Digital Storytelling

New technologies to support GLAM: comparing the potential of two software for Storytelling (project in development)

Authors: Antonello Migliozzi, Bogdan Trifunović, Marco Marotta, Nevena Bečanović 

Abstract:

People love stories, and having tools that allow the construction of a story on the one hand facilitates access to complex cultural content, on the other hand improves the perception and the possibility of appreciating the depth of historical/artistic and natural assets by a wider audience. 

In this sense, the digitalization of Big Data has created and still creates new opportunities for the dissemination, enhancement and diffusion at various levels of the material found in GLAMs (Galeries, Libraries, Archives, Museums). 

In particular, the new technologies related to Storytelling software associated with cartographic tools offer new perspectives for the creation of geo-databases that help us to represent geographically referred movements and documents in which the spatial aspect assumes great importance. 

Reconstructing and creating itineraries that tell economic, cultural, artistic or leisure stories, take on great value both to make the general public understand the complexity and the history of processes still present today, and for the opportunity to enhance the offer of GLAMs with the possibility of representing Points of Interest (texts, artistic artefacts, images, films, augmented reality), also associable with Apps for mobile devices. 

A story, in this way, can be told from many points of view: from the historical to the environmental, through novels, the architectural study, or reinterpreting in your own way the descriptions of the protagonists of journeys. 

What we present in this document is a comparison between two software that allow this type of storytelling: Curatescape (Omeka) and ArcGis StoryMaps and Story Map in general (ESRI).

Curatescape by Omeka is a framework for web and mobile apps that allows you to publish content based on geographic location. ArcGIS StoryMaps is based on the powerful engine developed by ESRI, a long-time leader in the digital cartography sector; in this case, the contents of a geographic information system are transformed into interactive contents by intersecting spatial data, such as web maps, with aspatial data, such as statistics, dashboards, images, videos, etc. This comparison is part of an action foreseen within the work packages of the European project E-Routes (Time Travel Routes Throgh Europe) by Creative Europe program, which aims to provide a new approach in the presentation of European travel itineraries through the GLAM funds and artistic materials that have reciprocal cultural denominations for the countries participating in the project.