Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Discovery tables


Last year, I visited a charming exhibition at the National Library of Ireland called "Alice Milligan and the Irish Cultural Revival". One of the things I liked about the exhibition was the inclusion of multi-touch "discovery tables", which allow access to high definition archival material that otherwise wouldn't fit as exhibits.

Today, I discovered a series of videos where curator Catherine Morris discusses the exhibition, and the discovery tables. Take a look a 8:25:



Of course, Alice Milligan is not the only exhibition using this style of digital archive presentation. In the Zagreb "Art Deco" exhibition (on until the end of this month), the Museum of Arts and Crafts papered a whole room with reprints of magazines and newspapers from the 1920's & 30's - while making the same scans available on a touch screen in the middle of the room. A great effect!

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