Reinventing the Museum

If you have not yet heard of Second Life, MySpace, or Facebook, you can officially count yourself out of touch, and, dare I suggest, old. Internet and video game technology is revolutionizing how people communicate, socialize, learn about things, and spend money. Museums across the world are beginning to take advantage of these new opportunities, establishing a presence in Second Life, developing podcasts, and registering with social networking websites. See: Brooklyn Museum, Museum Podcasts, and Museums and Second Life for some interesting examples. Other museums are going for technology enhanced interactive exhibits, while others have embraced YouTube. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns recently called for the YouTube generation to create their own oral history documentaries, especially for WWII, before the stories disappear. Read his editorial here.

Another track some are taking is to create virtual realities featuring historic locations, events, and people. This idea is not entirely new as history themed video games, such as Civilization and Medal of Honor, have been around for some time now. A number of professions rely on this software including museums, archaeologists and architects, often using it to recreate ancient civilizations and cities. Now a professor in California is using video game technology to recreate a specific Oakland neighborhood to help people visualize and immerse themselves in a historic community. The Remembering 7th Street project will make it possible for players to walk through an 8-block section, listening to authentic music, meeting club owners and area residents, and ultimately save the community from the redevelopment efforts that in the real world created deterioration and decline.

This gives museums a whole new way to interest and excite visitors. As some critics point out, it is important to maintain the scholarship. However, if technology can attract and engage visitors, it is definitely worth consideration.