THE VIRTUAL NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM: PLACING DIGITIZED COLLECTIONS BACK WITHIN A MUSEUM CONTEXT

As digitization of museum collections becomes more prevalent, the question of how to utilize such resources becomes increasingly pertinent. Digital collections predominantly exist as queryable databases designed for the retrieval of specific data by academics, but beyond this purpose there is little guidance or incentive for continued exploration by educators or casual audiences.

To address these issues, the Virtual Natural History Museum (V-NHM) was conceived. By virtue of its computer game user interface (UI), this website literally emulates the museum experience, placing digitized specimens back within the context of a public exhibition and allowing for the non-linear exploration of its displays from a web browser.

Numerous features of the V-NHM aim to increase engagement and facilitate public use of collections, particularly with younger audiences. These include preferential display of digitized specimens with a variety of multimedia formats and a UI that encourages and rewards exploration through in-gave achievements and dialogue prompts. Displays are easily created, modified and replaced, so that content can be constantly revised.

Such a website has potential to improve the accessibility of digitized museum collections in various ways: content gains exposure by being incorporated into a large ‘metacollection’ which is ‘auto-curated’ into displays based on diverse specimen metadata; users can access a free, frequently updated and permanently open museum that exhibits varied content and is constructed with an engaging UI; and remote access can benefit those with barriers to visiting physical museums, such as proximity, socio-economic status (SES), Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and social anxiety.

Insights from UK educators and three school trials affirm the potential educational, inclusivity and access benefits of a completed museum. Whilst 82% of children reviewing the V-NHM concept did not visit physical museums often, over 90% wanted to use the completed museum for learning. Teachers highlighted mitigation of access issues as particularly important for those facing barriers such as SEND and low SES; upon completion (expected 2021), the V-NHM has great potential to be developed into an inclusive engagement resource, particularly within education settings.