A socio‐technical perspective of museum practitioners' image‐using behaviors
| Pages | 18-35 |
| Date | 20 February 2007 |
| Published date | 20 February 2007 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470710729092 |
| Author | Hsin‐Liang Chen |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
A socio-technical perspective of
museum practitioners’
image-using behaviors
Hsin-Liang Chen
School of Information, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this project is to study how art museum practitioners use current
image-indexing practices and services to retrieve images from museum collections. The investigation
examines several areas, including image needs, information-seeking strategies, information queries,
search functions, display formats, and human-computer interaction.
Design/methodology/approach – The six participating museums are in Washington, DC, and the
states of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio. The investigator interviewed 35
museum practitioners in various departments at the six museums about their image sources, search
behaviors, and use of images.
Findings – Wide variations and internal conflicts exist among curators, IT staff, slide librarians,
registrars’ offices, educational staff, faculty, and photographers. Museum practitioners’ knowledge
and expertise should inform the design and presentation of digital images of museum collections as
well as the images’ relationships with the construction of digital museums.
Originality/value – Digital technologies have pushed museum practitioners to initiate
organizational changes to accommodate the effects of technology. Museums’ digital images and
their relevant information are the foundation of the digital museums. Museums must incorporate a
re-examination of their roles in the digital age. An ideal digital museum is not just an online version of
the museum, if that is achievable, or an online catalog of museum collections with pictures. It is also a
resource that must be founded upon museum practitioners’ expertise and professional practices.
Keywords Digital libraries,Museums, Image processing, Indexingservices
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
With the development of computing technology, many art museums have digitized and
provided images of their collections on websites. These online resources offer users
around the world access to valuable treasures to learn about different cultures. A
number of obstacles must be overcome, however, to achieve two goals:
(1) deepening an already knowledgeable population’s consciousness of its cultural
tradition; and
(2) educating that section of the population unaware of its cultural heritage.
Kravchyna and Hasting (2002) point out a lack of studies on the use of online images of
museums’ collections. They reveal that many museum websites seldom offer online
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
This project is supported by the University of Texas at Austin’s 2002 Faculty Summer Research
Assignment and the School of Information’s Temple Teaching Fellowship. The author gratefully
acknowledges the support and assistance of the museum practitioners at the six museums.
EL
25,1
18
Received 5 June 2006
Revised 14 August 2006
Accepted 23 August 2006
The Electronic Library
Vol. 25 No. 1, 2007
pp. 18-35
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/02640470710729092
visitors full access to collection databases and that the descriptive information of the
museum collections available to visitors is even more limited. Chen (2004) studied six
museums and found that the museums did not have consistent practices of image
management over the past several decades.
Therefore, before discussing access to collection databases, we need to know
whether such databases exist in museums. If they do not exist, what should museums
do first? If they do exist, what may museums do to fulfill online visitors’ needs? If
museums can provide such information (e.g. images of museum collections, collections’
titles, creators, times of creation, and geographic locations) available to online visitors,
we have to ask some important questions: do museum practitioners generate such
information about museums’ collections? If so, how do they generate information? Do
they share such information with their colleagues? When they share the information,
how do they use it?
Answers to those questions will improve current practices of image management,
provide necessary changes to the design of museum collection databases, and
strengthen the development of digital museums. The purpose of this project was to
study how art museum practitioners use current image-indexing practices and services
to retrieve images from museum collections. The investigator examined several areas,
including image needs, information-seeking strategies, information queries, sea rch
functions, display formats, and human-computer interaction.
The first part of this project reported results of a survey on the types of indexed
images, the indexing procedures and elements, and types of indexing tools and
systems at the six museums under study (Chen, 2004). The museums’ conventional
cataloging and indexing practices are not suitable or transferable for new image
management systems. The lack of indexing standards and tools is a common challeng e
faced by the six museums. Most image management systems are not metadata/XML
ready, and the expansion of the systems onto the web may be limited, contributing to
the internal conflicts that exist within the museums.
This article reports the second part of the project, specifically examining museum
practitioners’ image-using behaviors: their motivations, needs, and expectations about
an image database as well as its relationship to digital museums. Findings are drawn
from the investigator’s field studies at the six museums and interviews with museum
practitioners from different departments.
2. Background of the problem
2.1 Digital museums and museums’ collection databases
Museum practitioners and scholars still discuss the definition of “digital museums”
just as library and information professionals still discuss the definition of the
analogous term “digital libraries” (Bishop et al., 2003). Due to the relative complexity of
the nature of museums and diversity among museums, it may be far more difficult to
reach a consensus on the definition of digital museums among all stakeholders than
that of digital libraries. However, this article is limited to a discussion of digital
museums in the area of art museums. The terms “virtual museums” and “digital
museums” are used interchangeably here. The investigator also applies similar
problems from digital libraries to digital museums in this paper since digita l museums
and libraries are cultural and educational institutions that provide collections and
information to users.
Image-using
behaviors
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