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In 2022, the IT department of the National Museum focused on the development of visitor systems in connection with the commissioning of new expositions so that the Historical Building could better handle the large number of visitors. In addition to the installation of a large number of modern audiovisual elements, we have also successfully begun to utilize mobile applications, 3D models and augmented reality.
In April 2022, the National Museum launched a successful mobile app for mobile devices, The National Museum in Your Pocket, which will provide all visitors with a guided tour, offer navigation to the selected place or to the selected exhibit, as well as enable the convenient purchase of tickets. With the help of augmented reality, visitors are able to view a whale skeleton, or what a fin whale would look like in real life on their mobile phone.
Before the launch of this app, over a thousand battery-powered Bluetooth beacons were installed in the Historic Building, making the navigation of visitors around the building more accurate. The app includes six guide routes for expositions and two thematic routes and over 100 detailed descriptions of important exhibits. The app is available in three language versions, Czech, English and, now, Ukrainian. By the end of 2022, our mobile app has won three important awards – Reddot Winner, Golden Semicolon and IEA22.
The new History and Exhibitions exposition opened in 2022 in the National Museum (Czech Press Photo, Bread and Butter, The Driver Education System, The Earth Is Me, Věra Čáslavská, We Will Never Give Up!, Miro Žbirka: Years and Days, Misused Museums) include more than 90 modern audiovisual stops. We continue to deploy the highest quality operational standard for these devices, which allows us to monitor and reliably operate more than 350 AV stops ten hours a day, seven days a week. We use central control and signal distribution using Crestron NVX technology. We manage AV stop content using the Signage OS cloud system. The lighting in the light bars, chandeliers and individual showcases is controlled by the Siemens Desigo system, which automatically switches the exhibition spaces to cleaning mode and night mode later in the evening.
In order to make our collections accessible through the mobile app and web platforms, we have prepared twelve 3D models of important collection items using photogrammetry and post-processing. As one of the first memory institutions, we solved the issue of long-term data preservation (Long Term Preservation) within the pilot operation in cooperation with CESNET.
In 2022, fourteen exhibitions were digitized using proven Matterport technology, which enables virtual archiving and viewing of exhibitions.
Another digitization project was the creation of a digital model of the Pantheon in the Historic Building, which will be used in the mobile app and in subsequent projects.
The National Museum commissioned a security audit based on the Cyber Kill Chain methodology, which assessed the state of security of the National Museum’s internal network and recommended adjusting the settings of network elements, modifying firewall rules and eliminating vulnerabilities. At the same time, in cooperation with Microsoft, we conducted a standardized audit – security assessment, which was a combination of an internally launched test and a questionnaire according to the recommended methodology. The audit helped identify security risks across IT infrastructure, applications and operational processes. Based on these conclusions, we will proceed further in strengthening our IT security, including, for example, optimizing access rights settings.
