Today is International Museum Day! The theme for 2018 is “Hyperconnected museums: New approaches, new publics”. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has published a PDF about the day, take a moment to download it and read it.
I feel that this theme is important, and I can relate to it personally. The artwork for the poster is made up of QR codes. The code scans as the URL http://icom.museum in case you were wondering. I have done research into using QR codes in museum displays, and plan on integrating them into the next public display of the permanent collection I do. Here is an article from Antique Trader that talks about using QR codes in a manner similar to what I am considering.
As is mentioned in the PDF, museums can make new connections by digitizing their collections. That is essentially what I am doing with the permanent collection, taking digital photos and posting interpretive information along with them. I am posting the interpretive information in a human readable format, an HTML table. I am still researching how museums handle metadata (a machine readable format of this information) for exhibits, using technology such as Dublin Core. I would like to add metadata to my exhibit pages so search engines can understand and index them better. This indexing is part of becoming hyperconnected. Connections cannot be made to resources that cannot be found.
I appreciate the efforts of ICOM, and encourage all of you to take a moment today to consider the role of museums in your life and your community.
