Rewiring Museum information: Mobile and cloud

Abstract

At the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan (Minpaku), ImageFinder was designed to connect different kinds of information on an object through a new digital device: People search information not by using text but images of the objects instead. Another instrument called MAP (Minpaku Anthropological Phototheque) shows pictures taken by Minpaku staffin their fieldwork. These examples show that rapid progress in the design of digital devices and growth of the Internet community have changed the way to offer information on exhibitions and the museum itself. By connecting the information, visitors and users might find additional information or produce new contents and feed them back to the museum. As Minpaku collects materials concerned with human culture, we can show the existence of material culture in each period all over the world. Objects and information related to them would be our inheritance of intelligence on this planet.