Museum2020: The Implications of Digitalization of Society for Public Knowledge Institutions

Other conference contribution, 2016

Public knowledge institutions such as libraries, science centers and museums have traditionally played a key role as knowledge hubs in cities, but this role has been massively challenged by the digitalization of society. The Museum2020 project will support the transformation of public knowledge institutions from static to dynamic urban knowledge hubs through the development of novel methods and dynamic digital services. Museum2020 will demonstrate how the digitalization of services closely coupled to the physical space can enable public knowledge institutions to integrate the activities they organize with their collections. These services will leverage the active participation and co-creation of knowledge by citizens to enrich the collections. Our goal is to strengthen the public knowledge institution as a public community hub for knowledge by drawing on how citizens use them. We will employ a co-creation approach that brings together research institutions, public knowledge institutions, students, and citizens in order to understand user needs and develop accessible and usable services. We will develop and test prototypes that show the potential of digital services, and disseminate this knowledge to public knowledge institutions policy makers, and researchers. The prototypes will address the visitors experience both before, during and after the visit to the public knowledge institution, as well as support integrating activities with the collections; support for visitor participation in ongoing activities; support for facilitation of activities; tools for exploration of activities and collections.