How museums are facing up to the challenges of digital

Digital disruption. It’s become such a commonplace expression that I’ve even seen it referred to in a ‘cliche bingo’ context.

But it is an indisputable fact that so many industries have been disrupted because of the vast opportunities the digital world has presented us all with.

And along with the music industry, the legacy media and many, many others, the cultural sector has been similarly disrupted.

How do institutions cope with the modern always-on environment? Now the people formerly known as a visitors want to be participants, what will become of institutional expertise? How do they remain inclusive for a generation which has an app for everything?

I’m looking forward to exploring some of these issues and themes over the next few days at the leading forum for museums worldwide – Museums and the Web 2014.

The people attending this are the leaders and innovators in the museums sector worldwide – from a UK perspective it includes people from the Imperial Museum, Centre of Museology for University of Manchester, Victoria and Albert Museum, Leicester University and more.

I’m looking to produce some more in-depth articles on the subject but, over the next three days, will be doing some liveblogging on my journo notebook blog and tweeting @foodiesarah using the hashtag #MW2014.