For this digital systems assignment, I chose to work with Exhibit.so. I created an exhibit titled “M.C. Escher’s Relativities” exploring some of Escher’s works that manipulate our understanding of space and perspective. The exhibit includes four pieces that I sourced from this Digital Commonwealth collection. Through Exhibit.so I was able to write general comments about each piece, as well as comments that focus on certain aspects of the piece utilizing the zoom feature.
Exhibit.so offers a simple and free way to create digital exhibits. Although it is easy to use, it did take me some messing around to figure out how to add the images to the exhibit and how to determine where in the image it would zoom into on each comment. When you click “add item”, a window pops up that show you the items you’ve already linked and allows you to link new ones. Once you link the item it appears in the list at the top of the window, but then you actually have to select it from the list at the top for it to be added to the exhibit. When determining the zoom location for each comment, you need to create the new comment and then zoom into the image at the right after creating it. It was not immediately clear that these were the steps for completing these two tasks. Messing around with the platform and watching some Youtube videos helped me figure these parts out.
Another aspect of building this exhibit that I had to figure out was how to create a manifest link from digital objects that did not list one. Digital Commonwealth lists URLs to each item in the item metadata, but it doesn’t have a manifest link. I figured Digital Commonwealth objects had to have IIIF manifests, but I wasn’t able to find them in the metadata of any items. I did some research and found this website that says to add “/manifest” to the end of the Digital Commonwealth URLs in order to create the manifest. It was great to be able to figure this out and to see that it was such an easy process.
After figuring out these parts of Exhibit.so it was a really easy and straightforward process to build the exhibit. Exhibit.so offers just enough options to build a comprehensive exhibit without overdoing it and making it complicated. One feature I thought was useful but didn’t have a reason to use was the option to have different background colors for the comments. This feature could be used in many ways, such as to indicate thematic concepts for each comment.
There would be many benefits of wider adoption of Exhibit.so across museums. These digital exhibits could be used by museums in order to engage with a wider audience that might not be able to physically go to the museum. By creating digital versions of physical exhibits and sharing them on their website or social media accounts, audiences would be able to experience the exhibit without physically going to the museum. Museums could also use Exhibit.so to build upon specific pieces in ways they are not able to in person. They could use Exhibit.so to provide a more in depth look and discuss various aspects of a piece and provide a QR code to that exhibit in the item tag that’s in the physical museum. Exhibit.so also provides institutions that may not have a dedicated space for exhibiting materials with the opportunity to create exhibits. Libraries are a perfect example of institutions that might have ideas for exhibits, but are unlikely to have a physical space dedicated to them. Institutions that do have exhibit space might also want to have multiple exhibits going at once. Exhibit.so would allow them to have a physical exhibit on display, while also having several digital exhibits going. Exhibit.so offers museums a way to build digital exhibits without having to create a whole new section of their website dedicated to digital exhibits. This process might be more than many institutions are capable of implementing. Exhibit.so would provide LAM institutions with the opportunity to expand audiences, to increase audience engagement, and with new ways of discussing and interacting with their pieces.
While the benefits of Exhibit.so adoption on a wider scale are numerous, it would still present many challenges. Museums must have access to digital versions of their pieces in order to make digital exhibits, unless they are willing to find digital versions of them hosted by other institutions. For Exhibit.so, these pieces must also have IIIF manifests so the process would go beyond just taking a photograph of the pieces and uploading them. Museum staff must be trained on how to use Exhibit.so. While it is not a super complicated platform, this training would still require time and labor. These digital exhibits would also require some upkeep, such as being sure to keep comments up-to-date or taking the exhibits down if that’s something the museum wants to do. While digital exhibits could increase audiences, not everyone has the skills or technology to access digital exhibits. These audiences would need to be kept in mind when creating exhibits that only live in digital spaces. Ensuring accessibility for all could also prove to be a challenge. I’m personally unaware of the accessibility features of Exhibit.so, but this would need to be considered when institutions are creating digital exhibits.
Exhibit.so is a user-friendly and malleable platform for creating digital exhibits. It broadens the scope of not only who is capable of making digital exhibits, but also who is able to experience the pieces used in them. As mentioned in this post, there are many benefits that would come with implementing Exhibit.so on a wider scale, but this would also present many challenges. Despite this, I believe the benefits would outweigh the cost and think it would be rewarding for institutions and audiences alike.
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