Abstract:

Nowadays digital content, multimedia guides or internet sites are present in many museums as part as their divulgation functions. Since this perspective implementation of ICT’s in museums can be analysed as two sides of the same coin: since museums management to public uses and expectations.
The benefits brought by adopting digital technologies are undeniable, but not all museums are at the same level of practical interest or familiarity with the use of digital technology for exhibition and interpretation purposes, or for additional uses (such as internet presence, outdoor activities, etc.). Thus museums can be classified in three different groups according to their management attitude to the introduction and use of digital technologies: proactive (dolphin museum type), institutions working to bring information to a digital presentation on several levels and working with specifically designed contents for digital access; reactive (jellyfish museum type), the ones adopting some restricted use of digital technologies, mostly only with on-line self-presentation or unstructured contents within their collections; opportunist (mussel museum type), museums with or without digital presence, limited to general information on the museum accessible via web.
In other hand, many specialists in e-learning see ICTs as a fundamental tool for the transmission of knowledge in the museum scene, and especially to allow a greater participation of the visitors as an active part in the activities of museums. In addition, audience studies from museums have demonstrated that basis of potential public is the level of formal education so people with high level education could be the ideal target to explore the opinion of public about their knowledge and uses of ICTs in museums. The aim of this work is presenting both sides of implementation ICTs in Museums in the Province of Ourense –Northwest of Spain-. We carried out a research obtaining data sample with interviews for museum managers and theses data was complemented with a quantitative study based on queries.

Keywords:

ICTs, Museums Audiences.