Greetings! The most expensive road in the world would happen to skirt the French Island of Reunion (400 miles east of Madagascar). The cost for this road was more than 2 billion USD dollars. A certain word does give a partial explanation and that word is access. Whether it is digital or analogue in nature, the scenario of someone wanting to get from point A to point B will be never ending. It goes without saying that museums would desire the digital roads to their collections to have more traffic than less and digitization is the answer. Access, or a system of access is key. Inevitably, more visitors would mean a greater number of potential stakeholders. The Handbook of Digital Projects has this relevant and corroboratory thought regarding the word access.
"Preservation in the digital context has little concern for the
longevity of optical disks and newer, more fragile storage media. The
viability of digital image files depends far more on the life expectancy
of the access system -- a chain only as
strong as its weakest component."
As someone whose available time seems ever shrinking, (I think everyone here can relate to this,) access is once again key. If the access is smooth, timely and attained with ease, time is not so much of a bother. In using digitization, museums throw their doors open to the wide world by making their collections more available and convenient, and it can be available anytime day or night if you have an internet connection. And of course, some museums or institutions present better digitization results than others do. Of course, digitization cannot be characterized as a walk in the park. Quite the opposite.
There are numerous potential snags to the successful launch and continued display of a digital collection. One we could mention in passing is resource allocation, which has a multi-varied collection of potential circumstances susceptible to Murphy's law. (Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.) I have known some paranoid co-workers who have sharply discouraged any mention of Murphy, perchance that he might show up like an IRS agent on payday. In light of the reference below, it might be easy to see how Murphy might cause some to seem slightly superstitious.
"The essence of traditional preservation management is resource allocation. People, money, and materials must be acquired, organized, and put to work to prevent deterioration or renew the usability of selected groups of materials."
And yet, many museums have launched successful and engaging digitization efforts that are available and once click away via a web address on the internet. The following are three such institutions as well as my observations as to the viability and professionalism of their digital exhibits. Naturally, these institutions, or the exhibits therein, have been chosen because they are in the realm of the topic of my Capstone project, which would be ancient Egypt as well as other ancient records.
The Louvre - https://www.louvre.fr/en/explore/the-palace/the-guardian-of-egyptian-art
The Louvre has two floors dedicated to the history of ancient Egypt and it makes sense given that France, due to Napoleon, was first on the scene in archeology and research when it comes to ancient Egypt. The website, or this specific exhibit opens up with a curtain effect that is not choppy or awkward, but smooth and flowing. And they had statues that were particularly of interest to the era I am researching which is from the 12th to 18th dynasty. I look forward to exploring this section in person at some point, and the digital collection, while lest extensive that I had thought, certainly whetted my appetite.
The MET - https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/collection-areas/egyptian-art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4SMLU0NEQ4 (The MET Egyptian exhibition on YouTube)
I met someone who had never tried basil pesto and I was tempted to be surprised, but I had never heard of the MET museum in NYC before I became a reluctant graduate student. I had no desire to go to NYC at all, but when I saw the digital collection on ancient Egypt at the MET, I was amazed, and I have a reason to visit NYC now. While their collection of artifacts from ancient Egypt are fascinating, their digital collection is quite impressive and inviting also. I could call it elegant and uncluttered. There are of course many interesting images and there are articles and videos as well. I could definitely say that their ancient Egyptian exhibit is first class and I can't wait to see the physical exhibit in person.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Austria
https://www.khm.at/en/visit/collections/egyptian-and-near-eastern-collection/selected-masterpieces/
My reasons for choosing this institution is that besides having a great collection and an impressive digital collection, this museum was likely to have a more on the Hyksos which is part of my capstone topic. The digital collection has many images of statues and other important artifacts.
Sources
- Ross, Parry. (2013). Museums in a digital age. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203716083
- https://www.nedcc.org/assets/media/documents/dman.pdf
- https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/AAOSv074-Session406.pdf
