What the Future Holds For Museums

July 2, 2020 by Taylor Studios in Other

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that COVID-19 has turned the world on its head. Now that the future appears unpredictable and the best anyone can do is go day-by-day, there seems to be a desperate need to turn all of the churning negatives into positive opportunities that will help our societies to boldly thrive once again. Museums have been no exception when tasked with .

With the trust and protection of their patrons being crucial and with their core values at the forefront of every decision, museums have been flooded with questions on , particularly where interactive elements are involved.

Unfortunately, the solution of simply removing these elements altogether is much more complicated than it seems. This remains especially true for children’s museums and science museums where their entire philosophy revolves around a multi-sensory experience that largely includes touch and hands-on learning. Actually, studies have proven that having these manipulative objects are an excellent way to communicate specific information. And besides, when museums lose their interactivity, they lose a bit of their identity and magic that has kept visitors coming time and time again, don’t you think?

Over the past several months there has been much discussion within the industry to further review the importance of interactivity and how the coronavirus will affect the future of museums and the learning that they are responsible for representing. And, perhaps a little unsurprisingly, the general consensus has been to remain steadfast in their need to contain intriguing, powerful interactives. Some are looking to while others are incorporating a few temporary safety precautions until the threat of illness has subsided.

It’s been my observation that museums and the people associated with them are looking to the light at the end of the tunnel and have deep-felt hope that the pandemic will dwindle, and that people will once again feel secure enough to seek intellectual, social, and cultural fulfillment that can only be found in special places like museums.

But as the anticipation builds for that day, museums are doing what they think is best in honoring both their patrons and their values. This includes: initiating crowd capacities and creating time slots; specifying a cleaning regimen following CDC standards; investing in styluses to be used on touch screens rather than fingers; incorporating the use of people’s smartphones to .

However, museums are mostly operated by forward-thinkers and they understand that this major event in history will certainly leave its mark on the course of the future. The coronavirus pandemic has motivated the industry to think about how new technologies can be used in future interactives, and how having attractions operated by a person’s feet instead of their hands might help eliminate the spread of illness. Museums recognize that knowledge is the power behind every decision and reaction, conveying information is at the foundation of every single one of them. Perhaps there’s an opportunity here to teach people more about COVID-19 before entering an exhibit space and how their decisions affect not only themselves but also the people around them.