Analysis
by Riley Trist, December 2022
There is plenty of digital material available at the Met, if one knows where to find it. Post-pandemic, QR codes have surged in popularity and utilizing that by placing easily generated QR code stickers at the entrances of all exhibitions is an easy fix in order to make sure the museum visitors know where to find online information.
The Met is doing this with some of their exhibitions but not with others. Perhaps because they believe those exhibitions either don’t need digital content to be made interesting for viewers, or because the exhibitions are not popular enough to warrant time spent on digital integration. Perhaps they have limited resources and limited motivation as far as digital elements go, and they don’t think visitors will care that the numbers for audio guides in the Islamic art section don’t work anymore. Or perhaps there are big changes in process behind the scenes.
There definitely are changes happening. In fact, recently the Met has joined the Bloomberg Connects app. Previously only the Met Cloisters had guides available through that platform, but now even the fifth avenue location can be found there.
Within the app one can find highlights from the audio guides – numbers from the museum generally can’t be inputted and listened to, but one can scroll the information available – where they can also find a transcript of that audio guide, additional physical information about it and where it is within the museum. Although much of the information available on the website is not on the Connects app, it does include some accessibility information and a slightly more usable version of the map (though it still is unable to properly search for locations.) As it is a very new development, the Bloomberg app is not alluded to within the physical museum space.
The Met clearly has an agenda towards digital integration; however, if those endeavors are to be successful, more effort needs to be put towards making digital materials accessible within the physical museum space.
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