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This article examines curatorial practices, both traditional and digital, in the Guizhou Provincial Museum’s ethnic exhibition to assess their effectiveness in representing ethnic minority cultures, fostering learning and inspiring curiosity about ethnic textiles and costumes and associated cultures. It also explores audience expectations concerning digital technology use in future exhibitions.

A mixed-methods approach was employed, where visitor data were collected through questionnaires, together with interviews with expert, museum professionals and ethnic minority textile practitioners. Their expertise proved instrumental in shaping the design of the study and enhancing the overall visitor experience, and thus fostering a deeper appreciation and understanding of ethnic minority cultures.

Visitors were generally satisfied with the exhibition, valuing their educational experience on ethnic textiles and cultures. There is a notable demand for more immersive digital technologies in museum exhibitions. The study underscores the importance of participatory design with stakeholders, especially ethnic minority groups, for genuine and compelling cultural representation.

This study delves into the potentials of digital technologies in the curation of ethnic minority textiles, particularly for enhancing education and cultural communication. Ethnic textiles and costumes provide rich sensory experience, and they carry deep cultural significance, especially during festive occasions. Our findings bridge this gap; they offer insights for museums aiming to deepen the visitor experiences and understanding of ethnic cultures through the use of digital technologies.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the implicit and explicit attitudes of Generation Z (Gen Z) individuals toward the experience of visiting and getting to know traditional or virtual museums.

Two studies were conducted. The first study assesses the implicit attitudes of Gen Z individuals through Implicit Association Tests (IAT) toward the experience of visiting traditional versus virtual museums. Considering the results of the study one, the second study proposes and validates a conceptual model through PLS-SEM approach about the explicit attitudes of this generation toward virtual museums.

In the first study, it was found that virtual museums are more successful at engaging and immersing participants than traditional museums for Gen Z. The second study emphasized the significance of meeting Gen Z expectations and ensuring effortless access to information in virtual experiences as this can lead to increased satisfaction and inspiration among this generation.

The originality of this study lies in its focus on Gen Z's attitudes toward virtual museums and the use of both implicit and explicit attitude measures to gain a comprehensive understanding of these attitudes. An interesting aspect emerges from the implicit attitudes displayed by Gen Z, indicating their preference for virtual museums as more captivating compared to traditional ones.

This paper aims to examine how museums reach Generation Z virtual tourists using TikTok videos to elucidate the relationship between the video elements and types of engagement by classifying the characteristics of popular themes in the museums’ short videos.

The format, type and content of TikTok videos published by the seven international museums with the most popular TikTok accounts were analyzed. Thematic analysis included 313 short TikTok videos randomly chosen from those published by the museums between 2020 and 2022. Using descriptive analysis, museum-related TikTok usage and user engagement are presented; regression analysis revealed the most significant themes for audience engagement.

Museum promotions commonly use several strategies, including incorporating text-based information, captions, hashtags and background music into the video formats. Oral speech/documentary-style videos and combined video genres are less common. The most frequently presented video topics included history, infotainment, informative content and promotional elements. The results identify specific formats (titles and subtitles), types (demonstrations, news/events and TikTok dances/movements) and promotional themes that result in audiences’ virtual engagement in the form of “likes” and “comments” and increase the museums’ TikTok channel followers.

The results demonstrate that short videos on social media platforms encompass various strategies involving different formats, types and themes. Museums can use these strategies to engage virtual tourists. This study also provides valuable suggestions for museums and galleries seeking to leverage short videos as effective marketing mechanisms.

The purpose of this study is to determine which metadata schemas are used in the museums and university collections of the main universities in Spain and other European countries. Although libraries and archives are also university memory institutions (according to a Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums perspective), their collections are not included in this study because their metadata systems are highly standardized and their inclusion would, therefore, skew our understanding of the diverse realities that the study aims to capture.

The analysis has three components. The first is a bibliographic review based on Web of Science. The second is a direct survey of the individuals responsible for university collections to understand their internal work and documentation systems. Finally, the results obtained are complemented by an analysis of collective university heritage portals in Europe.

The results of this study confirmed the hypothesis that isolation and a lack of resources are still major issues in many cases. Increasing digitalization and the desire to participate in content aggregation systems are forcing change, although the responsibility for that change at universities is still vague.

Universities, particularly those with a long history, have an important heritage whose parts are often scattered or hidden. Although many contemporary academic publications have focused on the dissemination of university collections, this study focuses on the representation of information based on the conviction that good metadata are essential for dissemination.

With the rapid development of technology, 360° panorama on mobile as a very convenient way to present virtual reality has brought a new shopping experience to consumers. Usually, consumers get product information through virtual annotations in 360° panorama and then make a series of shopping behaviors. The visual design of virtual annotation significantly influences users' online visual search for product information. This study aims to investigate the influence of the visual design of virtual annotation on consumers' shopping experience in the online shopping interface of 360° panorama.

A 2 × 3 between-subject design was planned to help explore whether different display model of annotation (i.e. negative polarity and positive polarity) and different background transparency of annotation (i.e. 0% transparency, 25% transparency and 50% transparency) may affect users' task performance and their subjective evaluations.

(1) Virtual annotations with different background transparency affect user performance, and transparency has better visual search performance. (2) Virtual annotation background display mode may affect the user operation performance; the positive polarity of the virtual annotation is more convenient for the users' visual searching for product information. (3) When the annotation background transparency is opaque or semi-transparent, the negative polarity display is more favorable to the users' visual search. However, this situation is reversed when the annotation background transparency is 25%. (4) Participants preferred the presentation of positive polarity virtual annotations. (5) Regarding the degree of willingness to use and ease of understanding, participants preferred the negative polarity display for 0% background transparency or 50% background transparency. However, the opposite result was obtained for 25% background transparency.

The findings generated from the research can be a good reference for the development of virtual annotation visual design for mobile shopping applications.

1. Virtual annotation background transparency and background display mode are two essential attributes of 360° panoramas.

2. This study examined how virtual annotation background transparency and background display mode influence user performance and experience.

3. It is recommended to use a translucent or opaque annotation background with a negative polarity display.

4. Virtual annotation presentation with 25% background transparency facilitates consumer searching and comparison of product information.

5. Users prefer a positive polarity annotation display.

Virtual annotation background transparency and background display mode are two essential attributes of 360° panoramas.

This study examined how virtual annotation background transparency and background display mode influence user performance and experience.

It is recommended to use a translucent or opaque annotation background with a negative polarity display.

Virtual annotation presentation with 25% background transparency facilitates consumer searching and comparison of product information.

Users prefer a positive polarity annotation display.

Recent archiving and curatorial practices took advantage of the advancement in digital technologies, creating immersive and interactive experiences to emphasize the plurality of memory materials, encourage personalized sense-making and extract, manage and share the ever-growing surrounding knowledge. Audiovisual (AV) content, with its growing importance and popularity, is less explored on that end than texts and images. This paper examines the trend of datafication in AV archives and answers the critical question, “What to extract from AV materials and why?”.

This study roots in a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of digital methods and curatorial practices in AV archives. The thinking model for mapping AV archive data to purposes is based on pre-existing models for understanding multimedia content and metadata standards.

The thinking model connects AV content descriptors (data perspective) and purposes (curatorial perspective) and provides a theoretical map of how information extracted from AV archives should be fused and embedded for memory institutions. The model is constructed by looking into the three broad dimensions of audiovisual content – archival, affective and aesthetic, social and historical.

This paper contributes uniquely to the intersection of computational archives, audiovisual content and public sense-making experiences. It provides updates and insights to work towards datafied AV archives and cope with the increasing needs in the sense-making end using AV archives.

Applying the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory in a wine museum context, this paper aims to examine how and why experience design characteristics influence visitor satisfaction, particularly investigating the role of epistemic (learning) and hedonic (having fun) values as the underlying mechanisms of this relationship.

The authors collected field survey data from 652 visitors at a world-leading wine museum. The authors tested the research model on ten modules of the museum using path analysis and a bootstrap approach; the authors further conducted mediation analyses to test how the design of the museum’s modules influenced perceived value and satisfaction.

Content comprehensibility and surprise, as well as interactivity and ease of use, are core design characteristics that drive visitor satisfaction. More significantly, hedonic and epistemic values play a significant mediating role in influencing the relationship between design characteristics and visitor satisfaction.

The authors provide clear and actionable recommendations to help managers design museums that provide educational, entertaining and satisfying visitor experiences.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to apply the S-O-R theory in a wine museum context. The significance of this study lies in demonstrating how and why experience design characteristics support the creation of an edutainment visitor experience that drives visitor satisfaction.

This study aims to explore how closed factories could be transformed and provide a path for sustainable development for a territory. The authors focus on the case of the Great Mine Serbariu, located in Carbonia (Sardinia), which used to be the largest coal mine in Italy between 1939 and 1964.

The authors adopt a qualitative research design based on an exploratory single-case study, drawing on interviews with the main stakeholders, on a survey conducted among 5,158 visitors, and on administrative documentation of the City Council.

The analysis of the Great Mine Serbariu case showed that the regeneration of an exhausted mine serves a model of sustainable development, especially for the redevelopment of other urban and industrial degraded areas. The Great mine Serbariu was restored and turned into a place of culture, tourism, research and higher education, with the Italian Cultural Centre of Coal Mining (ICCCM) establishing its headquarters in the heart of the former mine. It attracted almost 220,000 visitors, generating both domestic and international tourist flows and making an industrial heritage a real resource for the area.

This article advances the authors’ understanding of how closed industries could become an instrument for sustainable development on the social, economic, touristic and cultural levels. This study would help local governments with examples to enhance the historical resources to create a new identity that led to a sustainable development of an urban landscape, and to create networks with other comparable museums all over Europe to better exploit the touristic and cultural potential.

Online/Digital cultural heritage platforms have the potential to serve as empowering sites and tools for democratic participation, and for promoting social cohesion, acting as convergence points for diverse societal groups. They enable the gathering of multiple voices, including those of minorities and groups often marginalised in mainstream cultural heritage documentation. This research paper examines the ways in which these aspirations of cultural heritage platforms as meeting, learning and dialogic spaces for connecting and empowering online communities have been realised.

Using a qualitative design, interviews were conducted with users of New Zealand’s Auckland War Memorial Museum’s Online Cenotaph. Participants shared their experiences with the platform, perceptions of it as a collective social history resource and views on its role as a participatory space for online communities. They also discussed their expectations for its development as an online space for collective memorialisation.

Interviews revealed that users value Online Cenotaph for placing personal, publicly contributed memories and narratives alongside primary military sources. Participants expressed feelings of civic responsibility, social awareness and a sense of identity and connection through their use and contribution to this online commemorative space. The shift from a one-way flow of information from the Museum towards embracing public contribution embodying a high-trust approach, was a notable finding.

This research underscores the evolving role of museums and other GLAM institutions in recognising the importance of inclusivity, diversity and community participation. It provides insights into how digital cultural heritage social platforms can contribute towards these goals and promote social cohesion. This research is also a starting point for further studies on crowdsourcing and social Web activities on digital cultural heritage platforms as sites of community building through public participation and engagement in historical/cultural heritage narratives.

An increasing number of immersive technologies have been adopted in museum tourism in response to shifting consumer habits in the digital era. In contrast, the authenticity experience of museum tourists relies on genuine relics, the environment and activities, which are ancient or traditional. This raises the question of whether tourists can perceive authenticity in immersive technology-based museum tourism. To address this question, this study aims to explore the impact of virtual reality (VR) attributes on tourists’ presence, tourism authenticity and subsequent behavioral intentions in virtual museums.

Data were collected via scenario-based surveys of participants who had taken virtual museum tours based on VR. A total of 174 effective questionnaires were collected for exploratory factor analysis via SPSS 25. Afterward, 597 questionnaires were obtained for confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis via Mplus 7.4.

A conceptual model of how VR attributes influence presence, authenticity and visit intention was developed. There is a chain intermediary between presence and visit intentions, from original authenticity to interactive authenticity and then to emotional authenticity. Technology readiness and museum familiarity moderate some relationships between VR attributes and presence.

The findings can guide museums in improving the use of VR. For example, managers can improve the quality of virtual systems and adopt various interactive forms to enhance tourists’ participation experiences.

These research findings contribute to the research area of immersive technology adoption, enhance the understanding of tourism authenticity in the new context of technology application and extend the presence-emotion-intention theory.