The Museum of the Republic Data Base - A creative tool to educate and disseminate information
Ana Cristina Evres , Museu da República, Brazil
Karla Estelita Godoy , Museu da República, Brazil
http://www.republicaonline.org.br

Short Paper: Short Paper 5: Cultural Heritage: New Media and Education

The Museum of the Republic Data Base - A creative tool to educate and disseminate information The 90's certainly provoked a major change in museums, mainly in Brazil, who started offering to their users, apart from traditional exhibitions, concerts, plays and laboratories of computer science. Although technology has been used for some time in developed countries to better organize and disseminate information, the Museum of the Republic was the first museum in Brazil to take the iniciative to integrate its collection of archives, objects and books. The process of changing established mentalities took a long time. But little by little the institutional structure of the museum began to change and started inverting the common focus on the object, and began to concentrate on the user. Experimentation and creativity were the key words to show the collection in a simple and attractive way, where collaborative work is incentivated and new proposals for patrimonial education are offered. In the education section, for example, the user is invited to create his own version of the history of Brazil, listen to the music hits from the 20's till the 60's, to read pieces from books of classic brazilians writers that mentioned the building or the neighborhood where the Museum is located, and finally create his own article, chronicles of newspapers, reporting himself to the 40's, 50's or 60's. The result is a transparent museum, with all the collection disponible to the public and opened to continuous incrementation.

{Body}

Our US office: http://www.archimuse.com/ichim01
Our Italian office: http://www.ichim01.polimi.it