Again, chipping in with some insider knowledge: before people worry too much about SEO and its relation to individual object records, I'm pretty sure Jonathan's post is about general pages related to gallery content as a whole, not individual objects - these would be linked to from the pages to which access is provided via Strong Search.
Tony, the Horniman were ahead of you, at least a few months ago: the plan was to use database keys as persistent identifiers for object records, putting those numbers on labels as search cues, rather than use the Horniman's complex object numbers. There'd be a routine within the middleware to ensure that those key values were persistent.
Best wishes
Rupert
Rupert Shepherd, PhD FSA
Collection Information Manager
[log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7747 5921
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Adrian Murphy
Sent: 16 June 2016 12:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] Strong Search as a mechanism for linking gallery content to web
Definitely think it's a stronger idea than QR codes or NFC tags (both of which Horniman already trialled [insider knowledge!]) - I think testing this out would be a very good thing.
One of the things learned from those trials is that small-scale is OK [and understandable], but not great as an indicator. For visitors to know they can find more info on exhibits, it needs to be blanketed across the whole gallery in the most obvious in-your-face way. Otherwise, they'll miss the cues, the numbers will be low and you don't see the return.
The biggest caveat is that you're a hostage to fortune of the search engines, whose ways of working can and will change (let's assume labels in museums don't change all that often).
Also imagine the scenario that the Horniman publishes a great story / blog etc on 'Horniman Inuit Fishing' which gets more traffic than the object record - that may skew the intended result somewhat (not necessarily a bad thing though).
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nick Clarey
Sent: donderdag 16 juni 2016 13:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Strong Search as a mechanism for linking gallery content to web
I think it's a good idea - my only misgiving is that I think making people type anything is going to result in a significant dropoff in willingness to participate.
Given it's low-tech perhaps a small scale experiment is in order to see who will actually use which technology? It would be trivial to do the same thing with QR codes, RFID and short URLs as well on 1 or 2 exhibits. If you point them all at very slightly different URLs that you track you should be able to gather hard facts about what people will actually use.
Best regards,
Nick
On 16 June 2016 at 11:50, Jonathan Whitson Cloud < [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Further to my recent post on RFID, Mobile phones and Gallery
> information I have another approach that I would be interested to hear comments on.
>
> The objective is to enable visitors to the gallery to be able to go
> quickly and easily to web content related to the section of the
> gallery they are in. The web environment will be structured in some
> ways to mirror the layout of the gallery, with the case and theme
> narrative labels reproduced as web 'pages', but with a high degree of
> navigable connectivity, and these would be the entry points from the
> gallery (rather than the object by object labels - records for these
> will also be available but as one type of secondary layers from the narrative labels).
>
> My new idea is to have at the bottom of the case narrative labels and
> theme narrative labels some text that suggests a search that will
> find that page. Not a hyper link but just a 2 or 3 word standard
> search engine search. For example the Inuit Fishing label may say
> Search for: Horniman Inuit Fishing with some appropriate icons to make
> it clear that we mean search in google, bing, etc (one for the
> designers). We would then have SEO optimised the Inuit Fishing label
> 'page' to such a high degree that it came up first or first page in the resulting search result.
>
> At the Horniman we are fortunate in that Horniman is quite a
> distinctive word and will act as a high impact filter, obviously that
> isn't going to work so well for all institutions.
>
> What appeals about this approach is that it uses a behaviour that
> users are already completely familiar with, the cost is low, the
> technology reach, stability and life expectancy is high and it is
> pretty low impact in the gallery for those who just want to enjoy the experience in the gallery.
>
> I am calling it a Strong Search approach.
>
> What do people think?
>
> Jonathan
>
>
> Jonathan Whitson Cloud
> Documentation Manager
> Horniman Museum and Gardens
> Study Collections Centre
> Tel. +44 (0)20 8858 8232
> Fax.+44 (0)20 8293 3186
> Email:
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>
--
Nick Clarey
CEO, Airsource Ltd.
Phone: +44-1223-708370
Fax : +44-1223-309814
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