How can emerging technologies display, reveal and negotiate difficult, dissonant, negative or undesirable heritage? Emerging technologies in museums have the potential to reveal unheard or silenced stories, challenge preconceptions, encourage emotional responses, introduce the unexpected, and overall provide alternative experiences. By examining varied theoretical approaches and case studies, authors demonstrate how “awkward”, contested, and rarely discussed subjects and stories are treated – or can be potentially treated - in a museum setting with the use of the latest technology.

This book constitutes the post-conference proceedings of the First International Conference on Emerging Technologies and the Digital Transformation of Museums and Heritage Sites, RISE IMET 2020, held in Nicosia, Cyprus, in June 2021*. The 23 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 38 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: digital curation and visitor engagement in museums and heritage sites; VR, AR, MR, mobile applications and gamification in museums and heritage sites; digital storytelling and embodied characters for the interpretation of cultural heritage; emerging technologies, difficult heritage and affective practices; participatory approaches, crowdsourcing and new technologies; digitization, documentation and digital representation of cultural heritage. * The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chapters covering on-line networks, digitizations of collections, cultural intellectual property, public access, finance, and management provide analyses of emerging information technology and the opportunities and challenges these changes present for museums.

Museum Informatics explores the sociotechnical issues that arise when people, information, and technology interact in museums. It is designed specifically to address the many challenges faced by museums, museum professionals, and museum visitors in the information society. It examines not only applications of new technologies in museums, but how advances in information science and technology have changed the very nature of museums, both what it is to work in one, and what it is to visit one. To explore these issues, Museum Informatics offers a selection of contributed chapters, written by leading museum researchers and practitioners, each covering significant themes or concepts fundamental to the study of museum informatics and providing practical examples and detailed case studies useful for museum researchers and professionals. In this way, Museum Informatics offers a fresh perspective on the sociotechnical interactions that occur between people, information, and technology in museums, presented in a format accessible to multiple audiences, including researchers, students, museum professionals, and museum visitors.

The biggest trend in museum exhibit design today is the creative incorporation of technology. Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media explores the potential of mobile technologies (cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs) for visitor interaction and learning in museums, drawing on established practice to identify guidelines for future implementations.

This book provides extensive research into the use of augmented reality in the three interconnected and overlapping fields of the tourism industry, museum exhibitions, and cultural heritage. It is written by a virtual team of 50 leading researchers and practitioners from 16 countries around the world. The authors explore the opportunities and challenges of augmented reality applications, their current status and future trends, informal learning and heritage preservation, mixed reality environments and immersive installations, cultural heritage education and tourism promotion, visitors with special needs, and emerging post-COVID-19 museums and heritage sites. Augmented Reality in Tourism, Museums and Heritage: A New Technology to Inform and Entertain is essential reading not only for researchers, application developers, educators, museum curators, tourism and cultural heritage promoters, but also for students (both graduates and undergraduates) and anyone who is interested in the efficient and practical use of augmented reality technology.

Online activities present a unique challenge for museums as they harness the potential of digital technology for sustainable development, trust building, and representations of diversity. This volume offers a holistic picture of museum online activities that can serve as a starting point for cross-disciplinary discussion. It is a resource for museum staff, students, designers, and researchers working at the intersection of cultural institutions and digital technologies. The aim is to provide insight into the issues behind designing and implementing web pages and social media to serve the broadest range of museum stakeholders.