Article

England's kiosk-museum connection

From guiding visitors to particular areas to offering supplemental information on individual exhibits, kiosks are becoming a familiar part of museums throughout London.

May 28, 2002

LONDON -- The museums and art galleries of London house the riches of centuries of scientific and artistic innovation, exploration and empire building. These institutions, many established at the height of the Victorian age, face new challenges in serving a modern, demanding, and international public, such as:

• How to let visitors know just what is available in the museum;
• How to help them navigate the building and find what they are looking for;
• How to make the experience as rich and involving as possible;
• How to provide information and interpretation of the exhibits on show; and
• How to allow access to the vast body of treasures that simply cannot be housed in the galleries for want of space.

Kiosk technology can provide answers to just about all these problems, and museums have been quick to take up the challenge. Among the London-area institutions that use kiosk technology are the Science Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Imperial War Museum, Natural History Museum, National Gallery, and British Museum.

Nearly every major institution in London now uses some kind of kiosk, and their differing approaches highlight some key issues for kiosk deployers in all sectors. Here is a look at how two of London's museums -- the Science Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum -- are dealing with kiosk technology.

Navigating the future

The interactive kiosk solution in London's Science Museum is designed principally to help visitors find out what is on exhibit and how to reach each area. The museum is vast and complex, with 10,000 exhibits located on seven floors. Despite the use of information desks, wall signage, and maps, navigating visitors has always been a problem for the staff.

The network of 42 touchscreen kiosks are positioned around the museum -- at the entrance and outside elevators and cafes -- and offer information on every gallery and its star exhibits, as well as facilities such as bathrooms.

"Although the terminals are on a network, each also has standalone memory, which is used to store the `How Do I Get There?' information, which differs for each terminal location," said Helen Nicholas, the museum's visitors services manager, information. "The different routes from each kiosk to each visitor attraction number 1,936."

The project was carefully developed over a three-year period. The full complement of terminals was deployed in July of 2000.

"It began in June 1997 with museum staff collating visitor information," Nicholas said. "A pilot installation of five terminals went live in early 1998. The pilot was evaluated with the help of schools and students from multimedia courses."

The project is still being improved. A software upgrade is due this summer that will streamline the system and allow quicker and easier updates from the back office system. This will help staff keep the terminals updated with current details in the Today's Events section. According to Nicholas, future links may be established between the kiosk network and the museum's Web site and internal information system.

The Science Museum project is an example of what can be achieved with generous corporate sponsorship. Working with the museum's sponsorship department, Toshiba gave the museum an unspecified amount at the outset to cover the entire cost of the project, including hardware, software, and some staff costs.

In return, Toshiba receives valuable brand exposure. The body of each terminal carries a "Sponsored by Toshiba" inscription. The onscreen menu bar carries a Toshiba button that leads to a screen of brand and product information. Another screen describes some of Toshiba's other sponsorship arrangements with the museum. The electronics company also receives regular statistical information on kiosk usage.

"Toshiba are very happy with their side of the bargain," Nicholas said.

The Science Museum would not reveal how much the project cost or information on who it worked with apart from Toshiba because the museum holds the copyright on the software.

The Science Museum project has earned plaudits. The UK Centre for Accessible Environments said during an audit of the museum that the kiosk system offered "strong improvement to access." The museum was named Visitor Attraction of the Year by the English Tourism Council in 2001 and by the London Tourism Board in 2002. In both cases the award citation specifically highlighted the visitor information system as contributing to the award.

Enriching the experience

The Victoria and Albert Museum houses Britain's national collection of art and design, including furniture, ceramics, sculptures, and paintings. The museum relies on traditional guides and maps to help visitors get around, but has also installed video and interactive kiosks in its British Galleries section to enrich the content of individual exhibits.

"Our aim in using video kiosks is to present part of our interpretation of the objects, and to help people look more closely at them," said Morna Hinton, British Galleries education officer. "We have a video kiosk showing an 18th century clock working. Others explain the techniques used in creating objects, such as gilding, printing and woodworking. There are also kiosks to provide contextual background to displays. One such kiosk shows a video about the rituals associated with taking tea in the 18th century.

"Some allow visitors to touch areas of a painting to find out more about the people shown and themes such as costume or gardens," she added. "We also have interactions about styles such as neo-classicism or the baroque, which break down each style into elements for the visitor to look for, and conclude with an interactive quiz."

"While most of the kiosks are aimed at the general visitor, some are used to present specialist information such as the history of registration marks, " Hinton continued, "while others offer activities for younger visitors, including stations where they can design a bookplate or a coat of arms."

So far, there are 20 video kiosks and 40 interactive kiosks in the British Galleries. A further 20 units are installed elsewhere in the museum. The project utilizes consoles from Dicoll Electronics, Compaq PCs, and Oyster software, which provides the application and presentation layer.

According to Nick Brod, museum multimedia manager, there will be numerous opportunities for future kiosk projects.

"Over the next five to 10 years there will be major redevelopment in all of the galleries and new interactive terminals will be introduced throughout the museum, modelled on those in the British Galleries," Brod said.