An Approach to the Digital Museum - Multimedia Systems for an Ethnology Museum

We evaluated the usefulness of a Hypermedia Exhibit Guide System, a Hypermedia Learning System, a Multimedia Database Retrieval System, and a Remote Video Question System as museum education tools at the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan. All the systems were considered acceptable by visitors to the museums,and seemed to help them become more familiar with exhibited artifacts. Among other reasons: (1) they allowed visitors to spontaneously access all the museum's information through interactive operations of the multimedia systems; (2) they presented the results in unexpected ways; and (3) they increased the visitor's awareness of the existence of the people behind the exhibition. Several key issues needed to be addressed in order to make multimedia systems useful tools for museum education: (1) definition of a museum's contents and establishment of a model of the museum's entire information; (2) development of principles and methods for multimedia system design; (3) definition of specifications for museum multimedia education systems based on participation, freedom, profoundity,and affordability; and (4) establishment of a new multimedia based exhibition concept. ~ul t imedia nd Museums Multimedia can be defined as the digital convergence of different types of data such as alphanumeric data, graphics, images, motion video, and audio. It is regarded as a technology for integrating audio-visual equipment, communication networks, and computers, as well. Accordingly, it allows data of different types to be authentically managed, and offers a sophisticated user interface that stimulates all the five senses. O Archives & Museum Informatics, 1995 87 An Approach to the Digital Museum Museums benefit from computerization of their traditional tasks. These benefits are greatly enhanced by multimedia technology, that is, by digital convergence of museum collections (HNG95). Some of the main benefits are as follows: (1)it can retain their museum collections' original quality for a long time; (2) fragile and aging materials can be easily accessed; (3)museum collections can be easily and synthetically manipulated and distributed; (4)a single item can be accessed by multiple users at the same time; (5) museum collections can be remotely accessed worldwide; and (6)the collections can be browsed at high speed and in sophisticated ways. We know that there has been much research and literature on pertinent technologies for computers, communication networks, and multimedia. Nevertheless, there has been no commensurate effort to integrate these to realize authentic digital or multimedia museums (ORNSO, SGT93, WJLS7). Education services in museums have become increasingly attractive to the public because the teaching methods used are different from those used in traditional school education. At museums, people can learn by directly accessing exhibited artifacts at their own pace. Interactive multimedia technology is regarded as a new education method that enhances the exhibits (KOE93) and we can see many examples of multimedia use in museums. However, many questions must be solved before multimedia technology can provide usehl museum education tools. Multimedia Systems for Evaluation Our report covers four multimedia systems: Hypermedia Exhibit Guide System, Hypermedia Learning System, Multimedia Database Retrieval System, and Remote Video Question System. These provideusers with various levels of participation and freedom in operating the systems to get knowledge of the exhibits. The level of participation is measured according to whether the museum's visitors can operate the systems spontaneously, or simply follow a one-way presentation. The level of freedom is measured according to the accessibility of information, and also according to the system's flexibility in handling vague inquiries. In terms of the level of participation and freedom of operation, the four types of systems can be ranked in ascending order as follows: Hypermedia Exhibit Guide System, Hypermedia Learning System, Mu1 timedia Database, and Remote Video Question System. 0 Archives & Museum Informatics, 1995 8 8 Multimedia Computing and Museums ICHIM '95 MCN '95