Recoding the Museum (Museum Meanings)

By Ross Parry

Subjects: Museums, Tours, Points of Interest, Museums, Technological innovations, Technologie de l'information, Musées virtuels, Museum techniques, TRAVEL, Computer, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS, museum computing, Curatorship, Médias numériques, computing, Museiteknik, General, Technischer Fortschritt, museums, Informationsteknik, Museum, Information technology, Informationstechnik, Datenverarbeitung, Digital media, Virtual museums, Neue Medien, standards, Innovations, Informatique, Information und Dokumentation, Museum Administration & Museology, Data processing, Digitalisering, REFERENCE, Musées, Elektronische Medien, Philosophie, Philosophy

Description: Why has it taken so long to make computers work for the museum sector? And why are museums still having some of the same conversations about digital technology that they began back in the late 1960s? Does there continue to be a basic ‘incompatibility’ between the practice of the museum and the functions of the computer that explains this disconnect? Drawing upon an impressive range of professional and theoretical sources, this book offers one of the first substantial histories of museum computing. Its ambitious narrative attempts to explain a series of essential tensions between curatorship and the digital realm. Ultimately, it reveals how through the emergence of standards, increased coordination, and celebration (rather than fearing) of the ‘virtual’, the sector has experienced a broadening of participation, a widening of creative horizons and, ultimately, has helped to define a new cultural role for museums. Having confronted and understood its past, what emerges is a museum transformed – rescripted, re calibrated, rewritten, reorganised. (From the publisher.)