This book constitutes the post-conference proceedings of the First International Conference on Emerging Technologies and the Digital Transformation of Museums and Heritage Sites, RISE IMET 2020, held in Nicosia, Cyprus, in June 2021*. The 23 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 38 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: digital curation and visitor engagement in museums and heritage sites; VR, AR, MR, mobile applications and gamification in museums and heritage sites; digital storytelling and embodied characters for the interpretation of cultural heritage; emerging technologies, difficult heritage and affective practices; participatory approaches, crowdsourcing and new technologies; digitization, documentation and digital representation of cultural heritage. * The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book constitutes the post-conference proceedings of the First International Conference on Emerging Technologies and the Digital Transformation of Museums and Heritage Sites, RISE IMET 2020, held in Nicosia, Cyprus, in June 2021*. The 23 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 38 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: digital curation and visitor engagement in museums and heritage sites; VR, AR, MR, mobile applications and gamification in museums and heritage sites; digital storytelling and embodied characters for the interpretation of cultural heritage; emerging technologies, difficult heritage and affective practices; participatory approaches, crowdsourcing and new technologies; digitization, documentation and digital representation of cultural heritage. * The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites presents a fascinating picture of the ways in which today's cultural institutions are undergoing a transformation through innovative applications of digital technology. With a strong focus on digital design practice, the volume captures the vital discourse between curators, exhibition designers, historians, heritage practitioners, technologists and interaction designers from around the world. Contributors interrogate how their projects are extending the traditional reach and engagement of institutions through digital designs that reconfigure the interplay between collections, public knowledge and civic society. Bringing together the experiences of some of today’s most innovative cultural institutions and thinkers, the Handbook provides refreshingly new ideas and directions for the exciting digital challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. As such, it should be essential reading for academics, students, designers and professionals interested in the production of culture in the post-digital age.

This book devises an alternative conceptual framework to understand digital transformation in the cultural heritage sector. It achieves this by placing a high importance on the role of technology in the strategic process of modeling and developing cultural services in the digital era. The focus is on how marketing activities and customer processes are being transformed by digital technologies to create better value, which can also be communicated to customers through an engaged and personalized approach. Much of the digital debate in cultural heritage is still in infancy. Some existing studies are anecdotal and often developed within the domain of established research streams, including studies with some technological aspects addressed partially and from an episodic or periodic perspective. Moreover, the critical changes that have emerged in the cultural management landscape are yet to be highlighted. This book fills that gap and provides a perspective on the cultural heritage sector, which uses the new social and technology landscape to describe the digital transformation in cultural heritage sectors. The authors highlight an inclusive perspective that addresses marketing strategy in the digital era as a proactive, technology-enabled process by which firms collaborate with customers to jointly create, communicate, deliver, and sustain experience and value co-creation.

This book focuses on digital museums in the context of Vietnam and contributes to global discussions on the development of digital museum offerings needed to meet audience demands, requirements for sustainable digitisation methods for cultural heritage, demands for the development of intellectual property protection for the digital environment, and shows ways for national governments to support digital museums. Duester provides insight into museums in part of the Global South, where infrastructure funding and technical and human resource constraints impact the take-up and display of digital content. With on-the-ground research from three Vietnamese museums, Duester argues for a museum framework that is sustainable, ethical, and culturally appropriate. The Vietnamese government’s strategy for digitalisation of culture, heritage, and museums is assessed, and the book includes a list of recommendations on sustainable digitisation methods, intellectual property protection measures for the digital environment, management, phygital business models, and new digital revenue streams. The volume will benefit scholars involved in the cultural and creative industries, as well as museum professionals and cultural policymakers who will value the book’s assessment of international standards, treaties, and conventions on copyright law and how they apply to museums, as well as the recommendations listed above.

Through an historical approach, Ross Parry excavates cultural assumptions and values that provide the basis of museum information management and display, and that are still used to this day.

Museum Informatics explores the sociotechnical issues that arise when people, information, and technology interact in museums. It is designed specifically to address the many challenges faced by museums, museum professionals, and museum visitors in the information society. It examines not only applications of new technologies in museums, but how advances in information science and technology have changed the very nature of museums, both what it is to work in one, and what it is to visit one. To explore these issues, Museum Informatics offers a selection of contributed chapters, written by leading museum researchers and practitioners, each covering significant themes or concepts fundamental to the study of museum informatics and providing practical examples and detailed case studies useful for museum researchers and professionals. In this way, Museum Informatics offers a fresh perspective on the sociotechnical interactions that occur between people, information, and technology in museums, presented in a format accessible to multiple audiences, including researchers, students, museum professionals, and museum visitors.

Crafting Museum Social Media for Social Inclusion Work investigates if and how social media can be integrated into the social inclusion initiatives of museums, and the contextual factors that impact this integration. Drawing on a year‐long case study of Glasgow Museums (Scotland), international mini case studies, and interviews with museum professionals, Kist reveals the complex social and technical negotiations that staff participate in to align social media practices with social inclusion work. Kist argues that the staff practices she observed around social media can be usefully understood through the idea of ‘craft’. This reframes staff practices for imagining future museum social media work as iterative, intuitive, and skilled balancing acts. As a craft, staff creatively draw on and work around social media affordances to balance the norms of their social inclusion work with the perceived interests and needs of users and community groups. Understanding the relation between museums’ use of social media and their ability to contribute to social inclusion initiatives is imperative, especially given the increasingly pervasive use of social media across the cultural heritage sector in recent years. Crafting Museum Social Media for Social Inclusion Work will be valuable for academics, practitioners, and students working in cultural heritage, museum studies, or social work.

This book explores how digital culture is transforming museums in the 21st century. Offering a corpus of new evidence for readers to explore, the authors trace the digital evolution of the museum and that of their audiences, now fully immersed in digital life, from the Internet to home and work. In a world where life in code and digits has redefined human information behavior and dominates daily activity and communication, ubiquitous use of digital tools and technology is radically changing the social contexts and purposes of museum exhibitions and collections, the work of museum professionals and the expectations of visitors, real and virtual. Moving beyond their walls, with local and global communities, museums are evolving into highly dynamic, socially aware and relevant institutions as their connections to the global digital ecosystem are strengthened. As they adopt a visitor-centered model and design visitor experiences, their priorities shift to engage audiences, convey digital collections, and tell stories through exhibitions. This is all part of crafting a dynamic and innovative museum identity of the future, made whole by seamless integration with digital culture, digital thinking, aesthetics, seeing and hearing, where visitors are welcomed participants. The international and interdisciplinary chapter contributors include digital artists, academics, and museum professionals. In themed parts the chapters present varied evidence-based research and case studies on museum theory, philosophy, collections, exhibitions, libraries, digital art and digital future, to bring new insights and perspectives, designed to inspire readers. Enjoy the journey!