Search Results (8)

Virtual exhibitions of cultural heritage (CH) have become a key means for preservation, education, and global dissemination in the digital era. This study provides a comprehensive systematic review and bibliometric analysis of CH virtual exhibition research from 1999 to 2025. A total of 651 valid records were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Three tools (CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Bibliometrix) support stronger analysis. Results reveal that the field’s knowledge structure can be organized into the following three interrelated layers: (1) a technology-driven layer (laser scanning, photogrammetry, VR/AR, and multimodal interaction), (2) a systemic application layer (curatorial workflows, digital museums, and immersive storytelling), and (3) a user experience layer (educational impact, gamification, and trust building). These dimensions form a cyclical pyramid framework linking innovation, interpretation and perception. The study identifies persistent regional disparities, with China and Italy leading in publication volume, while countries such as Denmark and Australia achieve higher citation impacts due to advanced policy support and digital strategies. Emerging trends highlight the growing integration of gamified learning, AI-assisted curation, and immersive narrative design. These reflect a paradigm shift from technological demonstration to cultural interpretation. This study establishes a holistic analytical framework for understanding the evolution and future directions of CH virtual exhibitions, providing an essential reference for researchers, curators, and policymakers in the heritage informatics domain. Full article

This study explores the digital organization of cultural heritage knowledge across national GLAM institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) in the ten ASEAN countries. By employing a qualitative content analysis approach, this research study investigates the types, structures, and dissemination patterns of information resources available on 40 institutional websites. The findings reveal the diversity and richness of Southeast Asian cultural heritage, including national and local wisdom, history, significant figures, and material culture, collected and curated by these institutions. This study identifies key knowledge domains, content overlaps across GLAM sectors, and limitations in metadata and interoperability. Comparative analysis with international cultural knowledge infrastructures, such as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s framework, Europeana, and the World Digital Library, highlights both shared values and regional distinctions. While GLAMs in the ASEAN have made significant strides in digital preservation and access, the lack of standardized metadata and cross-institutional integration impedes broader discoverability and reuse. This study contributes to the discourse on heritage informatics by providing an empirical foundation for enhancing digital cultural heritage systems in developing regions. The implications point toward the need for interoperable metadata standards, regional collaboration, and capacity building to support sustainable digital heritage ecosystems. This research study offers practical insights for policymakers, digital curators, and information professionals seeking to improve cultural knowledge infrastructures in Southeast Asia and similar contexts. Full article

Cultural heritage institutions, such as museums and galleries, today face the challenge of managing an increasing volume of unsolicited visitor feedback generated across online platforms. This study offers a practical and scalable methodology that transforms 5856 multilingual Google reviews from 59 globally ranked museums and galleries into actionable insights through sentiment analysis, correlation diagnostics, and guided Latent Dirichlet Allocation. By addressing the limitations of prior research, such as outdated datasets, monolingual bias, and narrow geographical focus, the authors analyze a current and diverse set of recent reviews to capture a timely and globally relevant perspective on visitor experiences. The adopted guided LDA model identifies 12 key topics, reflecting both operational issues and emotional responses. The results indicate that while visitors generally express overwhelmingly positive sentiments, dissatisfaction tends to be concentrated in specific service areas. Correlation analysis reveals that longer, emotionally rich reviews are more likely to convey stronger sentiment and receive peer endorsement, highlighting their diagnostic significance. From a practical perspective, the methodology empowers professionals to prioritize improvements based on data-driven insights. By integrating quantitative metrics with qualitative topics, this study supports operational decision-making and cultivates a more empathetic and responsive data management mindset for museums. The reproducible and adaptable nature of the pipeline makes it suitable for cultural institutions of various sizes and resources. Ultimately, this work contributes to the field of cultural informatics by bridging computational precision with humanistic inquiry. That is, it illustrates how intelligent analysis of visitor reviews can lead to a more personalized, inclusive, and strategic museum experience. Full article

In the last few years, blockchain technology and NFTs have been the subject of much research in different sectors ranging from informatics, to medicine, to economics. Although it is most often associated with cryptocurrencies, due to its features of immutability and durability, this technology has found its place in various fields, including GLAM institutions. This article will review the literature from 2017 to 2022 dealing with blockchain and NFTs in the heritage sector. Topics covered, proposed models, and projects will be highlighted. Archives are currently leading the research into the use of blockchain technology and have already developed models such as TrustChain. However, libraries, museums, and galleries are also beginning to show an interest in the new technology and its potential benefits. Therefore, we also approached the GLAM sector as a whole, to emphasize the importance of the joint development on the advancement of shared approaches and protocols in utilizing blockchain technology to enhance the trustworthy management and preservation of digital resources. This is particularly important because GLAM institutions care for a shared heritage and serve a common audience. In the second part of the article we will discuss the proposed uses of the technology and highlight still unexplored topics that should be elaborated in further research. The aim of this paper is to make a synthesis of previous research and bring the potential of blockchain technology and NFTs closer to experts in the heritage field, given that they are still quite unknown. Full article

Many researchers in the field of cultural heritage point to the justification of the use of extended reality to present digital heritage. Research studies, but mainly user reactions, have responded to experiences with extended reality with a positive response. Technological research in the field of extended reality is advancing rapidly. In this review, we will cover the current possibilities and trends of extended reality. Specifically, we will focus on the application in creating interactive multimedia exhibitions in museums and galleries and presenting 3D digital heritage. We believe the practical examples shown will be an inspiration for application developers, content creators, and exhibition curators. Awareness of the possibilities and limits of the current state of technological progress is an essential requirement for utilisation of the full potential of extended reality. Full article

Is culture considered to be our past, our roots, ancient ruins, or an old piece of art? Culture is all the factors that define who we are, how we act and interact in our world, in our daily activities, in our personal and public relations, in our life. Culture is all the things we are not obliged to do. However, today, we live in a mixed environment, an environment that is a combination of “offline” and the online, digital world. In this mixed environment, it is technology that defines our behaviour, technology that unites people in a large world, that finally, defines a status of “monoculture”. In this article, we examine the role of technology, and especially big data, in relation to the culture. We present the advances that led to paradigm shifts in the research area of cultural informatics, and forecast the future of culture as will be defined in this mixed world. Full article

Advancements in cultural informatics have significantly influenced the way we perceive, analyze, communicate and understand culture. New data sources, such as social media, digitized cultural content, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, have allowed us to enrich and customize the cultural experience, but at the same time have created an avalanche of new data that needs to be stored and appropriately managed in order to be of value. Although data management plays a central role in driving forward the cultural heritage domain, the solutions applied so far are fragmented, physically distributed, require specialized IT knowledge to deploy, and entail significant IT experience to operate even for trivial tasks. In this work, we present Hydria, an online data lake that allows users without any IT background to harvest, store, organize, analyze and share heterogeneous, multi-faceted cultural heritage data. Hydria provides a zero-administration, zero-cost, integrated framework that enables researchers, museum curators and other stakeholders within the cultural heritage domain to easily (i) deploy data acquisition services (like social media scrapers, focused web crawlers, dataset imports, questionnaire forms), (ii) design and manage versatile customizable data stores, (iii) share whole datasets or horizontal/vertical data shards with other stakeholders, (iv) search, filter and analyze data via an expressive yet simple-to-use graphical query engine and visualization tools, and (v) perform user management and access control operations on the stored data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first solution in the literature that focuses on collecting, managing, analyzing, and sharing diverse, multi-faceted data in the cultural heritage domain and targets users without an IT background. Full article

Currently, museums provide their visitors with interactive tour guide applications that can be installed in mobile devices and provide timely tailor-made multimedia information about exhibits on display. In this paper, we argue that mobile devices not only could provide help to visitors, but also to museum staff. Our goal is to integrate, within the same system, multimedia tour guides with the management facilities required by museums. In this paper, we present iMuseumA (intelligent museum with agents), a mobile-based solution to customize visits and perform context-aware management tasks. iMuseumA follows an agent-based approach, which makes it possible to interact easily with the museum environment and make decisions based on its current status. This system is currently deployed in the Museum of Informatics at the Informatics School of the University of Málaga, and its main contributions are: (i) a mobile application that provides management facilities to museum staff by means of sensing and processing environmental data; (ii) providing an integrated solution for visitors, tour guides and museum staff that allows coordination and communication enrichment among different groups of users; (iii) using and benefiting from group communication for heterogeneous groups of users that can be created on demand. Full article