Culture Chronicle

Apps as Tour Guides Through New York Museums, Step by Step
The New York Times -- September 8, 2010
By Bob Tedeschi

The next time you're about to visit a museum, do yourself a favor and drop in on your favorite app store first.

Most institutions have not yet created a mobile app, but as a group, museums are headed in that direction. In the last few months, free apps were released by the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History, in New York; the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (which also has an Android app).

I recently tested the newest museum apps for New York. While they take distinctly different approaches, they demonstrate the vast potential for technology to help people make the most of a museum visit.

They can also point to a restroom in a hurry.

The Museum of Natural History Explorer, which arrived in July, features a navigation system that, while flawed, helps users find exhibits and museum facilities more easily than with a printed map.

While visiting the museum with my wife and two children, for instance, we knew we couldn't tackle the entire building in a few hours, so we opened the Tours section of the app and chose the Highlights Tour from among the four itineraries listed. (We could have also found specific exhibits in a nicely arranged directory.)

The Highlights Tour includes three options, depending on the number of preferred stops. The real magic of the app begins when it finds the nearest attraction, or plots a course between you and any other exhibit you choose.

Unfortunately, it can be unreliable. In various places in the museum -- near the Giant Sequoia exhibit, to name one -- the device had a hard time finding me.

A spokesman, Lowell Eschen, said the museum was still working out the kinks in its geolocation technology. But even when the app can't spot you, the map offers step-by-step directions to an exhibit from the last place it saw you, so you can find your way easily enough. For the full article, click here