Transcript Building a Matrix

Building a Matrix
Exploiting Narratives
11 April 2006
Julian Tomlin
Head of Administration
Building a Matrix
Contents
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Publishing collections
Publishing exhibitions
A new website and narratives
The Textile Gallery
What’s next and the future
What do users want?
• Research
– Manchester Museums Unwrapped website
• Feedback - mostly informal
– Stories not (just) objects
– What’s on Show
• By room
• By exhibition
– What does the Gallery look like?
– Where to start?
– Expectations
Starting with Narratives
• Bewilderment phase
• Exhibitions
– Earlier experience with pdfs
– Opportunity to publish stories - 100 collection
exhibitions over 12 years - DCF project
– Archiving research, integrating with KE EMu
– Value for museology students
• Then biographies
– Watercolour artists - loaded via a script
The Whitworth’s website
• http://www.manchester.ac.uk/whitworth
• Publishing
– Objects and related multimedia
– Exhibitions
– Narratives
A new website and narratives
• Value from KE EMu
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Easy to link to objects
And multimedia
Arrange in hierarchy
Updates easier than using the cms
• New website
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Browsing not just searching
Collection themes - collection level information
Photo history of the building
Technical terms
Press releases
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/whitworth
Browsing collection themes
Choosing a theme
Theme - J M W Turner
Links to
other
narratives
Links to
objects
Links to
exhibitions
Exhibition object display
The Textile Gallery - Questions
• Could the interpretation in
the display be replicated
using KE EMu?
• Not strictly an exhibition as
objects change
• Complement limited
information in room
Content
• Introduction to the collection
• Text panels for the themed
twelve cases
• Labels for the objects, linked
to detailed catalogue
information
• Technical terms, interviews
with makers
Implementation
• Master narratives for gallery
– Introduction to textiles at the Whitworth
– Information on the display
• Sub-narratives for the cases
• Sub-narratives for the labels, linked to catalogue
information
• Audio/Video as multimedia, linked to University’s
streaming server
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http://www.manchester.ac.uk/whitworth/exhibitions/byroom/gallery1textilegallery
Text panel for a case
Object label
Object display (Catalogue) top
Object display (Catalogue) bottom
Link back to
narratives
Public computers and paper
• On-line in the gallery
• Fact files, laminates
– produced from KE EMu
using Crystal Reports
Next with narratives
• School sessions
– Pre-visit
– Post-visit
• Searching narratives and
objects, offering both in
results as ‘Spinning the Web’
• Joint narratives on
Manchester Museums
Unwrapped
– Single theme, merged
narratives, different objects
• Reusing the portal?
Book-browsing
• Thomas Wardle pattern
books
– Starting point is ‘Spinning
the Web’
– Reference to British Library
‘Turning the Page’; Amazon
– Proposed solution
• No Flash
• Use PHP tailored web
pages
• Allow for different layouts cover, left, right page, page
spread
• Use narratives to explain
pages
Looking to the future?
• Web pages - better design!, improved functionality
– Formatting in narratives eg bold, italic, hyperlinks
– Supporting different learning styles
• Text v. Icons
• Podcasts, interactivity
– Technical issues to overcome
• My EMu
– Web 2.0 - Blogs, Flickr, Wikipedia
– Users to write and submit their own stories
– ‘Write your own label’
Thank you
[email protected]
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/whitworth
The End