Project of the Month June 2004

The ”Personal Digital Museum Presentation (PDM)” project, PDM”: Mini-PCs Make the Museum go Live 

The items exhibited on a museum are holding countless stories and tales untold . On the Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum you can choose to get the stories told, get background info etc.  

By Naia Bang / Texthuset Aalborg
The Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum is a museum highly dedicated to demonstrate how closely the story of the Skaw people is entangled with the sea through all ages, for better or worse. You will see old lifeboats. You will se memorial tablets listing names of fishermen and mariners who were lost to the sea. You will see fisherman's cottages – et cetera. The Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum is its own good self. And then again... - Right next to some of the items on display you will also find a discretely placed black button. This tiny button is your access to stories galore. Because as of July, 2004 visitors can be equipped with a so-called Skeye.pad, a tiny potable PC, and when brought close to the small black buttons, it will disclose loads of information. Be it the history of the item. Or general information on the background and the time the item was in use. Or a reference to other items of the museum playing a role in that history.
Visitors can choose to listen to the stories or read them – or save them for a later time. You will then get a password when returning the tiny PC, and back home you can access the Web-site of the museum in your own good time and get the information you saved.
And it is all made feasible thanks to the ”Personal Digital Museum Presentation, PDM” project, under the umbrella of the Digital North Denmark.  

Michael Ax, keeper of the Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum, is looking forward to offering an all-new and different museum experience thanks to the small Skeye.pads.
Photo: Ajs Nielsen

Would have Used PDA's
- About three years ago we were a couple of guys here from AM Production, who met up with Thomas Østergaard, cultural adviser of the County of North Jutland. The agenda was actually to discuss the ”Virtual Cultural Tour”, another DDN-project. But hen Thomas Østergaard came up with the idea – visitors should be able to use PDA's as a medium for museum presentations. So we started researching in this. At that time we did not know if any technology was available for the purpose – but we found the idea brilliant, tells Lasse Dahl Andersen, creative manager of AM Production, project manager of the PDM project.
Again it was on the cultural adviser's suggestion they took up a cooperation with Michael Ax, keeper of the Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum, and they applied for – and were granted - funding from the Digital North Denmark. The remaining project was financed by funds from the Spar Nord Foundation, the county of North Jutland and the Holiday Fund of the Labour market – but almost a year was spent solving the last part of financing. 

Bluetooth Did Not Work
Then it was time to take up the technological challenges.
Personal Digital Assistants - PDAs –, the tiny palm size computers commonly used as an electronic calendar – quickly turned out to be too small. They could not accommodate enough information at a time, which would impair the overview. Another project used Web-pads, a slightly bigger portable screen. So we approached the German manufacturer of the so-called Skeye.pads, and their model seemed to be capable and sturdy enough for the purpose.
- The next problem was finding a doable method for ”reading” countless stories. We considered marking the items on exhibit with a number to enter, but this was not user-friendly. So we investigated the possibilities of a Bluetooth solution. We made contact to a great number of companies specializing in Bluetooth, but none of them could present a system that would be functional.
The problem was that Bluetooth is not applicable for a great number of directional signals in the small rooms of the museum, explains Lasse Dahl Andersen.
Eventually AM Production found an American system using radio frequency signals. Here the Skeye.pad receiver was to be brought in immediate proximity to the transmitter.  

Brushing the Dust off the Museum
- Now we could start up installing wireless technology in the museum. The museum consisting of several scattered buildings combined with a new technology was a challenge, too. So everything was new – including the software, which was developed from scratch, reports Lasse Dahl Andersen.
The museum has collected information and selected a range of interesting topics and stories. To a varying extent AM Production has processed this information and organised it in patterns that were logical for the users to navigate.
Currently tests are run at the museum, and if everything is working as intended the Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum can offer visitors a special service as of July 1rst: Take your own digital guide around in the museum.
- I'm looking forward to see how our visitors will receive this new offer. Using the new technology we are brushing up the dusty image of museums – and adding to this we are making a much greater part of our knowledge available, points out Michael Ax, keeper of the Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum. He continues:
- Still, technology should not take away the focus from the exhibitions. But it should be easy to use – and you can decide for yourself whether to you want make use of this offer or just watch the exhibition as usual.  

This is about how the pages with loads of interesting information will appear when the mini-pc is brought close to one of the tiny black buttons mounted in various locations at the Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum

Want to Extend
The price of each Skeye.pad is around 2,700 Euros so the museum is considering whether to ask visitors for an image ID – and a deposit – when using the tiny storytelling device. The next issue is whether there will be enough Skeye.pads. For a start the museum has purchased only five units, and the months to come will confirm or disconfirm the necessity of applying for funds to purchase additional mini-PC's.
Adding to this, in a near future the museum will take up a cooperation with AM Production, to develop extra stories for the system allowing visitors to bring the Skeye.pads close to an even greater number of tiny black buttons on the whitewashed walls. Also it is the intention to make the stories available at the great cultural history portal of the county, www.kulturrejsen.dk . Also it is planned to extend the wireless technology to an additional number of buildings. Initially the wireless system has only been installed in a couple of the eight plus buildings owned by the museum.
Not only the visitors will be thrilled to try out the potential of the new technology once the PDM system is launched at the Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum. Other museums of the country have been monitoring the PDM project with great interest. So providing the project in Skagen proves successful, we may expect other museums to introduce Personal Digital Museum Presentation the North Danish way.  

Read more about the project on www.thedigitalnorthdenmark.com  - or at the homepage of Skagen By- og Egnsmuseum: www.skagen-bymus.dk

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