Web 2.0, Second Life and Museums: Visit or access to culture?

1. Web 2.0, Second Life and Museums: Visit or access to culture? Panorea Gaitanou, Librarian MSc (Phd Candidate, Ionian University), Benaki Museum Library rgaitanou@ionio.gr, gaitanou@benaki.gr Natassa Tsoubrakakou, Librarian MSc ΟΤΕ, ntsoubrakakou@yahoo.gr

2. Overview • Museum Definition(ICOM) • Museums and WWW • The Web 2.0 phenomenon • Museum 2.0 • Second Life – Characteristics, advantages-disadvantages • Conclusions-Future directions

3. Museum (ICOM) “A museum is a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment”.

4. A new era for Museums!!! • “Museums have a particular responsibility for making collections and all relevant information available as freely as possible, having regard to restraints arising for reasons of confidentiality and security” (ICOM code of ethics for museums, 2006) • They are active collecting institutions  must be continuously evolved and renewed, as integral pieces of a continuously changing society • They go through a phase of revision. • Museums manage each country's cultural heritage  it's their duty to accomplish successfully and prosperously this task

5. Museums and WWW • WWW offers a common place in which cultural heritage institutions share similar challenges. • There are no geographical restrictions the digital content of collections creates a common information environment. • Museums already provide their communities with a plethora of resources and services and are now required to offer them in a common global place, expanding the existing communities.

6. Why do museums make use of Internet? • Worldwide publicity • Bi-directional communication between museums and visitors • New more challenging services • Improvement of provided services according to the visitors' demands and wishes. • Creation of an effective and stable relation with individuals • Remote access to scholarly research of collections in online databases

7. Web 2.0 • Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty of O'Reilly Media, 2004 • Web 2.0: a term describing changing trends in the use of WWW technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. (Wikipedia) • Web 2.0 technologies: enhance interaction among individuals and enable people from diverse backgrounds to share their opinions and expertise with thousands of others

8. Web 2.0

9. Museum 2.0 = Web 2.0 and Museums • Museum 2.0: blog that started in November 2006 (by Nina Simon) • Main goal: to explore the ways that the philosophies of Web 2.0 can be applied in museums to make them more engaging, community-based. • Web 2.0 technologies static content of museums is transformed to dynamic platforms (content generation and sharing is enhanced by the visitors-users). • Web 2.0 opens up new opportunities, demonstrating at the same time their weaknesses.

10. Museums and Virtual Worlds • Museums have been exploring the use of Multi-User Virtual Environments(MUVEs) for more than a decade. • Virtual Reality (VR):technology which allows users to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one

11. Second Life • 3D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using voice and text chat”  enhance their environment • Created by Linden Co USA. • Users visit Second Life as an "avatar" and explore areas and features made by other people or institutions, or create new environments or parts of themselves. • What they do or where they go depends on their willing, curiosity and creativity. They have a great sense of freedom, and experience situations that are impossible in the real world (e.g. they can fly etc.).

12. Signups 2005-2007

13. Characteristics of Museums in Second Life • Scale • Setting • Persistence and Evolution • Media Richness • Visitor Engagement • Social Interaction • Collection types • Target Audiences

14. Second Life-Advantages • Social nature. • Museums audience is expanded on a global level. • User-generated content is allowed. • Collaboration is enabled. • Virtual museums allow wandering, linking and searching activities that promote discovery, offer evolving content and social networks that enable interaction models. .

15. Second Life-Disadvantages • The audience still remains limited (in comparison to other electronic media) • Hardware and network requirements • Lack of integration with other virtual worlds. • Matters of openness to live content modification • Stability issues

16. Museums in Second Life • Art Center • Aho Museum • Crescent Moon Museum • Second Louvre Museum • Second Life Science Center • Museum of Flip Animation • SL Computer History Museum • SL Historical Museum • Bayside Beach Galleria-Museum • International Spaceflight Museum • Star Trek Museum of Science • Tarot Card Museum • Fort Malaya Malay History Museum • Virtual Starry Night-Vincent van Gogh Second Life • Avnet Technology Museum • Museum of Robots • Tech Museum of Innovations • Exploratorium • Kirsti Aho Art Museum on NMC Campus

17. Conclusions-Future directions (1/2) • Simply by providing the public with access to data is insufficient to satisfy the goal of public education. • Museums need to offer enriched, value-added content, so as to achieve better quality services. • They need to exceed their physical limits, adopt new perspectives, enhance their role in changing socio-cultural and economic landscape, and enable further promotion of the social significance of the industry’s activities. • The implementation of virtual environments could be really helpful towards this direction  Global Museum

18. Conclusions-Future directions (2/2) • The virtual representation of museum (through Second Life) creates a new role for the museums • Their new, virtual nature is not a substitute for real world museums. On the contrary, it will act complementary (new services and products for the users-visitors.) • New personalized services • Many memory institutions have already used these new technologies abroad. Greek memory institutions should be encouraged to do the same!!!

19. Thank you for your attention!!!!!