The technological revolution of the 20^th and 21^st centuries has gone alongside a real paradigm shift in many areas of society. One of the most striking — due to its extreme speed and the sheer extent of it — has been in the cultural sphere. In just a few decades, culture has been inundated and transformed by new opportunities in fields such as music, cinema, television, mass media and, above all, the Internet.

Digitalisation has helped culture thrive, expanding and making it more diverse in all these fields. But the so‑called ‘traditional’ spaces for enjoying culture, such as museums, are in clear decline. In some cases, they’re even battling just to stay open. Far from being a nemesis for museums, digitalisation, technological innovation and connectivity in museum spaces may be precisely the key to their survival.

A dual objective for the digitalisation of museums

With the funding going into museums in decline — both for public spaces and private museums — those responsible for their management must direct the various avenues of technological innovation and digitalisation towards two primary goals that run in parallel to one another, but are equally important.

• Increasing competitiveness
• Winning the battle for the public’s attention

The first objective is more pressing in the case of privately managed museums, but it’s worth remembering that, in addition to fighting with other more attractive and affordable offers in the cultural field, museums — both public and private — are also ‘fighting’ each other, so competitiveness is a key factor. It’s also vital to win the attention of users, beneficiaries and visitors, especially those in the under-30s demographic.

Avenues of technological innovation to improve museums

All academics and specialists working in the field, with few differences in approach, agree that there are several avenues through which digitalisation in museum spaces should be directed to make them more competitive in our new reality that’s dominated by technology and its various inputs:

• Internal management
• User experience
• Organisation

Although winning the battle for digitalisation in museums is essential for their survival, the number of those responsible for these spaces who are committed to technological innovation and connectivity sadly remains very low. The reasons are varied, but, above all, they typically include a resistance or fear of sudden change, an image of museums as the last place to remain free of technology — attached to ‘tradition’, less overwhelming and disruptive — and little or no training in new realities and digital tools.

Examples of the potential applications of digitalisation in museums

Following on from the three areas outlined above, we can break down some examples where technological innovation would represent a giant leap forward for museums. In terms of internal management, digitalisation can bring big benefits to cataloguing, fund inventory and asset classification tasks. It can also be a useful way of maintaining budgetary and economic control over organisations and either activate or improve communication channels between museum teams and other entities or colleagues. Use of big data opens up another interesting range of possibilities in this field.

A general, convenient and unified view of all a museum’s resources greatly facilitates how collections, events, exhibitions and actions complementary to simply displaying artefacts are handled. And this links into what is, perhaps, the avenue with the most opportunities when it comes to digitalisation – being able to offer improved experiences before, during and after users visit a space. 5G connectivity, use of virtual reality devices and augmented reality applications can really throw open the door to far more immersive experiences of museum collections for visitors, expanding the impact of art and culture far beyond the walls of the museum itself.