[Épinglé] January Anglophone Topic of the month: Digitization and online presence

Hello, happy new year all and thanks for brought in another important topic to discuss.

I think museum digitization is crucial in preserving and conserving the collections that found in our museums. For example, objects, archives, libraries, they can all be protected for future generations. Recently we are in globalized world so automatically we entered in a modern digital era. Technology now makes our life easier, and museums is one among of the institution which benefit from it. Digitization in museums not only reduces people's difficulties accessing information but also saves valuable time. However, there are some places African where digital technologies are not being fully utilized. Therefore, digital literacy is sensitized and promoted not only among educated persons but also in the general public because its importance will increase day by day. Digitization offers a flexible and interactive access to the museum collection and prevent them from damaging by handling or other means.

The disadvantage of digitization is that they are reducing engagement as the result it led to low experience, it loose emotional experiences collections are not experienced in term of touch are olfactory and intangible heritage is most affected by this. Digitization also diminishing historical significance. Digitization it requires specialist technique skills and it involve resources.

So, what I think is that there is a need to create permanent and collaborative platform because digitization requires high demand in requirement of professional specialist. So, it could be better if we invest in youth through empower them with skills that later on could be useful and helpful in digitizing our museums. Again, I also think youth could use this chance to become more creative and utilize the digital technology effectively for the betterment of African museums.

New season greetings everyone!

Digitization has revolutionized many industries and it has made service provision very convinient to the public. For this i would say digitizing museum collections brings convinience to the plublic as it brings in various communications tools that can be used by the diverse communities, young, old and those living with disabilities. This further support that digitization of the collections can reach even far areas, even those remote at any time needed for access by the general public without them taking long and expensive travels to museum centres. Public enquiries on museum collections can also be effeciently done through the advanced digital tools, hence the convinience of digitization.

Although digitization has brough effeciency to many areas, it can however have a negative impact on the social values of  communities and the general public:
It makes communities to loose social connections with the collections which could be their source of identity and priding themselves through attachment with them as they will only viewing them in visuals just to give an example and not the actual physical interaction. This then weakens the strength of the social values communities used to attach to such collections.

Digitization of museum collections can also bring a loss of interaction between the public and collections. During visits at museums, the public usually grow this in-person experience and personal connection with collections, but bringing in digitization will mean such will no longer be experienced. This will at some point change the public persperctives towards museum collections, with possible loss of meaning and values attached to the collections.

Museum centres are suppose to be more of learning and interaction environments where personal expressions can take place while appreciating collections. However, i see digitization making that disconnections. Interaction of people and sharing of perspectives becomes limited.

For youth opportunities created by digitization of museum collections, i would say this is an opportunity for youth to make a great impact in the area as they have the innovative potential to embrace digital tools.  It may open up opportunities for them in terms of employment for they are mostly the generation equipped with digital literacy, i think they are in a better position than the old. There are also entrepreneurship opportunities that youth can tap into for instance creating safe digital spaces to attract other young people to museum works and collections. 

Hello colleague!

I'm eager to learn and hear from you if there is any work of digitization projects that you have been working on, and what are the skills and tools needed to develop these kinds of projects. On my side I haven't done yet, but I am expecting to be engaged in a project of digitizing the German graves that are found at Pangani district in Tanzania. I am so excited because the topic came at a right time.  

We are now in Digital age almost every thing is now online, digitalization of museums is a welcome Development because the artifact or the museum objects will be safe damage or stealing since the visitor can only see them either online or Digital in the gallery the Chance of visiting museum will be easier since you can access the museums online like wise this will help the museum to know the real number of visitors both online and at the gallery the digital museums will bost the revenue generated by the museums 

Digitalization of Museums can reduce the number of visitors to the museums since you can access the museums online or when you visit the museums you can not see the real object so that emotions is no longer there. The digital museum will provide job opportunities to the youth by advertising the museums site and selling the token to access in to the online Museum like wise providing updating and maintenance of the digital equipment

Yes there are example of such digitalization project of rock art that we make 3D picture of the rock painting the skills required is good photographer and editor the tools required are cameras with different lens and and computer for editing