The Online and the Onsite Holocaust Museum Exhibition as an Informational Resource

Museums today provide learning-rich experiences and quality informational resources through both physical and virtual environments. This study examined a Holocaust Museum traveling exhibition, Life in Shadows: Hidden Children and the Holocaust that was on display at the Art Center of Battle Creek, Michigan in fall 2005. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to assess the informational value of a Holocaust Museum exhibition in its onsite vs. online format by converging quantitative and qualitative data. Participants in the study included six eighth grade language arts classes who viewed various combinations or scenarios of the onsite and online Life in Shadows. Using student responses to questions in an online exhibition survey, an analysis of variance was performed to determine which scenario visit promotes the greatest content learning. Using student responses to additional questions on the same survey, data were analyzed qualitatively to discover the impact on students of each scenario visit. By means of an emotional empathy test, data were analyzed to determine differences among student response according to scenario visit. A principal finding of the study (supporting Falk and Dierking's contextual model of learning) was that the use of the online exhibition provided a source of prior orientation and functioned as an advanced organizer for students who subsequently viewed the onsite exhibition. Students who viewed the online exhibition received higher topic assessment scores. Students in each scenario visit gave positive exhibition feedback and evidence of emotional empathy. Further longitudinal studies in museum informatics and Holocaust education involving a more diverse population are needed. Of particular importance would be research focusing on using museum exhibitions and Web-based technology in a compelling manner so that students can continue to hear the words of survivors who themselves bear witness and give voice to silenced victims. When perpetuity of access to informational resources is assured, future generations will continue to be connected to the primary documents of history and cultural heritage

Exhibition design + contemporary encounters

This research is practice-based and explores the role of exhibition designer, the parameters of exhibition design and the exhibition design techniques that affect the experience of art in an institutional setting. Investigating the design methodology of current standard institutional practice in contemporary art display and audience engagement, techniques and strategies are researched, tested and developed to activate gallery space as medium. The research investigates techniques that can be constructed and implemented in exhibition design that provide engaging experiences for the viewer that are manifold in an institutional context

Technology in Museums: New Tools for Traditional Goals

This thesis has examined the ways that museums might theoretically incorporate technology in addition to current technologies employed in museums. Analysis has been done on the ways that technology can be useful in engaging visitors who might come to museums alone, in a group, or as part school fieldtrips. The various uses of social-media are discussed, including social-media strategy recommendations for museums. Museum mobile applications are investigated and features for such applications have been analyzed for how they might benefit both museums and visitorsMaster of ArtsArts AdministrationUniversity of Michigan-Flinthttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145732/1/Bellinger2018.pdfDescription of Bellinger2018.pdf : Thesi

From history to reality - engaging with visitors in the Imperial War Museum (North)

This paper is about visitor engagement in a museum, with reference to the Imperial War Museum (IWM) (North). Modern museums can be considered part of the leisure industry, and are increasingly subject to financial and marketing considerations which, rightly, put the visitor at the centre of their thinking and planning. Facilitating visitor engagement is an important factor in ensuring the smooth delivery of a museum’s core aims. It is also key to enabling accessibility, both physical and intellectual, to all as part of the museum’s widening participation agenda. The idea of what constitutes the roles and functions of museums is at an interesting point: museums have changed over the last few decades from places that were primarily about collections to places of educative and serious leisure. Findings of a case study of visitor engagement in the IWM (North) indicate that proactive visitor engagement strategies and programmes will improve the visitor experience

Resolutely Inclusive: Merz Art Practice and Einfühlung

Through creative practice and exegetical writing this research investigates a possibility for continual engagement in aesthetic appreciation and a particular way of noticing that artists and viewers of artwork may share. Merz, invented by artist Kurt Schwitters, is a type of accumulative art practice that could include any material or method. Viewing and producing this type of artwork is examined via a theory of aesthetic appreciation called Einfühlung: a study of spectator’s embodied experiences with aesthetic works

The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication

Museums today find themselves within a mediatised society, where everyday life is conducted in a data-full and technology-rich context. In fact, museums are themselves mediatised: they present a uniquely media-centred environment, in which communicative media is a constitutive property of their organisation and of the visitor experience. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication explores what it means to take mediated communication as a key concept for museum studies and as a sensitising lens for media-related museum practice on the ground. Including contributions from experts around the world, this original and innovative Handbook shares a nuanced and precise understanding of media, media concepts and media terminology, rehearsing new locations for writing on museum media and giving voice to new subject alignments. As a whole, the volume breaks new ground by reframing mediated museum communication as a resource for an inclusive understanding of current museum developments. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication will appeal to both students and scholars, as well as to practitioners involved in the visioning, design and delivery of mediated communication in the museum. It teaches us not just how to study museums, but how to go about being a museum in today’s world