Digital Museums

Digital Museums 101 is a “how-to” book for museum directors, museum board members, museum staff, and those studying museums to understand how “digital” has fundamentally changed museums, museum exhibitions, museum marketing, and museum fundraising.

Digital Museums 101 covers:

  • Digital Museum Management
  • Museum Digital Exhibitions (Online, In-person and Mixed Online and In-person)
  • Digital Museum Marketing
  • Digital Museum Fundraising
  • Digital Museum Operations

COVID-19 accelerated the already changing methodologies of museums to include online museum programming, using extensive diagrams and a system of iconography the book explains “how-to” create museum programming and sustainable museum operations.

In addition to the “how-to” Digital Museums, 101 covers the history and future of the shift of museums moving to digital content and communication.

Generations Z and Generation Alpha are the first generations of digital natives having grown up with digital content online and fundamentally understand each other and the world differently. Museums must adapt to this seismic shift of perception of content, and relation with each other and

Digital Museums 101 is a must-read text for those new to digital museums and those wishing to “catch up” to how museums have fundamentally changed; due to digital content and how Generation Z and Generation Alpha understand and digest digital content.

The book includes a companion website digital-museums.com, an online course (for an additional fee), free templates, and “how-to” guides to lead museum stakeholders through the process of creating digital museum content, marketing of digital museum content, and fund raining of digital museum programming.

Digital Museums 101 – Table of Contents

Part I What is a digital museum?

Part II What is a digital exhibition?

Part III How do you create a digital museum strategy?

Part IV How do you create a digital experience?

Part V What is the future of digital museums?

Digital Museums 101 Toolbox

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Mark Walhimer is a managing partner of Museum Planning, LLC, a museum consultancy, and a part-time industrial design professor. He splits his time between the United States and Mexico City.

         His company, Museum Planning, LLC, specializes in the planning, design, and management of interactive educational experiences. Walhimer started his firm in 1999 to assist start-up and expanding museums with feasibility studies, strategic planning, museum master planning, exhibition design, exhibition project management, fabrication supervision, installation supervision, and staff training. His firm has completed more than forty projects worldwide, including science centers, art museums, history museums, libraries, and corporations.

Walhimer is the founder of Museum Courses, an online platform for online museum courses, and has taught at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia; Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico City, and Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

Projects include providing “turnkey” museum services for the C. O. Polk Interactive Museum in McDonough, Georgia; project manager and National Park Service liaison for the “Alcatraz: Life on the Rock” traveling exhibition; project manager for Museo Interactivo de Economía (MIDE) in Mexico City; and master planning and exhibition design for Trans Studio Science Center in Bandung, Indonesia. Prior to starting his company, Walhimer held positions at Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, California; the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis; the Tech Museum in San Jose, California; and Liberty Science Center. He has also been Chief Operating Officer of a museum exhibition design and fabrication firm, and is the author of Museums 101, a how-to guide for creating and organizing all varieties of museums.

         Mark Walhimer has been a three-time juror for the United States Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, an American Alliance of Museums Museum Assessment Program (MAP) peer reviewer, and an Institute of Museum and Library Services peer reviewer.

He has a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and a master’s degree in industrial design and exhibition design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Museum Visitor Experience website: https://museum-visitor.com

Portfolio: https://museumplanning.com

Museum Planner blog: https://museumplanner.org

Teaching: https://markwalhimer.com

Online Museum Courses: Museums 101, Introduction to Museums, and a book companion online course Museum Visitor Experience (with project) https://museumcourses.com/

Museums 101 website: https://museums101.com