Tagging stuffed birds

By Lisanne Groenendaal on 10 May 2010

As augmented reality is coming up (as Jelke explained earlier), so is RFID. For those not familiar with this term, RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification. A RFID chip can be read by a RFID reader which evokes a two way exchange of information from a distance of 50 to 100 meters. By using RFID tags all kinds of units can be identified without physical contact. The best known example in the Netherlands nowadays is the OV-chipkaart, used for public transport. Another very practical example is the RFID business card (Poken). RFID tags can increase the efficiency of the distribution of consumer products too. Not only can a tray of diapers be recognized immediately by a RFID reader, it shows which supermarket this tray is heading to.

Cultural heritage institutions also recognize the benefits of this new technology. It is an efficient way of tagging items of a museum collection. This way multiple items in storage can be better retrieved at once, without physical contact, and therefore without damaging the collection items. Because RFID tag can be read through other materials, no visible bar code is needed and every tag has a global unique ID, which means originals can be easily separated from duplicates and it improves security. But as Ton Cremers rightly states, without touching, the only thing you know is that all the RFID tags are in the box, but not the collection items per se. Other promises made about tracking down collection items are only possible with active RFID tags, which are more expensive and need to be recharged in 5 to 7 years, where passive tags do not. But, this might only be a matter of time, in which better batteries will be included in active RFID tags.

RFID is also used to enhance the visitor’s museum experience. Once all the pieces in an exhibition are labelled with RFID tags, a museum visitor with a RFID-equipped PDA can get instant access to information about any piece of interest. This way visitors can easily scan an artwork, bookmark it or add tags to it. In addition, by keeping track of some of the objects that the visitor liked, the museum can offer personalized tours.

So, what museum puts this in practice? Let’s look at some RFID in action! The Danish Museum of Natural History in Arhus put RFID tags on stuffed birds. By setting the PDA in encyclopaedia mode the visitors get access to information on any bird just by holding the PDA within 10 centimeters of an RFID tag. In theme mode, the PDA guides the user through the exhibition in accordance with one of several themes, such as “Wings,” “Birds” or “Airplanes.” And in game mode, the user is given challenges to solve, such as finding a given bird based on a number of hints provided by the PDA. Another example is the open-air museum Muhlenhaus in Munster. They also made a considerable attempt with RFID in an interactive guide. This technique would have been fantastic for the exhibition ‘Binnenste Buiten’, in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. For this exhibition the depot of Boijmans van Beuningen was turned inside out and as many artworks as possible are put together in the exhibition space.

But the Dutch museums are just an inch away from this technique. Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven has already experimented with an interactive tour and Krller Mller developed an augmented reality tour through their garden. While keeping an eye on those developments, we could ask ourselves if information through these media have influence on the emotional experience of the museum visitor and what kind of information to present them with. I hope to tell you more about that topic in a few more weeks.

tagged with: tagging, interactive tour, museum, rfid, experience

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