2011 Cultural Heritage Informatics Fieldschool

After five weeks of intensive exploration of the role of technology within cultural heritage, the inceptive CHI fieldschool at Michigan State University is officially finished.  The end product of our course, msu.seum, has me thinking about the value of mobile technology within cultural heritage.  As a native iOS and Android app entirely devised and implemented by our fieldschool class, msu.seum illuminates the processes by which objects become artifacts by leading users around Michigan State’s historical campus to the sites of various archeological digs.

During our presentation of msu.seum to the Campus Archeology field school, one of the students asked why we would choose to make a mobile application, instead of a traditional website.  While at the time I had taken for granted the use of mobile technology (it is, after all, the theme of our field school), her question is really valid: why use mobile apps within cultural heritage?

The main answer that keeps coming to mind is that mobile technology allows for an unprecedented reach, as cultural heritage can go wherever the user is.  While museums were once contained by the physical space in which their collection resided, mobile technology allows them to break down the walls and take its collection to where people are.  Location-based applications allow cultural heritage institutions to reach a broader audience, as those who would not necessarily find the time or motivation to go to the physical location may still be engaged by apps designed around the spaces in which they already interact.  In the case of msu.seum, a lot more students wander past Beaumont Tower (the site of a few historical buildings and various archeological digs) than go to the MSU Museum on a regular basis; however, that’s not to say that those students are not interested in the heritage of MSU’s campus.  Mobile technology allows cultural heritage institutions to come into realms that were previously unavailable.

Another reason for the use of mobile technology in cultural heritage institutions: mobile apps make cultural heritage dynamic.  While we previously discussed actually bringing gamification into cultural heritage informatics with applications like 7Scenes, even just the act of employing a mobile app makes information seem more fun.  As the user is able to interact in their own way with the information, it’s more engaging than the original black and white approach of museums.  Users can choose what they want to learn about, what they want to learn about it, and even how they learn about it.  While websites can be similarly engaging, there’s a heightened level of personalization that comes with the use of mobile technology.

While there are already a lot of cultural heritage institutions already utilizing mobile technology, the value of mobile apps isn’t necessarily knowable at this point.  As the user base continues to grow, mobile technology seems to be more and more in demand, and its value will likely grow beyond anything we can even imagine.

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Well well, besides working out a few bugs in msu.seum, this really is the end of an amazing course.  Coming into the class with some of the least technological experience, I feel like I’ve developed a really strong foundation of knowledge in only five short weeks, which I plan to put to use by taking more advanced tech courses and applying my knowledge in future positions.  As it goes, however, the massive exposure to all things technogeek has left me feeling drained, and so I’m applying another lesson I learned from the field school: take lots of breaks to avoid burnout.  So long for now, Internet.