Technology Use by Museums in Malaysia

International Islamic University Malaysia Kuala Lumpur

juliana@ammartech.net, puterishr@iiu.edu.my

International Islamic University Malaysia Kuala Lumpur

murni@iiu.edu.my

communication technology (ICT) have tremendously affected the way teaching and learning (T&L) is delivered in both formal and informal education. For formal education, Malaysia is reaping the benefits of ICT through Smart School project under MSC Malaysia initiatives. For informal education, an initial observation suggests that museums, a critical institution which protects and preserves the national heritage as well as delivers the knowledge to the general public, employ less ICT in their exhibition halls. As there is lack of empirical evidence to prove the above, this study aims to determine the level of ICT use by museums in Malaysia and attempts to understand issues that have a profound influence on ICT implementation in their institutions and hence in their exhibition halls. A survey was conducted among 22 governing institutions for museums throughout Malaysia. The findings suggest that museums have adequate ICT infrastructure, services, and applications to run day-by-day administration and operations. However, there are rooms for improvement when it comes to museum exhibition halls. This study further reveals several issues that restricted these museums from using ICT as one of the means for historical, cultural, and heritage knowledge to be delivered to the general public and puts forward few recommendations to possibly curb these issues.

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I. INTRODUCTION Information and communication technology (ICT) refers to

the technology of acquiring, storing, processing, and disseminating information through the use of computer technology and telecommunications [1]. Recent advances in ICT have affected the way teaching and learning (T&L) is delivered in both formal and informal education. For formal education, Malaysia is reaping the benefits of ICT through Smart School project under MSC Malaysia initiatives [2]. This project has integrated the use of ICT for T&L into the school syllabus to subsequently reduce the digital divide among citizens.

As informal education is equally important, ICT should be seen elsewhere implemented in related institutions. However, in the case of museums, it is hard to see so. Museums that safeguard and preserve the heritage of a nation should reap the benefits of ICT to help disseminate the knowledge to the general public. To date, except [3] which determines the

current status of digitizing initiatives by the cultural institutions in Malaysia, no specific study is done to determine the level of ICT use in museum institutions. This study attempts to fill in this gap and further understands the issues that have profound influence on the implementation of ICT by museum institutions in general and specifically, their exhibition halls.

II. BACKGROUND STUDY

A. Definitions and Role of Museums The International Councils of Museum, or ICOM in short,

defines a museum as “a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment” [4]. The qualifying institutions are many, ranging from the historical monuments and sites to nature reserves, planetarium and aquaria. Cultural institutions and other entities that promote the conservation and preservation of one’s nation culture and heritage can also qualify as museums as per this definition as long as they are non-profit, making the list of museums exhaustive.

UNESCO [5] states that museums are responsible to “foster an integrated approach to cultural heritage as well as the links of continuity between creation and heritage where they enable various publics, notably local communities and disadvantaged groups, to rediscover their roots and approach other cultures.” These definitions suggest the distinct role of museums to safeguard and preserve the heritage of a nation or community.

For the purpose of this study, the researchers adopted the definition of ICOM and limited the scope to institutions that promote national history, culture and heritage. As the researchers have difficulties in determining the correct number of museums, the selected institutions were identified from the list of museums provided by Department of Museums Malaysia (DMM) which governs museums at the federal level and acts as an ICOM facilitator in this country. The researchers believe that at the time of writing, the number of museums is likely to increase due to the recognition of UNESCO to Malacca and Georgetown, Penang as World Heritage City in 2008. As ICT life span is short in the sense

The Level of Information and Communication

Juliana Aida Abu Bakar, Puteri Shireen Jahn Kassim Murni Mahmud Kulliyyah of Architecture & Environmental Design Kulliyyah of Information & Communication Technology

Abstract— The recent advances in information and

Keywords-ICT Use; informal education; museums; museum

978-1-4244-6716-7/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 1462

that it can be acquired, installed and then obsolete within five (5) to 10 years, the researchers duly acknowledged that this study is perishable against time.

B. Museums in Malaysia In Malaysia, museum institutions are governed by DMM at

the federal level under Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture. Table I suggest there are 122 museums in Malaysia and generally divided to three (3) categories: (i) state museums in which museums are sorted according to states in Malaysia; (ii) departmental museums which museums are entities to their respective organizations; and (iii) individual or private museums which own by individuals or non government agencies. Most state museums are governed by state government linked organizations such as Malacca Museums Corporation which consolidated by the Malacca state to govern 23 museums and galleries. Malacca, which was granted by UNESCO as the World Heritage Site, has the highest number of museums (25), followed by Kuala Lumpur (19) and Sarawak (17). Penang, which was also granted as the UNESCO World Heritage Site, has the number exceptionally small. It is believed the number would soon be increasing because of this world recognition. There are also state museums governed by DMM at the federal level such as Architectural Museum Malaysia at Malacca, Kota Kayang Museum (Perlis), Lembah Bujang Archeology Museum (Kedah), Sungai Lembing Museum (Pahang), Custom Museum (Negeri Sembilan), and Perak Museum.

National Museum, Malay World Ethnology Museum, and Orang Asli (Aborigines) Crafts Museum have been categorized as departmental museums and governed by DMM. Under the same category are Royal Malaysian Police Museum, Army Museum and Royal Malaysian Air Force Museum which governed by respective departments of defense; Telecommunication Museum and Bank Negara Malaysia Museum and Art Gallery that governed by Telekom Malaysia and Central Bank of Malaysia respectively as their corporate social responsibilities; and Asian Art Museum at University of Malaya and Tuanku Fauziah Museum and Gallery at University of Science Malaysia which stem from the initiative of the respective institutions of higher learning to share collections and findings of their academic research to the general public.

There are also individuals and private organizations who generously contributing their personal heritage collections to be seen by the general public such as Bugis Museum in Johor, Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum in Malacca, and Islamic Art Museum in Kuala Lumpur. These museums are listed under private museums and though the number is small, some of their collections are very rare to be found in other museums.

C. ICT Use in Museums In a related study, a workable model on establishing a

national digital cultural heritage repository has been proposed [3]. An exploratory survey has been conducted with 60 cultural institutions including museums, archives, and libraries to determine the level of digitization initiatives on cultural

heritage information. The findings suggest there are digitization initiatives such as scanning old photos, old documents, and analog videos by some respondents [7]. The findings, however, did not reflect the true picture of ICT use in museums as it covers only on digitizing facilities. On the purpose of digitization, despite mentioning for preservation as well as education and research activities (91.3%) and sharing information (74%), it did not mention specifically whether the digitization output is used in museums’ exhibition gallery for public display.

As ICT advances, the use of ICT is not merely for digitizing old photos and old documents, but also for object reconstruction and dissemination. Three-dimensional (3D) laser scanner has been used for digitizing large objects such as Digital Michelangelo project [8]. 3D laser scanning is a technology to scan large objects and produce a large dataset of cloud points. This dataset is used to reconstruct the objects in 3D with the aid of particular software. As the dataset produced is very large, dedicated software was developed to allow public access to the 3D reconstruction object.

The use of interactive systems is being implemented by museums throughout the world. One example of its kind is a virtual reality system (VR) which refers to a computer-generated environment, usually in 3D, and allows user interaction and control [9]. Previous studies have found that VR delivers enjoyment, immersion, interaction, and learning capability to museum visitors [10, 11]. For beginning, a virtual tour prototype of one museum in Malaysia was developed and obtained a good user acceptance in its evaluation stage [12]. Another virtual environment that applicable to museums is a royal palace during its glory which developed using particular rendering techniques [13]. To date, these applications are going nowhere to museums in Malaysia. Nevertheless, no study is yet conducted to identify issues that have profound influence in halting this emerging technology to make its way to museum exhibition halls.

TABLE I. MUSEUMS IN MALAYSIA [6]

Museum Locations (By States)

Museum Categories State

Museums Departmental

Museums Private

Museums Total

Johor 3 2 1 6 Kedah 6 1 1 8 Kelantan 6 0 0 6 Kuala Lumpur 0 16 3 19 Malacca 24 0 1 25 Negeri Sembilan 6 1 0 7 Pahang 4 0 0 4 Perak 8 1 0 9 Perlis 1 0 0 1 Penang 2 2 0 4 Sabah 5 0 0 5 Sarawak 12 5 0 17 Selangor 4 5 0 9 Terengganu 2 0 0 2 Total 83 33 6 122

III. RESEARCH APPROACH This study used a survey approach where phone interviews

were conducted with museum officials most of the times to

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meet the cost and time constraints. Three interviews were done face-to-face to facilitate the need for museum observation. One month prior to the interview sessions, series of letter containing preamble of this study and summary of interview questions were sent out to the highest authority of 22 governing institutions. Follow-up calls were made before the interview sessions to fix the suitable time with respective officials who were assigned by their higher authorities. All interviews were done during July and August 2009. From 22 governing institutions, 13 institutions that govern museums at the federal level, states and private were participated in this study, hence contributed to 59% responses.

Table II depicts the governing institutions, category and number of museums covered. The respondents of 13 governing institutions suggest that the total number of museums covered in this study is 77 (62.1%). It is found that some institutions quoted a higher number of museums they covered during their interview sessions, but for consistency, the researchers decided to keep the number based on the list of museums provided by DMM.

The set of interview questions include three sections: Part A covers the demographic information of the museum personnel and general information about participating museums, Part B covers about the level of ICT use in general, and Part C covers specific questions on ICT for museum exhibition. Possible answers were prepared to open-ended questions such as “What is the purpose of ICT in this museum?” to help respondents whenever needed. The definitions of the term ICT and advanced technology such as 3D laser scanning and virtual reality were prepared so that standard definitions can be given straightaway to respondents upon request. All interview sessions were recorded for future references.

IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

A. Demographic Information The demographic information of respondents is listed in

Table III. Respondents consist of various designations: higher authorities such as Operations Manager and Chief Assistant Director; officials that directly managing ICT such as IT/System Administrator, Assistant Chief Information Officer and Assistant IT Officer; and general museum officials such as curator as well as assistant curator.

The years of working in the respective governing institutions also vary from only a year to the most 14 years. This number of years is important to ensure the respondents are well informed about the general museum administration and ICT management in particular. Even though there is one respondent (Respondent 8) just working for a year, her designation and academic qualification are sufficient to ensure the information obtained is valid and reliable. Table III also shows seven (7) governing institutions assigned ICT related officials who have academic qualifications in this field except Respondent 5. This institution E has opted to do outsourcing for managing ICT related matters in 12 museums under its governance in which Respondent 5 is responsible to manage

them. It is later learnt that the outsourcing company is also a subsidiary of respective state government.

B. ICT in Organisation This section aims to determine the level of overall ICT use

in organization. Table IV illustrates the ICT infrastructure installed in the participating museums. It is found that all museums have installed adequate ICT infrastructure and provided basic ICT services and applications. Nine (9) governing institutions do not have local databases installed in their museums because they have connections with the state central databases. Two (2) governing institutions have video conferencing facilities. Advanced ICT i.e. 3D laser scanning and virtual reality device has been installed in one institution.

Table IV also depicts the ICT services and applications available in the museums. Internet connection is available to all museums, but only nine (9) governing institutions provide Wi-Fi, a wireless Internet access. Web site, portal, and multimedia applications are available in museums governed by 10 governing institutions. Computer kiosks and computer graphics are also available in museums by eight (8) and seven (7) governing institutions respectively. Less ICT services and applications installed in museums are computer animation (4), mobile applications (3), and virtual reality (1).

Others are Global Positioning System (GPS) and Web2.0 applications. GPS is specifically used to record archeological data of newly found artifacts. Web2.0 applications such as blogs and social networking have been used as means in promoting museums activities. This is probably a good start for museums to utilize Web2.0 applications as the popularity they had gained from teenagers and young adults in recent years.

From Table V, the possible purposes of ICT installed in museums were listed. It is found that all governing institutions used ICT in their daily administration and day-to-day operations. These include cataloguing of artifacts and preparing materials for exhibition. Most of the institutions (12) make use of ICT to search information, establish contacts with other institutions, and as means of communication among staffs.

TABLE II. GOVERNING INSTITUTIONS AND NUMBER OF MUSEUMS COVERED

No Governing Institutions

Museum Categories

Interview Techniques

Number of Museums

1 A State/ Departmental

Face-to-Face 19

2 B Private Face-to-Face 1 3 C State Phone 5 4 D State Phone 3 5 E State Phone 12 6 F Departmental Phone 1 7 G State Phone 2 8 H Departmental Face-to-Face 1 9 I Departmental Phone 1 10 J State Phone 4 11 K State Phone 23 12 L State Phone 3 13 M State Phone 2

Total Number of Museums Covered 77

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TABLE III. DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION OF RESPONDENTS

No Governing institutions

Designation of Officials Years of Working

Academic Qualifications Responsibility

1 A Chief Assistant Director 2 BSc Computer Science Responsible to all ICT related infrastructure 2 B IT/System Administrator 4 Diploma IT To monitor client PC, system, and server room 3 C Assistant Curator 6 Diploma Business

Administration To assist curator to do annual budget & inventories, administer, R&D, guide visitors

4 D Assistant IT Officer - Diploma Computer Science To manage IT including networking 5 E Assistant Chief

Information Officer - Diploma Public

Administration To setup exhibition, manage ICT and prepare budget

6 F Assistant Curator 11 Certification Museology To manage and administer museum 7 G Curator 9 BA Anthropology,

Sociology, Archeology To research and development, plan exhibition

8 H Curator 1 BSc Management Info Systems

To head the Division of Consultancy, Research & Publications

9 I Operations Manager 7 MBA Marketing To manage daily operations, and departments of finance, administration, and R&D

10 J Assistant IT Officer 2 Diploma To administer Website, database, documentation, networking and computer

11 K Assistant IT Officer 8 Diploma Computer Science To coordinate ICT, hardware, & software development 12 L Assistant Administration

Officer 4 Diploma Administration To supervise divisions of administration, human

resources, & finance 13 M Curator; Curator/ICT

Secretariat 22; 14 Diploma Arts & Design;

MA History To help prepare exhibition – structure, design, layout, floor plan, location, & safety measures; To preserve, document and promote artifacts/to coordinate ICT infrastructure

It is found that the use of ICT is not encouraging in

digitizing artifacts. It is a complete reverse of [7] which states that digitization initiatives are widely adopted by cultural institutions. This indicates that digitization initiatives are main focus of archives and libraries but perhaps not of museums.

Two (2) institutions use ICT for guiding visitors either using Bluetooth or computer kiosks. Bluetooth is used to sense the presence of visitors around certain artifacts which then triggers an audio guide to play related information. Other ICT purposes include collection management for Web access, to provide access to the central databases, for Web maintenance, and to provide a cyber café for museum visitors.

TABLE IV. ICT INFRASTRUCTURE, SERVICES, AND APPLICATIONS IN MUSEUMS

Item Frequency (N=13) ICT infrastructure 1 Computer hardware 13 2 Scanning/digitizing 13 3 Networking 13 4 Mobile device 12 5 Database 9 6 Videoconferencing 2 7 3D laser scanning 1 8 VR device 1 ICT services and applications 1 Internet 13 2 Web 11 3 Multimedia 11 4 WiFi 9 5 Computer kiosks 8 6 Computer graphics 7 7 Computer animation 4 8 Mobile applications 3 9 VR 2 10 GPS 2 11 Web2.0 1

In summary, participating museums have adequate ICT infrastructure in their respective institutions. It is found that the ICT use by museums in Malaysia is generally at medium level as the ICT installation involved only basic infrastructure. It is also worth noted that there are few governing institutions that utilized advanced ICT such as VR, GPS, and Bluetooth for various reasons. There is also a good indicator as one museum has explored the potential of Web2.0 to reach wider audience.

C. ICT for Museum Exhibition An initial observation suggests that popular techniques for

public display is diorama that uses a dummy with sound effects and narration; hologram whereby 3D computer images or videos are projected to sculpture or setup; sound and light system; and audiovisual presentation. It is observed that less ICT has been used in museum exhibition halls.

The findings of this study as in Table VI support the earlier observation. On ICT devices, touch screens are widely used as interactive user interfaces by six (6) governing institutions followed by computer screen (5) and high-definition projector (2). An institution has invested for a half dome system as well as car and flight simulators. The half dome system serves astronomy and would be shown at certain time as the educator is not a permanent staff. It is found that simulators were no more functional during the researchers’ latest visit.

On ICT applications, computer kiosks are widely installed for public display by eight (8) institutions. Three (3) institutions provide digital storytelling using hologram and multimedia presentation. 3D graphics that use stereo glasses to see 3D images are installed in two (2) governing institutions. At least one institution provides a handheld guided tour or audio guide to its visitors and another institution displays VR content using a half dome system mentioned earlier.

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TABLE V. PURPOSES OF ICT IN MUSEUMS

Item Frequency (N=13) 1 Daily administration 13 2 Day-to-day operation 13 3 Cataloging artifacs 13 4 Prepare materials 13 5 Search information 12 6 Establish contacts 12 7 Easy communication 12 8 Digitizing artifacts 3 9 Guide visitors around 2 10 Others 4

TABLE VI. ICT DEVICES AND APPLICATIONS IN MUSEUM EXHIBITION HALLS

Item Frequency (N=13) ICT Devices 1 Touch screens 6 2 Monitor screens 5 3 High-definition projector 2 4 Half dome system 1 5 Simulators 1 ICT Applications 1 Computer kiosks 8 2 Multimedia 4 3 Artifacts repository 3 4 Digital storytelling 2 5 3D graphics 2 6 Handheld guided tour 1 7 VR content 1 When asked about whether they plan to install new ICT

devices or applications in near future, positive as well as negative comments emerged. Few respondents saw the benefits of ICT to the general public by commenting that through ICT, “visitors can feel close to the displayed items” and “visitors can feel how the police track down criminals”. Another respondent was very optimist in the use of ICT to attract more visitors by setting a target “to become a museum cum ICT center by next year (2010)”.

Nevertheless, a respondent was not enthusiastic to install ICT in museum exhibition halls “unless it is extremely good” perhaps due to budget constraints. In his opinion, the nature of his non-profit organization has restricted the use of ICT to only provide easy communication as he lamented, “ICT is very important (as a tool) to communicate with outside organizations”.

Overall, this study concludes that museum exhibition halls do not fully utilize ICT as means to disseminate cultural heritage and historical information to the general public. The level of ICT use in museum exhibition halls is low even though a number of them have made attempts to provide advanced ICT in their exhibition halls.

With the exception of few notable museums, museums are generally not keen to install ICT in their exhibition halls. The subsequent section discusses some arising issues and further recommends ways to possibly curb the situation.

V. ISSUES AND RECOMMENDATIONS This section summarizes issues arising from the use of ICT

based on the responses obtained through this study. These

issues can be seen as ground reasons for certain institutions refused to use ICT. The ultimate issue that faced by most governing institutions is difficulties in getting the funding for new acquisition of ICT. It is a good practice for these institutions to prepare budget every year. However, the allocated funding obtained is always lower than the budgeted ones. This situation is certainly a halt of getting new ICT applications, services, or infrastructure.

It is observed that most museums currently charge very minimal entrance fee, even some did not charge any, in which impossible for them to collect a substantial amount of money for new ICT acquisition or maintenance. These entrance fees may be revised by rigorously searching for suitable business models from established museums. With respect to this, at least two (2) governing institutions are found in the process of revising their entrance fees for museums that have potentials to attract the general public. Another way is perhaps museums can take proactive measures to provide services or organize activities that may generate income and at the same time attract the general public to come. While having these exercises in place, museums should not be carried away, always be aware of their ultimate roles to safeguard, preserve, and disseminate historical, cultural, and heritage information to the general public, and must adhere to the museums professional code of ethics outlined by ICOM.

The second issue is vandalism which directly related to museum visitors. Two (2) institutions admitted that this has been their obvious reason not to install any electronic interfaces in exhibition halls. There has been their experience to install touch screens but only functional for several months. Further investigation suggests there were visitors who aggressively used the touch screens. It is very unfortunate and appropriate measurements should be devised to curb this situation. The same issue has been discussed by [14] that advanced ICT should consider durability and practicality factors for massive use as well as undergo a critical usability evaluation in order to accommodate visitors’ behavior. Another approach that has been used in at least one of the museums in the Europe is to train curators to operate these advanced technologies for show with public [15]. Therefore, as curators operating the show, only few people from the audience will get access to the technology while others are watching. This possibly reduces the probability of vandalism to occur.

The rest of issues - lack of maintenance, lack of ICT skills among staff, and outsourcing - are interrelated issues to one another and can be seen as internal issues. The lack of ICT skills has made institutions assigned a third party to develop a system or to provide certain services. This is yet a normal practice for most institutions but problems usually occurred after system or service deliverables i.e. after sales. When the acquired system have difficulties or malfunctioned, these institutions have no options but to seek assistance from the third party. Some of the institutions have made proactive measures when they sent their staff for maintenance training.

Nevertheless there have been cases where computer kiosks and Web applications which malfunctioned and obsolete had

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to halt operations due to either the third party is no longer in existence or the trained and skilled staff has moved to other places. In these issues, governing institutions may need to measure the costs of services after sales and staff training and include these costs in the proposal of new acquisition or new system development before closing any deals with a third party. Another possible way is to keep the ICT skilled staffs intact with the institutions. Remunerations and service scheme may be revised to be more attractive and objective. This scheme should then encourage ICT staffs to undergo training and short courses in order to keep them updated with new skills and technology.

In a nutshell, some of these issues are similar to those faced by other public organization (c.f. [16]). It is important that these issues to be resolved by all parties involved – stakeholders, museum officials, and the general public – in order for museums to uphold their excellence in safeguarding and preserving the national heritage and treasure, and hence disseminating the knowledge to the present society and later generation.

VI. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK This article discusses the findings of this study on its

conquest to determine the level of ICT use by museums in Malaysia. This study has conducted a survey among 22 institutions that govern 122 museums in Malaysia. The response rate of 59.2% includes 13 governing institutions which covers 77 museums (62.1%). It can be concluded that the level of ICT use by museums is average. Nevertheless, the level of ICT use in museum exhibition halls is very low and not encouraging. Issues that have profound influence in ICT implementation particularly in museum exhibition halls were revealed and recommendations have been put forward to help encounter these issues. Therefore, subsequent actions and initiatives should be done to find possible solutions in order to reap the benefits of ICT in the museum context.

The researchers have also been informed that several museums were having major renovations during the period of interviews. It is good in near future to have another round of interview sessions in order to obtain whether there is latest ICT implementation taking places. Another subsequent study will include visitors’ perception about the ICT use by museums and how ICT may help improve their cultural heritage and historical learning experience. The finding of this future work will complement this study and significantly provide an empirical evidence of visitors’ perception on ICT use in museums and hence can provide guidelines for future ICT implementation in museums and specifically their exhibition halls.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The researchers would like to extend their gratitude to all

respondents that participated in this study and sincere thanks to Department of Museums Malaysia for kind support.

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[4] ICOM, ICOM Statutes, 2001/1989, Retrieved September 12, 2009 http://chin.gc.ca/Applications_URL/icom/statutes.html

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[10] M. Forte, S. Pescarin, and L. Pujol-Tost, VR applications, new devices and museums: visitor's feedback and learning: A preliminary report, The e-volution of information technology in Cultural Heritage. Where Hi-Tech touches the Past: risks and challenges for the 21st century, Eurographics, pp. 64-69, 2006.

[11] L. Pujol-Tost and M. Economou, “Exploring the suitability of Virtual Reality interactivity for exhibitions through an integrated evaluation the case of the Ename Museum”, Online International Museology Journal, , vol.4, pp. 84-97, 2007.

[12] Norazimah Awang, “Virtual Museum Development: User Acceptance of the New Technology”, Sintok, Malaysia: Faculty of Technology Management, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 2008.

[13] Mohd Shahrizal Sunar, Daut Daman, Abdullah Bade, Norhaida Mohd Suaib, Hasnul Hadi Shamsuddin, and Nor Azhar Mohd Arif, “The Development of Real-Time Rendering for Large Scale 3D Virtual Heritage”, Technical Report, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2008.

[14] M. Roussou, Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality in the Museum Proc.of TiLE (Trends in Leisure Entertainment), 2001.

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