create a mobile “museum without walls” to exhibit the history of the living city of Buffalo, NY. The museum aspires to facilitate public participation in history every day, in the hopes of inspiring cultural awareness and civic engagement among its users, to support a better future for the city