Museum Thresholds

Ross Parry is Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Digital) at the University of Leicester (UK), and associate professor in its School of Museum Studies. For over twenty years, his interdisciplinary and highly collaborative research has considered the relationship between digital media and the cultural heritage sector. A former national chair of the UK’s Museums Computer Group, and a Tate Research Fellow, he was one of the founding Trustees of the Jodi Mattes Trust – for accessible digital culture. He is the author of the book Recoding the Museum (the first major history of museum computing) and Museums in a Digital Age – a volume that helped define the subject area of ‘digital heritage’.Ruth Page spends her time teaching and writing about storytelling, especially focussing on the stories that people tell in social media contexts. She has written several books including Stories and Social Media (Routledge, 2012), Narratives Online: Shared Stories and Social Media (2018), and was the lead author of the student textbook, Researching the Language of Social Media (Routledge, 2014). Her publications in journals and edited collections have explored narratives in a wide range of contexts, from print literature and the mainstream media to conversational stories and stories published in online contexts such as blogs, social network sites and Wikipedia.Alex Moseley is a National Teaching Fellow and Head of Curriculum Advancement at the University of Leicester. He has had long experience as both practitioner and researcher of course design and development for higher education and also teaches innovative Digital Media courses in Museum Studies and Historical Studies. His principal research area is in games-based learning: he has written widely in this area including Using Games to Enhance Teaching and Learning (Routledge, 2012) and New Traditional Games for Learning: A Case Book (Routledge, 2013), has designed and consulted on a number of games for museum and education contexts, chairs the Association for Learning Technology special interest group on Playful Learning, and co-organises the Playful Learning conference.

• 1. On a new thresholdRoss Parry, Ruth Page and Alex MoseleyPART 1: Locating and defining the threshold 2. Hysterical atriaKatherine Skellon and Ben Tunstall 3. The complexity of welcome: visitor experience at the museum thresholdColin MulbergConversation 1: The Royal Air Force Museum London4. Design-driven innovation for museum entrancesMarco Mason PART II: Affordances and potential of the threshold 5. Suspended: art in the thresholdPeter Ride 6. Curation at the threshold: making museum meanings through new interfacesAngelina Russo and Philip Pond Conversation 2: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery7. Using 3D visualisation technology to improve design and visitor orientationDavid Burden 8. Difficult Thresholds: negotiating shared and embedded entrancesSteven KrusePART II: The threshold rethought 9. Games in the Lobby: a playful approach Alex Moseley and Eric KristiansenConversation 3: The British Postal Museum and Archive10. Retail Perspectives on the ThresholdTracy Harwood11. Setting the tone for the visit: soundscape designChristian Hviid Mortensen and Angus DeucharsConversation 4: The Royal Shakespeare Company12. The visitor as evaluator: using appraisal theory to understand ‘Threshold Fear’Ruth Page