Open Museum for Open Science

Open Museum

The Open Museum project is implementing a digital platform for the museums and collections of the University of Bonn. The goal is to make the collections accessible for research and teaching as well as for the general public. The various interests of the users should be the focus and starting point for the development of the platform. This is intended to be a digital space for exhibitions and offers on current issues and topics, inviting people here in Bonn but also worldwide to engage with the collections.

Objectives:

Accessibility and transparency are an important basis for enabling work and research with the objects in the collections. They also enable the participation of interested groups and individuals who have not previously had access to the objects and are therefore an important part of the democratization of knowledge. In practical terms, this means that as many people as possible in our society have access to knowledge and can participate in the production of new knowledge. Participation and involvement in research with the objects and collections also brings new forms of knowledge into the collection work.

The Open Museum aims to connect collections, science, and people around the world and encourage new research. Digitization enables collections, museums and disciplines to connect with each other. This allows us to better understand, from today's perspective, how individual collections came to be, where they came from, and why they got here. Each discipline asks its own questions about the objects and collections. Networking gives rise to inter- and transdisciplinary research that allows for new questions. It also generates new collaborations for working with museums and interested groups worldwide.

Actors:

The potential users and target groups of the Open Museum include researchers, students and teachers of the University of Bonn, the staff of the University of Bonn, but also other universities, museums, educational and cultural institutions. The Open Museum wants to address a global audience, starting from citizens of Bonn, to students, to copyright societies all around the world.

Next steps:

Establishment of new digital platforms and database systems, initially for the collections of the Bonn Ancient American Collections and the Egyptian Museum.