Building a MatrixExploiting Narratives

11 April 2006

Julian TomlinHead of Administration

Building a Matrix

Contents

• 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– Easy to link to objects– And multimedia– Arrange in hierarchy– Updates easier than using the cms

• New website– 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 objects

Links to exhibitions

Links to other narratives

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• http://www.manchester.ac.uk/whitworth/exhibitions/byroom/gallery1-text

ilegallery

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

Julian.Tomlin@manchester.ac.uk

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/whitworth

The End