Communicating museum collections information online: Analysis of the philosophy of communication extending the constructivist approach

Cultural heritage institutions are spending considerable effort and resources in order to provide online access to their collection catalogues and collection management systems, usually through their institutional websites. This improves accessibility and supports research and engagement by diverse user groups, as well as meeting the increasing expectation by audiences that this type of information will be freely and easily available online. However, cultural organisations have not responded to these needs in the same way and have been employing different web tools and features to present their collections online. This technological implementation as well as the type of content provided reflects also the philosophy of communication of the institution itself. The paper describes the research carried out studying the provision of collections information online by different types of museums. The research, whose first phase started initially in 2007, involved studying a large number of museum collection catalogues on the web and comparing them with those in 2017 in order to establish categories of presentation types and analyse their corresponding philosophy of communication, as well as compare the changes over time

Religious tourism and emotional experiences: An emotional cartography of Jerusalem

An increasingly important segment of cultural tourism relates to ‘religious travel’, tourism motivated by spiritual reasons or associated with religious heritage sites. Thus, travel agencies are offering extensive journey packages to ancient places of worship, sacred destinations and pilgrimage sites. In this sense, according to data offered by the Ministry of Tourism of Israel, around one fifth of tourists to the country expressed religious tourism or pilgrimage as the main purpose of their visit. Additionally, tourism is greatly founded on the consumption of experiences. Understanding the ways in which tourists experience the places is, therefore, fundamental to the study of the consumption of tourism and, in particular, of religious tourism and pilgrimage. Consequently, measuring the emotional situation of these tourists is crucial for the fulfilment of their expectations and, logically, for the degree of overall satisfaction of the experience itself. Accordingly, this paper presents the preliminary results of the experimental implementation of an emotional measurement system in the context of a spiritual journey to Holy the Land during Easter 2015. This is a first trial out of a laboratory and, therefore, one controlled volunteer, whose primary motivation was pilgrimage, was selected to test the suitability of the method for measuring the emotional situation of the individual while in the aforementioned religious travel. The paper proposes an integrated framework of verbal and non-verbal measurement approaches and, together with spatial and temporal information, generates an emotional cartography of the Holy Land based on this journey. Initial findings suggest that emotional situation is influenced not only by space factors, but also by temporal and religious contextual factors surrounding the visitor. Even though results of the trial respond to a single case that should be expanded to contrast the obtained conclusions, it can be affirmed that there are significant implications for researchers and their methodological practices, particularly regarding the spiritual aspects of emotional engagement in religious tourism

Studying the Type of Online Access Provided to Museum Collections

Information and Communication Technologies offer considerable possibilities for supporting cultural institutions, in terms of conservation, dissemination and communication with different audiences. One of the most widespread technological developments has been the creation of institutional museum websites. However, simple static websites are proving insufficient for fulfilling the expectations of digital users, as these increasingly ask for wider inclusion and greater versatility in the presentation of collections and related information. The current trend for cultural organisations is to move in this direction, providing web access to their collection information systems, as part of a wider effort to increase public access to collections for diverse audiences. However, the effectiveness of these tools has not been tested so far, nor has its use been examined in depth. This paper is part of a wider research project, aiming at studying how digital cultural collections are used by end users and identifying some clearer patterns of use. This will be related with the various communication and technological approaches adopted by museums in presenting their collections on the web. The results presented here are part of a broader discussion about accessibility, dissemination, and use of cultural information by different users in various contexts

Studying the Type of Online Access Provided to Museum Collections

Information and Communication Technologies offer considerable possibilities for supporting cultural institutions, in terms of conservation, dissemination and communication with different audiences. One of the most widespread technological developments has been the creation of institutional museum websites. However, simple static websites are proving insufficient for fulfilling the expectations of digital users, as these increasingly ask for wider inclusion and greater versatility in the presentation of collections and related information. The current trend for cultural organisations is to move in this direction, providing web access to their collection information systems, as part of a wider effort to increase public access to collections for diverse audiences. However, the effectiveness of these tools has not been tested so far, nor has its use been examined in depth. This paper is part of a wider research project, aiming at studying how digital cultural collections are used by end users and identifying some clearer patterns of use. This will be related with the various communication and technological approaches adopted by museums in presenting their collections on the web. The results presented here are part of a broader discussion about accessibility, dissemination, and use of cultural information by different users in various contexts