Digital Systems: exhibit.so Watermelon Still Life

I experimented with exhibit.so for this assignment.  The link to my exhibit is https://www.exhibit.so/exhibits/NZ5F1DUaBWMCYzx0N9Vn

I found this experiment to be an extremely frustrating experience.  I had difficulty with the web interface to ingest the IIIF manifests into exhibit.so.  The difficulties we experienced during the class demo foreshadowed my own challenges working with the tool independently.  I was able to add the manifests of several items during our working group session the week after the demo, so I am confident I understand how to do it.  However, when I attempted to add my own exhibit from our class site and my Individual Assignment 1 submittal, I repeatedly got a continuous spinning circle indicating the manifest was in the process of being imported to exhibit.so, though it never fully imported.  I tried different web browsers on different computers using manifests of different objects in my collection, and all resulted in the same hung state.  I tried several other class items using the link format provided in class (https://lis5590.create.fsu.edu/exhibits/iiif-presentation/3/item/###) and copying the IIIF manifest links provided in these records.  This method was successful during the breakout session during class using our class digital objects but has never worked for me since.  In the end, I used the manifest of an object in the Harvard Art Museum digital collection.

Once past the import challenges, I think the tool was fairly easy to use.  There are only a few data entry fields that need to be populated, and they are intuitively labeled.  The process for zooming in on a particular feature of the exhibit is straightforward, and applying labels/information to selected features was extremely simple.  The act of adding text couldn’t have been easier.

Tools like exhibit.so can provide major benefits to museums and LAM professionals.  Such tools facilitate the organization and cataloging of collections with the added ability to incorporate additional information to each item’s data record beyond an image of the item.  This provides the user with greater insight regarding the item and can provide a platform for identifying relationships between items. These tools can also be used to provide links to supplemental resources should the user want to research the item further.

These tools also make digital objects more accessible by presenting the object in multiple formats.  For example, images of paintings or photographs of artifacts may not be accessible to those with visual impairments, so zooming/highlighting specific features of the digital object and labeling with large, clear font would allow these individuals to experience the object more completely.  Similarly, descriptive text can easily be converted to audio format.  Even for users without visual impairments, zooming/highlighting specific features of an image can draw the user’s focus to the aspects of the object the LAM believes users should pay particular attention to.  By clicking through the labels sequentially, users get a kind of coached viewing experience that an independent visit to a museum would not likely provide.  

Digital systems like exhibit.so can also be leveraged by LAM professionals for collaboration and research, as the exhibits captured in the digital system are more accessible not only to users but to professionals as well. By linking exhibits of related items that are physically dispersed, a better historical context can be developed for those items.  However, building the exhibits can be a significant challenge.  Creating the manifests, importing them into exhibits, and adding the textual information is time-consuming, and the use/application of textual information ideally should be consistent across the entire museum’s collection for relationships and context to be discernible from the records alone.  This can especially be difficult if multiple individuals are developing the exhibits.  Selecting which features to highlight can be extremely subjective, a professional’s assessment of which ones to highlight can evolve over time.