Building a Matrix Exploiting Narratives 11 April 2006 Julian Tomlin Head of Administration

Building a Matrix

Contents Publishing collections Publishing exhibitions A new website and narratives The Textile Gallery What’s next and the future

What do users want? Research –Manchester Museums Unwrapped website Feedback - mostly informal –Stories not (just) objects –What’s on Show By room By exhibition –What does the Gallery look like? –Where to start? –Expectations

Starting with Narratives Bewilderment phase Exhibitions –Earlier experience with pdfs –Opportunity to publish stories collection exhibitions over 12 years - DCF project –Archiving research, integrating with KE EMu –Value for museology students Then biographies –Watercolour artists - loaded via a script

The Whitworth’s website Publishing –Objects and related multimedia –Exhibitions –Narratives

A new website and narratives Value from KE EMu –Easy to link to objects –And multimedia –Arrange in hierarchy –Updates easier than using the cms New website –Browsing not just searching –Collection themes - collection level information –Photo history of the building –Technical terms –Press releases –

Browsing collection themes

Choosing a theme

Theme - J M W Turner Links to objects Links to exhibitions Links to other narratives

Exhibition object display

The Textile Gallery - Questions Could the interpretation in the display be replicated using KE EMu? Not strictly an exhibition as objects change Complement limited information in room

Content Introduction to the collection Text panels for the themed twelve cases Labels for the objects, linked to detailed catalogue information Technical terms, interviews with makers

Implementation Master narratives for gallery –Introduction to textiles at the Whitworth –Information on the display Sub-narratives for the cases Sub-narratives for the labels, linked to catalogue information Audio/Video as multimedia, linked to University’s streaming server textilegalleryhttp:// textilegallery

Text panel for a case

Object label

Object display (Catalogue) top

Object display (Catalogue) bottom Link back to narratives

Public computers and paper On-line in the gallery Fact files, laminates –produced from KE EMu using Crystal Reports

Next with narratives School sessions –Pre-visit –Post-visit Searching narratives and objects, offering both in results as ‘Spinning the Web’ Joint narratives on Manchester Museums Unwrapped –Single theme, merged narratives, different objects Reusing the portal?

Book-browsing Thomas Wardle pattern books –Starting point is ‘Spinning the Web’ –Reference to British Library ‘Turning the Page’; Amazon –Proposed solution No Flash Use PHP tailored web pages Allow for different layouts - cover, left, right page, page spread Use narratives to explain pages

Looking to the future? Web pages - better design!, improved functionality –Formatting in narratives eg bold, italic, hyperlinks –Supporting different learning styles Text v. Icons Podcasts, interactivity –Technical issues to overcome My EMu –Web Blogs, Flickr, Wikipedia –Users to write and submit their own stories –‘Write your own label’

Thank you

The End