Museums in a Digital Culture

Digital technologies and their uses within museum collections have until recently been explored primarily from a technical viewpoint. Increasingly, museum professionals are moving beyond technologically-driven reasoning to entertain new ways of conceptualizing both collections and information. This is leading to knowledge models beyond those already imagined. This paper considers the synergy between theoretical ideas in the academy and the computer ontologies that have been brought to bear on collections information. Drawing on user research findings from the Themescaping Virtual Collections project and the work of leading literary and media theorists, the paper examines how user needs and digital technologies are reformulating our understanding of museum collections and the relationships between museums and audiences. The knowledge connection—Media theorist Marshall McLuhan (1964, xi) challenged technologically deterministic arguments to account for the emergence of new technologies (notably print, and, more recently, television). McLuhan stated: " We become what we behold that we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us. " Viewing the world in terms of embedded knowledge structures, he argued, enables the development of tools that emulate new social and theoretical ideas. New ways of perceiving encourage social transformation. These tools—and the technological innovations they reflect—offer possibilities beyond those originally imagined. In the current technological context, poststructuralism and postmodernism are the theoretical structures that enabled multimedia and the Internet to emerge as forms of information architecture. Multimedia, hypertext, hypermedia and the Internet might be described as the ultimate postmodern media set. The intellectual characteristics of post-325 Fiona Cameron (fiona.cameron@arts.usyd.edu.au) is a research fellow in history in the

Digital Futures I: Museum Collections, Digital Technologies, and the Cultural Construction of Knowledge, Curator , 46, 3, July 2003, 2003

Digital technologies and their uses within museum collections have until recently been explored primarily from a technical viewpoint. Increasingly, museum professionals are moving beyond technologically-driven reasoning to entertain new ways of conceptualizing both collections and information. This is leading to knowledge models beyond those already imagined. This paper considers the synergy between theoretical ideas in the academy and the computer ontologies that have been brought to bear on collections information. Drawing on user research findings from the Themescaping Virtual Collections project and the work of leading literary and media theorists, the paper examines how user needs and digital technologies are reformulating our understanding of museum collections and the relationships between museums and audiences. DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND NEW STYLES OF INFORMATION The knowledge connection-Media theorist Marshall McLuhan (1964, xi) challenged technologically deterministic arguments to account for the emergence of new technologies (notably print, and, more recently, television). McLuhan stated: "We become what we behold that we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." Viewing the world in terms of embedded knowledge structures, he argued, enables the development of tools that emulate new social and theoretical ideas. New ways of perceiving encourage social transformation. These tools-and the technological innovations they reflect-offer possibilities beyond those originally imagined. In the current technological context, poststructuralism and postmodernism are the theoretical structures that enabled multimedia and the Internet to emerge as forms of information architecture. Multimedia, hypertext, hypermedia and the Internet might be described as the ultimate postmodern media set. The intellectual characteristics of post-325 Fiona Cameron (fiona.cameron@arts.usyd.edu.au) is a research fellow in history in the

INFORMATICA, 5

My focus is on what I have termed, after Ian Hacking's idea, engines of knowledge. This notion of engines includes not just tools and methods but institutions and processes that we have come to take for granted, even, in sociological terms, naturalised. The machine metaphor refers to the capacity of these things, singularly or taken together, to produce new practices, concepts and ideas. Amongst these knowledge factories were the institutional formats of the university, museum, library, the hospital and, in organisational formats, the many associations and societies that emerged to formalize, authorize and regulate knowledge development and outputs. In this piece I look at the museum as an archetypal knowledge factory of the Victorian era that formalised, institutionalised and then diversified itself on the basis of a range of earlier prototypes. The normalization of the museum and its role in modern state formation have become so commonplace that it was only with the emergence of museological theory from the 1970's onwards that the sector began to unpack its own forms of knowledge production and validation. From Curiosity Cabinet to Knowledge Factory The museum is both an ancient idea and a relatively modern institutional form. The original museum in classical thought referred more to a place for philosophical contemplation and discussion, more university than a collection of artifacts or exhibit space. Early modern examples include Ole Worm's (1588 –1654) scientific curiosity collection in Copenhagen or the opening of the Ashmolean art museum in Oxford (1683). The British Museum was established in the 1750's based on Hans Sloane's collection of curiosities. Diderot proposed a national museum for France in his Encyclopédie in the 1760's. This 18 th century developmental phase became an increasingly international phenomenon in the 19 th century as the growth of knowledge expanded at a phenomenal rate, and the instruments and methods for knowledge production were increasingly universalised. We also need to consider the variety of museums that has emerged since this time with a small number of types expanding into dozens of variations and thousands of institutions worldwide. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) currently lists 20,000 formal members and many more institutions qualify as informal museums. People are familiar with the wunderkammer or curiosity cabinets that preceded what we now think of as the modern museum. These were often collections of interesting objects that had their own story but did not follow what we now think of as a modern taxonomical logic. While some debate exists on this transition from curiosity cabinet to museum, what I suggest here is that a formalization, even regularisation, of the entity known as the museum began to take place during the 19 th century, and with that formalization, a specific understanding emerged of the kind of knowledge produced in and through museums and their activities, including the individuals who produced and authorized that knowledge. In addition, the formalisation of the purpose or role of the museum as a producer and authorizer of specific knowledge types emerged at this time.

Collections, 2004

Documentation forms the basis in which museum collections are ascribed meaning. Practices, many of which are rooted in nineteenth century empiricist modes of thinki ng, have not been revised at the speed that ideological, practical, and tech nological transformations are taking place in other areas of museum practice. At this point an op portunity exists fo r radical changes not only in the manner objects are documented, but also the way they are perceived as forms of evidence. This article, drawing on the findings of the Knowledge Objects project and the writing of leading museum theorists, and historians revisits the acquisition and documentation process. It proposes the incorporation of new principles, practices, and structures that acknowledge objects as polysemic entities-as holding multiple meanings; the meaning of narratives and classificatory systems as products of cultural, disciplinary, museum, and curatorial opinion; the role of a diverse range of users in the cycle of knowledge making and the responsibilities of curators and collection managers as knowledge experts and brokers.