Kids enjoying a taste of days gone by at the Rouse Hill House & Farm. Image © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums.
A new website produced by Sydney Living Museums (SLM) brings the fascinating stories and decorated characters of Sydney’s past into the digital realm. Providing an immersive online experience, the space is a great way for the wider community to become part of a digitally documented history of Sydney.
Assistant Director of Creative Services at Sydney Living Museums Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon said the website was paving the way for a digital future and more interactivity from visitors.
‘We’re unusual in the museum sphere because we run 12 museums which is huge. Other museums have one, maybe two [physical] sites so it gives us incredible opportunity to share material, expertise and knowledge and to encourage visitors to try our events and programs or visit other properties that are part of our portfolio,’ she told ArtsHub.
Butler-Bowdon, who was instrumental in the website rollout, said the centralised hub includes diverse media content about the 12 historic homes and museums, and features a new online collection of storytelling objects, tales from Sydney Living Museums’ curators, exquisite photo galleries and user generated content.
‘For us, it’s a move that breaks down that formidable veneer of a large public institution and really welcomes people to become involved with us online as well as welcoming people physically to our museums.’
‘The days of a website being a marketing brochure are well over. Obviously the website is the main way people visit us now and decide if they want to come visit us in person, whether they’re school students, brides who want to book our venues for weddings, our keen scholars who love our collections and work on our collections, or people who just want to come experience our gardens and cafes,’ she said.
A family explore Vaucluse House, one of the properties cared for by Sydney Living Museums. Image © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums.
Museum and gallery spaces across the country face unique economic, social and cultural challenges but also real opportunities as digital technologies, social media and mobile devices evolve.
Hence, a key question behind the design of the website was “how can SLM be more interactive?” To answer this, Butler-Bowdon worked with an incredible design team and used important resources to develop a shared vision of how to connect with a new digital audience.
‘We’ve had great reception, but it’s about tracking and engagement with our content. We obviously want people to stay on the website and explore different parts of what we do, and then take the next step to visit one of our museums,’ she said.
So much more of the Museum’s collection is now online. There are stories of the properties themselves, but also the objects that inhabit them. The furniture, the jewellery, wallpaper and floor coverings each have their own tale to tell, and visitors to the site will be able to determine their own journey of exploration.
Butler-Bowdon hopes that the level of user interactivity will challenge the embedded stereotype of the museum and gallery space as a static tribute to the past. ‘We have a lot of passion for encouraging different ways for people to interact.’
‘It’s about being able to share new stories and that means encouraging others to do so. The website is about creating a place for connection and experience, rather than just being static and a gathering place for facts and artefacts. It’s a future for the past and sustaining relevance.’
‘Museums are sometimes viewed as static places when that is not the case at all. There is something happening every minute, every hour. It’s really about making that available 24 hours a day to the global community,’ she said.
Elizabeth Farm.Image © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums.
As the website moves forward, an integral part of the user experience was to also capture the stories of the people behind the sites and objects; opening up the often unseen side of the curators, visitor service offers, gardeners and educators who make the museum what it is.
The importance of sharing this expertise is paramount to SLM.
‘We see the website changing daily, that’s what we’re really working with, encouraging staff to share their stories,’ said Butler-Bowdon.
Revealing the people behind the institution develops a pathway of access to the members of the public. ‘We want to share interesting content that will connect with people in a personal way. They don’t want anonymous austere language of museums of the past.’
‘We’re well placed as an institution to be at the core of that. It will become much more layered. Content is critical and I can’t imagine that changing much, but it’s how we continue to build and develop layer upon layer of content, how we encourage our visitors to talk to us online and use their devices to connect with us when they visit us in person as a museum-goer, a prospective venue-hirer, a school student and all the other hundreds of thousands of people who visit us each year.’
‘Whether it’s through pictures, digital media or written text, people want something that can really bring our stories, buildings, gardens and places to life so our cherished museums, the most significant places in Australia’s history, are still here and loved by the community in 100 years time. That’s really important to us. It’s only in growing online, web and everything digital that we can continue to build the relevance of an organisation that is so important as Sydney Living Museums.’
As a special offer to ArtsHub readers, Sydney Living Museums is offering a family discount voucher to readers who sign up for the monthly eNews bulletin.
For more information, visit the Sydney Living Museums website.
