The Podcast series

About the practice

The digital activity developed by the IMC is the Podcast series, a series of audio narrations of the museum’s material, by actors and museum curators, that aim to enhance the museum experience for the public. The starting point of this action is marked as the beginning of the second quarantine until the publication of the first episode on 4/28/2021 and along with the action "The History Museum Comes to Your Home" is still ongoing and continues to be enriched.

Story behind

During the pandemic, the museum decided to try and do something to keep in touch with its audience, and therefore, as part of its digital educational activities,  it created a podcast series.

About the institution

The Historical Museum of Crete is located in Heraklion, Crete, and  was founded by the Society of Cretan Historical Studies in 1953. The museum's permanent collections highlight the art and history of Crete from the 4th century AD through the Second World War. The collections are ordered chronologically and by subject matter, and are combined with visual material and multimedia.

Context

The Historical Museum of Crete since the 1990s with the creation of its website and since the millennium with its presence in social networks has developed systematic online activity, which in the context of the pandemic was activated to an overwhelming degree as the need for communication with the world was more intense.

Success factors

The period of confinement activated to a superlative degree the digital communication of the museum with the world. In this context, the Historical Museum of Crete presented two digital actions,  "The Historical Museum comes to your home" and the Podcasts, in order to continue telling their stories and to keep active its connection with the public. Through this podcast series, the museum not only managed to keep in touch with its audience during the pandemic period but also trained its staff in using digital tools.

Target audience

The Podcast is addressed to the Greek audience of the Museum of the whole territory.  It also concerns geographically distant visitors or people who have visited the Museum and would like to see it again through the audiovisual material of its activities.

Sustainability

According to the IMC, the creation of a Podcast series is not a budget-intensive process and could be adopted by other institutions of unprecedented size. Through this practice, museums remain " open " to all, using modern media, and can have durability over time as the material produced can be used at any time in any space.

Digital tools

In the case of the H.M.C. Podcast series, it is an internal production. Although the first attempts were made using a mobile phone, the final result came from the use of a special type of radio microphone. The process also required the museum's auditorium as a booth, recording equipment, audio editing software, and a subscription to an audio file hosting platform.

Funding

The H.M.C. Podcast series is an internal production of the museum based on museum resources.

Plans

The pandemic created an opportunity for the museum to start using digital tools to communicate with its audience and will continue to do so after the pandemic.

Organization/ Institution
Historical Museum of Crete
Good practice link
https://to-podcast-toy-istorikoy-moyseioy-kritis.simplecast.com/
Address
Leof. Sofokli Venizelou 27, Iraklio 712 02, Greece
Contact person on good practice
Angeliki Mpaltatzi
info@historical-museum.gr