Abstract

Online activities present a unique challenge for museums as they harness the potential of digital technology for sustainable development, trust building, and representations of diversity. This volume offers a holistic picture of museum online activities that can serve as a starting point for cross-disciplinary discussion. It is a resource for museum staff, students, designers, and researchers working at the intersection of cultural institutions and digital technologies. The aim is to provide insight into the issues behind designing and implementing web pages and social media to serve the broadest range of museum stakeholders.

Ana Sánchez Laws is Associate Professor in Media and Design, Volda University College, Norway. She is the author of Panamanian Museums and Historical Memory (Berghahn Books 2011), has collaborated on projects at the Panama Viejo Monumental Complex (World Heritage Site), and is a video artist whose works have been exhibited around the globe.

“From a basic section on what blogs, social media, and websites are, to informative case studies that offer real-world examples of successes and failures from top world museums, this book is a valuable contribution to public historians and museum professionals. The history of museums’ use of digital technology and the web is fascinating to the historical researchers among us… Any public historian who works for an organization that is interested in digital history and dissemination of that history will find this volume important.” • The Public Historian

“In this volume, Ana Luisa Sánchez Laws makes an important contribution to the discussion of how digital heritage can contribute to the sustainable development of local and distributed communities through the careful deployment of social media programs that build trust relationships between experts and non-experts...The author makes a valuable contribution to the discussion of diversity and meaning making in museum and heritage programs while providing links and suggestions for those that wish to engage further with philosophical and ethical questions surrounding the use of social media by museums.” • Heritage & Society

“This monograph should be praised for combining theoretical discussions with operable advice and examples, thus equipping a mixed audience of students, researchers and practitioners to navigate the varied and demanding space of digital heritage.” • International Journal of Heritage Studies

“This book is a timely offer that will provide both museum workers and audiences with some resolutions in dealing with new challenges emerging from the social media age….this book takes a step further, driving readers to think about questions from a different perspective, such as how museums can help shape the future of the web while being shaped by the web.” • Heng Wu, Nanjing Museum

“…a very accessible book aimed both at museum studies students and at museum professionals wishing to understand and engage with the use of the web and associated media platforms in museums….As someone who teaches a unit in this area, I would use it as one of the readings.” • Andrea Witcomb, Deakin University