From climate-driven relocation to evolving expectations around equity and accountability, the TrendsWatch 2025 report forecasts a challenging road ahead. This article offers a quick-read breakdown of three key themes and their potential impact on U.S. museums.
Rachael Woody takes a closer look at TrendsWatch 2025’s “Short Take” titled Pulled in All Directions—a brief but timely piece on workplace culture tensions—and offers analysis on what it gets right, what’s missing, and how museums can respond with intention.
The AAM’s TrendsWatch 2025 report names “Facing the DEI Backlash” as a defining challenge for the museum field. This post explores the report’s findings, examines how anti-DEI sentiment is impacting museums, and offers advice to help museum professionals navigate and respond to DEI backlash.
When it comes to emergency response plans, museums tend to focus on the physical, analogue collections—but digital vulnerabilities should also be addressed.
Explore key takeaways from TrendsWatch 2025 on museum volunteerism, including challenges, opportunities, and how to create inclusive volunteer programs.
As part of our 3D storytelling series, we explore Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East’s “Art of Intimidation” exhibit, where a charismatic guide and AR animations provide online visitors with a sensory-rich tour.
See how the 3D exhibit of Queen Meresankh’s tomb uses archival materials, contextual links, and a dollhouse-style floor plan to deepen virtual storytelling.
Step inside the ancient Tomb of Queen Meresankh III through the lens of modern 3D storytelling. Look at how Mused.com uses “hot spots” to craft an immersive narrative.
Discover how 3D and virtual tour platforms can transform storytelling in museums and cultural heritage sites. Learn about features, examples and what’s next for this powerful technology.
Benitta MacLachlan is featured in the May/June 2025 issue of Museum magazine, where she shares expert insights on how museums can use technology to make their collections more accessible, engaging, and searchable.
Explore how the NYT used digital storytelling to recreate Greenwood and convey the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre with empathy, context, and immersive design.
We are pleased to announce that Rachael Woody’s new book, The Discovery Game Changer: Museum Collections Data Enhancement, is now available from Lucidea Press.
Explore how USC Libraries used Scalar to create the Digital Voltaire Project—a code-based exhibit combining historical letters with modern digital storytelling tools like pop-up windows, hyperlinks, and footnotes.
Explore how English Heritage’s Kenwood House uses the no-code platform Shorthand to bring Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Two Circles to life through visual storytelling and interactive design.
Explore no-code digital storytelling with Hoover’s ‘Fanning the Flames’ exhibit. See how interactive tools (Deep Zoom, Color Compare & Hot Spot) enhance user engagement and the visual experience.
Discover how museums use scrollytelling and digital storytelling platforms to create immersive narratives. This introduction explores key concepts and approaches to interactive storytelling.
Discover how self-determinate multiple pathways offer flexible, interactive storytelling in museum exhibits. Learn from the Tenement Museum’s ‘Your Story, Our Story.’
Self-determinate characteristics on a linear pathway go beyond brief sidebar topics and instead offer alternative ways to navigate the linear pathway.
Rachael Woody emphasizes that storytelling is key to engaging audiences with collections. One effective approach? The prescriptive linear pathway—a simple yet powerful method for guiding visitors through digital exhibits.
Digital exhibits provide powerful ways to engage audiences, but choosing the right story pathway is key. Explore how different exhibit structures—linear vs. multi-pathway—shape the visitor journey.
Explore how museums can enhance storytelling with multimedia players, using audio-visual materials and archival content to create engaging digital narratives.
Museums thrive on storytelling, and the right digital tools can make all the difference. Slideshows and flipbooks offer an engaging way to showcase collections, drawing visitors in with dynamic visuals and interactive elements.
Visual tools such as zoom are crowd pleasers when presenting visual content online, allowing museums to create immersive and engaging digital experiences.
A museum’s Collections Management System (CMS) is more than just a catalog—it can also serve as a foundation for digital storytelling. By leveraging the rich object data and images already housed in the CMS, museum professionals can experiment with new ways to craft compelling narratives. In this article, Rachael Cristine Woody explores how different types of digital surrogates can bring museum collections to life online.
When the physical exhibit was forced to close prematurely, NGS pivoted to a fully online, digital exhibition. What resulted is a masterclass in digital storytelling, utilizing a multi-pathway structure and a variety of storytelling performance types.