Museums and digital technology: a literature review on organizational issues

ABSTRACT

In the past 20 years, museums have made digital technologies key resources for accomplishing and innovating their functions. The current pandemic affirms museums’ dependence on digital tools, which have become the only means to reach the public during lockdowns. While the scientific community generally examines information and communication technology as a tool to provide innovative museum functions, it rarely seeks to understand how digital solutions permeate daily organization and management. Through an extensive literature review, this paper aims to consolidate a pre-pandemic body of knowledge from which further investigations and useful suggestions can be developed. By benchmarking heterogeneous literature sources, the study identifies three core topics (business models, digital professions and digital strategy), questioning whether changes driven by digital technology within museums follow radical innovation or gradual adaptation. In the conclusions, the paper underlines major implications for museums, policy makers and scholars.

KEYWORDS:

• Museums
• digital technology
• digital heritage
• business model
• digital professionals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article was conceived within the DAHMUSE research project and was further developed within the MNEMONIC research project. Both projects were co-funded by the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning – Polytechnic of Turin and University of Turin.

2 Only three papers were published before the year 2000, included because of their centrality to the research topic.

3 Single keywords: museum; heritage; cultural; digital. Combined keywords: art management; management and organization; museum organization; and digital heritage management.

4 The remaining 22 out of 33 papers selected through keywords were then used in other parts of the paper.

5 Business models (4), methodology (5), firms (3), heritage and innovation (3); museums in general (4); digital business ecosystem (1).

6 Some keyword combinations: digital professionals, digital strategy museums, digital technology museums, digital business models and museums, etc.

7 The reference list contains 97 sources, since it includes the two papers referred to in the excluded topics, and the book by Hossaini and Blankenberg (2017) is cited twice (as a whole contribution and as a single chapter).

8 One source is shared across multiple themes.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by DIST – Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning – Polytechnic of Turin, University of Turin.