2 Graham Black notes the high quality of exhibitions that experienced museum-goers expect and the related expectation that they be able and encouraged to participate in and drive their experiences. Museums have long recognized the need to create the most engaging, new, surprising, and seamless exhibition experiences, and ones that also encourage patron involvement and social interaction. Literature ReviewĪ now-common museum technology, touch tables are increasingly being imported into the library and being adapted to the needs of this new setting. This article also analyzes the ways in which the touch table has proven to be an excellent addition to the library’s exhibition spaces, including in its ability to unite disparate resources from multiple branch libraries, to act as a new point of librarian-faculty collaboration, and to display nontraditional items from library collections, such as recorded musical performances and archival video footage.
#Multitouch tables software#
This article discusses the vision behind incorporating touch table technology into McGill’s special collections and the funding proposal process, as well as the rationale behind the choices of software and hardware, providing lessons learned and some preliminary recommendations of best practices for curators and librarians to create visually pleasing touch table user interfaces in a short amount of time without particular programming or coding skills. For our purposes, IntuiFace was preferred over Open Exhibits because of the intuitive nature of the IntuiFace composer application, the comparatively short creation time needed to prepare a finished exhibition, and the seamless quality of the user experience created. The second exhibition, at the Music Library, used IntuiFace, a software selected by the curator. Open Exhibits, the software recommended by the touch table manufacturer, was used at the Osler Library. Each experience was designed by the exhibition curators and used a different software platform. The touch table was first used by the Osler Library of the History of Medicine and second by the Marvin Duchow Music Library to create audiovisual exhibitions to accompany traditional display cases. In July 2015, a project team composed of special collections librarians from multiple branch libraries of the McGill University Library & Archives acquired an Ideum multitouch table for use in exhibitions of rare materials. The incorporation of touch table technology into exhibition spaces can add another level of interactivity, allowing visitors to take charge of their own “discovery” and allowing curators to showcase an increased variety of library materials. “Well-curated displays,” writes Michelle Maloney in a 2012 article, “can transform ‘passive’ library collections into communal spaces of discovery, cultivation, and contemplation.” 1 So too can the use of technology facilitate new encounters with curated materials, creating this sense of cultivation and discovery in public displays.
It also analyzes the ways in which the touch table has proven to be an excellent addition to the library’s exhibition spaces, including its ability to unite disparate resources from multiple branch libraries, to act as a new point of librarian-faculty collaboration, and to display nontraditional items from library collections, such as recorded musical performances and archival video footage.
In particular, the article explores the library’s choices of software and hardware, providing lessons learned as well as some preliminary recommendations of best practices. This article explores the introduction of what is now a common technology in museums into the library setting and the attendant challenges, such as the need to create attractive and user-friendly experiences with limited resources and programmer time available. Each exhibition curator used a different software platform to create his or her touch table experience. The touch table was used by the Osler Library of the History of Medicine and the Marvin Duchow Music Library to create audiovisual exhibits to accompany traditional exhibition display cases.
Wagner Touch Tables for Special Collections Libraries: Curators Creating User Experiences This article describes the implementation of touch table technology for McGill University Library’s special collections. Anna Dysert, Sharon Rankin, and Darren N.
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