Biweekly GLAMtech links, June 3 2018
My May’s been kinda frantic and things won’t slow down really until Midsummer’s Eve (THE holiday of the year in Sweden) has come and gone. But my biweekly GLAMtech links must go on! So here are eight links, leading to softwares for digital collections management and viewing, to examples and thoughts on museum exhibit design, to the history of the world as seen through the lens of strategy computer games, and all the way to Middle-earth!
Canvas — a IIIF UI-component for rapid application development
A component to include interactive, deep zoomable, annotatable images on your web pages sound interesting? Throw in IIIF standard compliancy and that the component is already in use at the V&A and it really should!
Scenarios and roles for the Mirador IIIF-viewer
The Mirador team has done some solid user research as part of and preparation of their version 3. I like the focus on scenarios and use of the term roles rather than on personas. Not that I dislike personas but they sometimes lead the the thought astray to the idea that one user is always the same persona. But we all play different roles in different scenarios at different times.
Museum exhibit design and UX
Invision has rapidly become the goto tool for many designers and teams to share and critique designs. The company also regularly publishes interesting articles on their blog, here’s one that cought my eye.
Learning history through computer games
I must have spent hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours playing the strategy games of Paradox Interactive!!! In doing so I have reversed the outcome of the Second Punic War, reconquered Iberia as the Count of Barcelona, colonised and traded as the Dutch Republic, founded the Jewish reublic of Salonika under the protection of the Porte, and held the Nazis at bay as the United Kingdom. Did I learn anything doing it? I think so, including quite a lot of history and geography. This paper shares how a Turkish university set up a course for history undergrads to explore and learn the mechanisms of history by playing games.
From imagery to soundscapes
Is there such a thing as art to sound synesthesia? Even if not, with this AI you can pretend there is and listen to the sounds of art.
Tainacan — a Wordpress based collections management system
A couple of years back when I was the Director of Product at Europeana I met and spoke with some Brazilian colleagues who came to visit. I remember we talked about their plans to develop a simple but flexible tool for smaller GLAMs and cultural non-profits. I remember mentioning Omeka but also that the Brazilians were thinking of using something Wordpress based. And here’s the alpha release of Tainacan!
(Or am I just reconstructing this memory by writing this!?)
Taking museums to where the people are
It’s an often quoted, yet not as often practiced, wisdom for GLAMs to publish their digital content where their users already are. Hey, you can do that also for physical exhibitions! Popup museums and exhibits will become even more common, I’m sure.
Personal note: The company behind MICRO went through the New Inc incubator. I hope my own team’s soon to be cultural heritage incubator can help teams with similarly great ideas take them to working product.
Exploring Middle-Earth
I mentioned personas above. Well, the Bodleian team needn’t have bothered, they could just have linked to my Facebook profile when they created this exhibition!
The digital interactive has been designed and created by Factum Arte — do check them out!