Spanish house museums on the web and with the web: a galaxy of technologies

ABSTRACT

This study examines the relationship between house museums and ICTs by looking at well-known examples which demonstrate that the use of ICTs in this context is not generalised. The benefits derived from the implementation of ICTs prove that this implementation is necessary to allow house museums to take a step forward and integrate data analysis into their communication plans with the objective of placing museum visitors at the centre of museum services. House museums will thereby be able to optimise their decision-making and adopt strategies that will improve the quality of visitors’ museum experiences. Obtaining and analysing data about museum visitors and their experiences is made easier with Data technology, which can forecast patterns that illustrate types of visitor behaviour, helping museums to better understand and more fully profile visitors. In an increasingly digitalised market, house museums must generate interaction and interest to improve visitors’ museum experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• House museum
• communication plan
• quality museum visit experience
• Information and Communication Technologies
• data
• visitor

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Report ‘Museums around the world in the face of COVID-19’ (UNESCO 2020)

2 https://www.gvam.es/big-data-en-museos-resumen-de-la-jornada/

3 Lope de Vega House Museum (Madrid); Barones de Valdeolivos Palace (Fonz, Huesca); Cervantes Birthplace Museum (Alcalá de Henares, Madrid); Cervantes House Museum; Cerralbo Museum; National Museum of Romanticism and The Sorolla Museum.

4 It numbers around 200. See Pérez Mateo 2019.

5 Museums were the first institutions to realise their utility, with the digitalisation of their collections (in Spain, this began with Domus, an application developed in 1996 along the lines of similar projects carried out in other countries) and the use of digital media in permanent exhibitions (cassette audio guides used in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1952) and temporary ones (devices used in ‘Cités-Cinés’ in Paris, Ghent and Montreal, 1987-90).

6 https://www.telefonica.com/es/web/sala-de-prensa/-/el-reina-sofia-y-telefonica-presentan-el-primer-estudio-big-data-realizado-en-un-museo-espanol

7 https://www.gvam.es/

8 There are authors who include more Big Data characteristics. See Gandomi and Haider 2015.

9 The public agency responsible for managing goods belonging to the State which proceed from the Spanish Crown, as established in Law 23/1982, from 16 June on National Heritage.

10 Project of the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Ministry of Health, Social Policy and Equality, passed on 29 July, 2011.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Soledad Perez Mateo

Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport. email: [email protected] Doctor in Art History and Museum Curator at the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport. National prize for B.A. in Art History (2001). Awarded a scholarship by The National Prado Museum in Madrid and since then has occupied professional positions in different house museums. In 2005 entered as a National Museum Curator, through public examination, developing her professional career in different house museums, such as the Cerralbo Museum (Madrid), the Greco Museum (Toledo) or the Museum of Romanticism (Madrid). Nowadays, she works as director of the Documentation and Collections Department of the National Museum of Underwater Archaeology. ARQVA (Cartagena). Her research trajectory is linked to museology and cultural heritage, with studies of works preserved in State museums, information management and, currently, house museums in Spain, which was the subject of her doctoral thesis.